XINYAO GUAN
D. Orientation to Field Work
       I was born in a traditional Chinese family in the early 1990s. And, unfortunately, just like many other people in that period of time, our family experienced the Chinese One Child Policy. Thus, I am the only child in my family. It is so sad to admit that this One Child Policy may be really useful and helpful to the People’s Republic of China. However, it is kind of inhumane when you think about Human rights and family issues. On contrast, my oldest aunt’s family has two children (one older sister and 4 years old younger brother which I think is a perfect combination). When I was young, before the age of ten; I always ask mom to born another baby because I did not understand the policy and I did not care about it. Later, I stopped begging because I knew that if mom chooses to reproduce a baby, she will lose her job at the government-owned company for sure. I am always envious of other classmates or friends who have brothers and sisters. When I first went to the US for college, I was actually surprised that most of my classmates have brothers and sisters. Moreover, one family usually will have three or four children. Thus, I think the definition of family and family members may be a little different between Chinese families and American families.
     My family is not really interested in remember people, places or events. But, we do take photos and videos when we go travelling or when we suddenly think of it. We have several family photographs on the living room’s wall and my parents’ wedding photo at their bedroom. My parents did not like taking photos that much, but they used to love taking photos of me while I was young. They said it was very enjoyable to record their baby’s growing by taking photos. And my father really dislikes being photographed. Before the age of fifteen, I am also not interested in taking photos. However, I just changed my idea when I go to high school. I start taking photos of places I have been and people who I met and liked. The oldest photo in my family may be the photo of the family of my great grandmother. Before we got the digital camera in 2005, we usually use the simply auto-focus camera and develop the photos at the photo studio nearby. We loved to put the pictures in different albums in chronological order and sometimes write some memos at the back side of the photos. And my mom will take care of all the albums and put them together into a big iron box. We will look at the photos during the Chinese Spring Festival period. When some close friends or relatives come to visit us, we will show them some photos and tell them the stories behind each photo. In the recent years, we no longer develop our pictures because we will use the digital camera and put the photos in laptop. Sometimes I think it is pity that we lost the sometime to share the photos. However, the digital camera makes the life easier and we can simply send the photos to relatives or friends via email.

     I choose one photo about my family’s trip to Xi’an in 2009. As I mentioned above, my father really dislike being photographed, and so do I sometimes. So, mom becomes the only model and she actually enjoyed being photographed because she loves to memorize the changes of herself and she likes sharing the photos with her sisters. It was just several days before I went to the US for college, and mom thought that we should have a family trip to somewhere in China that we have never been to before I leave my country. Thus, we booked the flight tickets in a hurry and went to Xi’an the next day. Actually, I was very busy during that time because I need to be well prepared to go to the States. However, mom thought that it is important to combine the exertion and rest. And she stressed that I should not push myself so hard and just takes it easy. I am very impressed about this trip and I really had a good time to relax. At the same time, I enjoyed the time being so closed to my parents before I leave them. Thus, whenever I saw the photos of that trip, I will be so happy and all the memories just run out of my brain. I believe that travelling is a very important thing in my family. Plus, I think mom is so pretty in this photo which I took by myself.
     As we all know that, China is a big country with a long history. Different places will have very different cuisines. Basically, people who come from the North love to eat cooked wheaten food (such steamed stuffed buns, noodles and dumplings) than rice. And they love to eat heavy flavor food compared to people who come from the South part of China. However, Si Chuan food is famous all over the world by its special spicy flavor. It is hard to say that people from different places have specific cuisines.
     Most of my relatives are Chinese people who come from the North part of China. Thus, we all love to eat cooked wheaten food. But we also ear rice a lot, almost every day. I am actually surprised that we will never be tired of eating rice every day, but not the other dishes. We eat all kinds of food, but most of time, we cook with a Northman way. However, my grandmother is Korean and I start eating Korean food at a very young age (even the Kimchi and some very spicy pickles). Sometimes, we will eat Korean food instead of traditional Chinese food. I can say that I love any Korean food and especially Korean style soap. To my family, dumpling is the most popular food, especially the dumpling stuffed with pork and celery. Normally, my family will make dumplings every weekend (when they are not busy with work). I enjoy the time we three are all in the kitchen to make the same thing. Because there are a lot of works for making dumplings, we will divide the work and same much time. Usually, dad will make the dough (put some flour into a bowl and then slowly add COLD water and then stir it). At the same time, mom and I will prepare the fillings (usually I will wash the celery and cut them into very small pieces, mom will put flavoring and mix celery with pork). And later, dad will make the dumpling wrappers (I cannot deal with it because I did not master that skill yet). Usually at this time, mom and I can rest a little bit and we may open the TV and watch some Law programs which my dad love to hear about. And later mom and dad will wrap the dumplings without my help (they thought mines are so ugly). Finally, I will cook the dumplings and pay attention to the boiling time (after the water boils, I need to put some cold water in and repeated this progress until the dumplings finally done).
     Based on Chapters 3 and 5 from the reading Visual Storytelling, and the material collected above, my story would be a video documentary that shows how Chinese people get together to make delicious dumplings. The characters can be my family members, my friends and even my American classmates. It will be very interesting that how Americans make dumplings with their own hand and later eat them up. I would like to interview one Chinese people who is skillful and can make nice dumplings. I will ask him or her to teach the details of making dumplings. And give him or her some close-up shots. This person will be interviewed in a relax atmosphere and he or she can give us a narration about the progress or what he or she think of dumplings among Chinese culture. I will make some background music with traditional Chinese instruments to stress the Chinese culture. And later, on contrast, I will interview an American, and ask his or her feeling about making dumplings and how does them taste like. And maybe I can also put some old photographs or historic video scenes to highlight the topic.