User:JoeHK247/sandbox-Daniel



"A step forward, or a stretch back, the image hidden in the book." - Book 19 NA 6665 L202

Story
He is a dancer and choreographer. Each day, he practices in front of a large mirror with a traditional heavy baroque gold leaf frame. His friends aspire to fame in feature length films while working as extras in soap operas. He would ask himself "but do I really care?" if the thought had ever passed through his mind. His reflection in the ornate mirror is both audience and judge. His favorite movie is the original 1984 American film Footloose with Kevin Bacon. The movie is banned in China due to its subversive content. The Chinese government in no way attempts to outlaw dancing, but the rules prohibiting dancing and rock music in the movie is an analogy that may compares the draconian rules of a small American town to the surveillance and national laws common to what some have labeled a police state. A likely threat - a catalyst for public discontent. Potentially interpreted as a reaction against the Chinese laws restricting content that is violent, sexual, or politically dissident from movies, books and the internet. He has three hard copies of the movie hidden in his house. He wonders if there is anyone looking for them.

His first movie role was as an extra in the movie Big Shot's Funeral when he was still a teenager living with his family in Beijing. After leaving home shortly after turning 20 years of age (19 by western notation), he moves to Xiamen where he receives his recognized role in the movie, Crazy Racer. They dress him in a Superman costume, intentionally dis-proportioned, and give him instructions to act - to ride a bicycle around a track and chant. He is the subject of a poorly executed slapstick routine. A cheap joke, briefly putting his face on the screen, but enough to give him some visibility and recognition. He moves north of the city to the small village of Tong An and begins working regularly and appearing in television shows at the production studio. More than a dozen years after leaving his family in Beijing, he finds himself cast in the role of a young aspiring actor for a Chinese soap opera shot within the studio's replica of the Forbidden City. The irony of his position is not lost on him, he realizes that he is essentially playing a younger version of himself, reliving the same hopes and dreams that caused him to leave his family to move to Xiamen and pursue an image of popularity and fame: that the need to become famous was his primary motivation for his departure, not the other reasons and excuses he had made up and had made himself believe after the fact. His suppressed wants and desires - to be known, to be recognized, to be idolized - dreams he knows are unrealistic yet those that he finds himself subordinate too and he remains too ashamed to admit to. Will they know his name? He does not ask. He is too afraid to know.

With over a decade worth of hindsight and as an actor portraying a fictionalized version of himself, he is only then able to reflect clearly on his past decisions, the absurdity of his actions and now experience some form of sincere regret. Will he now return, after this is all over? A prodigal son, returning into to his parents fold. Will they see him on the television, and pronounce his former name, calling him back home not to reenact past dramas but to finally cast aside his adolescent angst and follow the family tradition?

He never liked Feng Shui. The way it imposed rules on his life, his daily habits, and most notably the environment in which he lived. A house in which everything was placed in its inevitable location - conforming to rules, arbitrary or otherwise, whose adherence guaranteed some measure of happiness. As a child he was resentful that Feng Shui practices had not brought happiness and good fortune him as it seemed to do for others. After his older brother died, the Feng Shui in the house had to be doubled. Mirrors shoplifted space from the house's walls and shelves. He couldn't talk about his parents profession to his friend's at school. "After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, feng shui was officially considered a 'feudalistic superstitious practice' and a 'social evil' according to the state's ideology and was discouraged and even banned outright at times. feng shui remained popular in Hong Kong, and also in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where traditional culture was not suppressed." They considered moving to Taiwan, but found themselves unable to uproot their lifestyle only to enter a country where they would have to compete with so many other Feng Shui consultants.

"Persecution was the most severe during the Cultural Revolution, when feng shui was classified as a custom under the so-called Four Olds to be wiped out. feng shui practitioners were beaten and abused by Red Guards and their works burned. After the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution, the official attitude became more tolerant but restrictions on feng shui practice are still in place in today's China. It is illegal in the PRC today to register feng shui consultation as a business and similarly advertising feng shui practice is banned."

He spins and the world spins counter clockwise to his momentum. His mirrored reflection flashes in front of him as he makes the final move in his dancing routine. The wood floor and mirrors blur into a kaleidoscope of his fake life, a hyper realistic collage from a trailer of a dystopian movie, shaking itself into existence. The Feng Shui of the room is not right. The mirrors are positioned directly in front of the door - he walks through it and is surprised and scared to death of his own reflection. The mirrors face one another, creating an illusion of infinity by which his movements are continuously replicated. He sees the window, a sharp corner, a drop in the floor, his figure blurred in the mirror. "The power of the mirror symbolically doubles wealth health and happiness" his mother would say. "You must be careful of what you place in front of the mirror".

As he stares at himself, the mirror, he realizes, magnifies and distorts his thoughts. Looking away, he attempts to distance himself from his thoughts and inner reflections, as if avoiding the sight of himself would allow his guilt to subside. He makes himself forget once more.

A few years pass, a few more movies, quite a few more notable parts. He is famous, or rather he is becoming famous. Now, people sometimes will recognize him at the beach - they take pictures with him, not remembering the kid in the Superman costume but the aspiring young actor from that soap opera which was set in the Forbidden City, surprised to see the actor still in character so casually in public. Of course, the popularity and his instant recognition begin to annoy him. He dreads the public streets of Xiamen, finding relief in brief moments of anonymity - his confrontation of his own fame becomes a parody of the plot of the character of the aspiring actor that first made him a known face within China. He moves out of his city apartment, hiring an architect to build him a house closer to the film studio.

A house covered in mirrors hides itself - camouflaged by the incessant repetition of its immediate surroundings. It denies its own existence, preferring instead to pretend, to act out someone else's plot. Apart from any mystical implications, Feng Shui may be simply understood as a traditional test of architectural goodness using a collection of metaphors...The various Feng Shui tenets represent a set of metaphors that suggest architectural qualities that the average human finds comfortable.

(An unfolding house of mirrors)