An Invisible Intimacy

By Jiang Ping

Liu Yulin,a Chinese female director,seems weak and tender outwardly,yet she has a strong mind inwardly. When she was directing the movieSomeone to Talk To,her father,Liu Zhenyun as the playwright,also worked on the film. They neither took notice of or bothered each other. In the eyes of many of the crew members,they didn’t seem like father and daughter.

To promote the movie,they had a photo shoot on a hillside during an interview. The cameraman asked Liu Zhenyun to walk to his daughter slowly while Liu Yulin looked up,smiling at her father,saying,“Don’t come near me. The farther,the better.”

Sometimes Liu Zhenyun would speak to his daughter in the same way,“Ay,stay away from me and don’t touch me either.”

Liu Yulin has long been accustomed to such “manner” for she and the so-called “Mr. Liu” have never been close,even during her childhood.

When Liu Yulin was a small girl,she had a comparatively close relationship with her daddy: once they sat on the balcony shoulder by shoulder,composed a song with lyrics “I don’t like you,you don’t like me,we don’t like each other,” and enjoyed their ice creams as they sang.

Such brief closeness in food sharing continued into her adulthood. Now,whether at home or abroad,occasionally they would buy two meat rolls,squat on the pavement and eat their own shares,watching the pedestrians walking back and forth.

The common theme in their dynamic is separation. Liu Yulin still remembers when she first went to New York for further studies—she was scared by what she encountered,and felt helpless for the first time. Her father phoned her,from a distance over 10,000 kilometers and a time difference of twelve hours,asking “Wasn’t it your choice? Either go back to class or come back to us. Your mother and I won’t come to New York to weep with you.”

刘震云（右）与女儿刘雨霖Liu Zhenyun (right) and his daughter Liu Yulin

Liu Yulin said that her father’s words,like a staggering bolt,woke her up. As she grew up,Liu Yulin came to understand the relationship between herself and her father. He does not pay attention to trifles,but he is rational and attaches importance to their spiritual communication,which is not easy to come by. In one word,this type of fatherdaughter closeness is more valued.

When attending the Silk Road Film Festival held in Xi’an,Liu Yulin accompanied her father to visit the Small Wild Goose Pagoda,where her father used to be a soldier. They sat under a sweet-scented osmanthus tree and gazed up. In this fragrance -filled place,Liu Zhenyun said,“I could sit here motionless all day.”

All of a sudden,Liu Yulin noticed a middle-aged deaf-mute couple nearby. The man was a bit lame while the woman was a little plump and sat closely to him. They had been communicating in sign language. When delighted,the woman pulled the pendant the man wore,took up his arm,and nibbled at him. Liu Yulin was so thrilled by the scene that she poked at her father,motioning for him to look over there.

In silence,Liu Zhenyun and Liu Yulin looked at the couple until the couple rose to their feet and helped each other out of sight. In the meantime,neither the father nor the daughter spoke,but Liu Yulin knew that they understood each other.

(FromBlog World,Issue 21,2016. Translation: Qing Run)

Note:Someone to Talk To is a 2016 Chinese drama film directed by Liu Yulin,a Tisch School of the Arts student and a silver medalist at the 41st Student Academy Awards,in her feature film directorial debut. Liu Zhenyun,Liu Yulin’s father,wrote the screenplay based on his Mao Dun Prize-winning novel One Sentence Is Ten Thousand Sentences.