Original subtitles

The life you are living right now,

does it seem normal to you?

Other people wake up, have three meals,

and then go to sleep.

What about you?

And then what？

Other people get married and have kids.

What about you?

The laughter behind my back,

The questions they ask me to my face,

I don't know how to answer.

You don’t have to answer.

How am I supposed to answer when they ask me?

In 8th grade,

my mother found my text messages

with a 25-year-old man.

That day after school,

I saw her standing at the school gate,

searching for me anxiously,

as if she was lost in the crowd.

Ten years have gone by,

We have never spoken about this since.

At the beginning of 2021,

I bought a super 8mm film camera,

and started to film people in my life.

This is Chilam,

and this is Choy.

We made a film together this summer.

This is Jing Yi,

the lead actress in my thesis film.

This is Da San.

He’s been working on commercials to pay rent.

They broke up later on.

This is Allie.

She just came back from LA last year,

and quit her art gallery job this year.

I asked her where she will be next year,

She said, she has no idea.

We all just left school, and we are all lost.

Just starting to look for our place in the world.

My boyfriend, Hong Yi

He's a bartender now

before he goes to Belgium to study fashion design.

He's about to leave soon.

This is the fourth year of us living together in Beijing.

My father always takes naps at noon.

On weekends, he goes swimming in the mountains.

Maybe he is also swimming in his dreams.

My mother loves flowers.

She picks the flowers she comes across on the road,

brings them home,

and plants them on the rooftop garden.

Can you stop filming?

It's such a waste of film.

These red peppers are growing again

since we ate the last batch.

Aren’t they lovely?

Mama

I’m so afraid. I don’t dare think about it.

I’m just stumbling through one day after the next,

trying not to think, just fooling myself.

If I dare to think about it, I'll go crazy.

But you still have me.

How can I count on you?

I will try to make myself reliable.

Life doesn’t have to follow a single mold,

living just one way.

Then why do so many people live in that one way?

Because those people are not me.

Why can't you too?

I invested so much money on you.

This is what I get.

In other people's eyes,

I don't have any dignity.

How come you don't have any dignity?

Do you really think that people live as isolated units?

That you can separate from society?

Your relatives even sent me messages,

saying you shouldn’t marry a girl from out of town.

I even wish you’d marry a foreign girl.

I don't even know

how to explain to your grandma, your grandpa,

to your uncle or to your aunt.

No wonder I'm being blamed by your father.

I deserve it.

What does he blame you for?

What good would it do if I told you?

Would it help anything?

Would you even listen at all?

Would you be able to live the way he wants you to?

I wouldn’t live my life according to anyone else.

Then why do you even ask about it?

He sighs and complains,

saying it’s my fault I sent you to art school,

rather than making you study properly.

His colleagues’ children finished school.

They've all studied abroad, and now look at them.

They are all fine and normal.

They have jobs, they make money,

they get married.

Which one of these things have you done?

So I should live my life according to your expectations?

That would be normal.

That way your life would have hope.

So my life does not have any hope now?

What do you hope for?

I hope to live happily.

So you would be happy living a life

that no normal person would choose.

Have you ever thought why we bother to raise you?

It's to make our ancestors proud,

to carry forward family values,

to pass down generation after generation.

You will have nothing to pass down.

Have you made your family proud?

Is family pride all that I’m worth to you?

That is how Chinese society works.

I have sacrificed so much to support you,

and this is how you turned out?

If you stop right now, everything would be ok!

How can I stop? Women don't make me hard.

Why did I give birth to a monster.

Going to college

Leaving Wenzhou

Beijing

New York

Being nomadic

Floating around

Becoming someone else

This September, Hong Yi left for Belgium.

The lease of our home in Beijing ended.

I returned to my hometown.

(Rejuvenate the Chinese nation)

(Reunify the motherland)

When my parents were my age,

they lived here.

Dad was assigned to this small town,

as a land surveyor.

Mom ran a clothing store

across from dad’s workplace.

During lunch breaks,

dad would cut some fresh sugarcane,

sit in front of mom’s store enjoying the cool shade.

After work, mom would sneak into dad’s room,

watching him make diagrams at his desk.

I was born here.

The curly hair

The calves buldging

beneath white sport socks

The smell

The sweat dripping along the Adam's apple

The sun-kissed skin

I think of that 25-year-old man now and then.

Is he still here?

I breathe in the air that he might have breathed.

I could barely remember his face.

Is he me?

The old house is now leased to a girl

who came to town for work.

I asked her,

how much was the rent.

She said,

8000 Yuan a year.

Is she me?

She could be me.

The year I graduated from college,

mother came to Beijing for my graduation.

She stayed in my rented apartment with Hong Yi for a week.

I introduced Hong Yi as my roommate.

Hong Yi slept on the sofa.

Mom and I slept on the small bed.

Once I woke up at midnight,

I found her fast asleep.

She breathed gently,

like an infant.

Mom has always known this secret,

but she never told dad,

until today.

She wishes I will change one day,

so that dad won't have to know this secret.

She holds on to this hope,

living in silence,

boiling silence.

I'm looking at you.

I'm looking at you.

Can you look at me,

just look at me, look at me,

look at me, look at me.

What for?

Back then, if I were to stare into your grandma’s eyes,

she would slap me for staring and say that I'm dumb.

That’s the way you and grandma communicated, not you and I.

But now I just can’t get used to looking people in the eyes.

Why do I need to do that?

It makes me feel traumatized.

That way we can feel each other more sincerely.

My heart is sincere.

Right, but you need to let others know.

I can't look at you.

How come you can't look at me?

You gave birth to me.

You pushed me out of your vagina.

I gave birth to the wrong child. I apologize.

There is no right or wrong birth.

When you were little, you were so sweet to me,

so adorable,

so well-behaved.

Why?

Shuli

Did I do something wrong?

No you didn’t.

You didn't do anything wrong.

Mama you didn't do anything wrong.

You didn't do anything wrong.

You didn't do anything wrong.

How did you become this?

You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault.

You were such a sweet boy.

When you were little, I loved you so so much.

I must have done something wrong.

Mama, you didn't.

I drove you to this point, I regret it so much.

It's not your fault.

Did I give you too much pressure?

I really regret it now.

It's not your fault.

I really regret raising you to become this.

What did I do to you?

What did I do?

Mama, you didn't do anything wrong.

Sweet boy of mine.

Ten years later,

I’m the same age as that 25-year-old man.

In a way,

I have become him.

After all,

he was also becoming someone else.

After all,

we are all just kids.

We are all searching.