Saturday, October 16, 2010

LOW - Fans Meeting @ Hengdian (2)

part 2
大海探班
2005/12/27
Shanghai fans’ Meeting with Steven at Hengdian
After a restless night due to all the excitement, we finally got up at around 4 am to get ready for a brand new day. At around 6 am we went downstairs; thespians were already trickling down too. Ah Mo (Moses) came down at about 6:30 am and Ammy wheedled a ride from him to Hengdian. Soon after, our long-awaited refined gongzi儒雅公子finally made an appearance, his presence instantly brightening our eyes. Attired in full costume, he looked different from yesterday, extremely shuai.

I greeted him good morning and he politely reciprocated in kind. We exchanged some pleasantries. Then out of necessity, I made an excessive demand of him: “May we ride with you to Hengdian because 江南水乡is only open to the public at night but is closed during the day.” Mazai said fine. But his assistant standing beside him, countered: “It’s better if you go there yourself.” I understood his assistant’s misgivings, she did not want outside influence to distract her artiste. But Mazai was very understanding. He turned to his assistant and chauffeur, and said: “They came all the way from Shanghai.” Then he turned back to us, and said: “Get into the van ba!” Just like that we were fortunate to ride with Mazai in his van. Mazai sat behind the chauffeur; Xiao Feng and I sat behind him; and Kaka, behind us. Mazai turned around to chat with us, showing us his profile; very elegant, very beautiful, especially his nose; indescribable beyond words. Mazai fiddled with his beloved flute, lamenting that its coating was slightly chipped, but did not know why. Mazai said: “Because of some flute playing scenes, I especially took some lessons from a teacher.” As we were praising his professionalism, Mazai chipped: “Only had one lesson, though.” (hoho!)

Finally reached our destination, this was our first time entering the filming grounds. So we stuck to Mazai and his assistant, Xiao Hua. During Mazai’s free time, we took more group pictures, shot the breeze, and relaxing in each other’s company.

I really did not want to bring up this incident but it had been such a long time already and thought I should at least mention it; after all, Mazai did help us so much, so very much. Three security guards suddenly appeared on the grounds and approached us; suspecting us trespassing, they accosted us and demanded to see our work permits. Mazai was at work then, so I ran to look for him, and found him nearby. I quickly explained our situation to him. His assistant, Xiao Hua said: “You stay here!” Later, I saw from afar Kaka and Xiao Feng sitting quite relaxingly over there with Mazai seated beside them, snacking on some tidbit. He even offered some to them, totally ignoring the security. I thought maybe everything was fine now so I walked over to join them. The 3 guards besieged us, glaring at us. Mazai said to them: “Let them stay ma. No problem lo!” But the guards were immovable and were fierce to us. When Mazai saw their attitude, he retorted: “They are just young girls, why are you so fierce ma?” A quarrel almost started out among them, seeing thus, we immediately said to Mazai: “We’ll just leave. We’ll talk when you get back to the hotel tonight.” Mazai could see our unhappiness but there was nothing he could do except say: “Ok, you all leave then. We’ll chat at the hotel.” And so most reluctantly we set out to leave the filming grounds.

We thought that would be the end of the matter but instead they took us to a room for interrogation. They wanted to know who gave us the ride to the grounds. If we disclosed his identity then they would let us go. We thought if we told them, Mazai and the chauffeur would sure to get into trouble so our lips were zipped, even at the risk of being beaten to death! (note: such melodrama! Hoho!) (Actually, they knew who gave us the ride because when we got off the van, somebody greeted the chauffeur. He must have informed the security and was in cahoots with them to seize this opportunity to extort some money from us.)

A condensed paraphrased version of the source below.
source: http://www.xici.net/b284854/d50130396.htm
video: http://video.sina.com.cn/playlist/1160444-1300648735-1.html#6293515

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