1947 Wenzhou, China

Bingli Ma

1941

Wenzhou, China

Interviewed on February 6, 2021

by Megan Zhang

I think the first movie I watched was The Spring River Flows East (《一江春水向东流》, 1947), or maybe Eight Thousand Li of Cloud and Moon (《八千里路云和月》, 1947). I liked watching foreign movies too, especially the Indian movie Awaara (1951). But the first two movies, they were both from the same year and the actors were the same. The first one was more famous. The title of that movie comes from a poem written by a Chinese emperor.  I was six years old when I watched it. Back then, I was young and I didn’t understand all of it. But many years later, it was re-released and I watched it again. I was probably fifteen years old then.

I remember the movie was about the kangzhan [The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, also known as the Second Sino-Japanese War], and during the war, an intellectual family’s misery and hardships in life. The husband was a teacher. Because of the war, the couple had to move and was separated. So eventually, the husband had to flee to Congqing while his wife was left in Shanghai, and they were separated for 7-8 years. But the husband degenerated and abandoned his family. During that time, the husband remarried to another woman, who wasn’t of high moral character, but was rich and connected to some high-level, corrupt officials who were close to the Japanese. And the husband also had an affair with his new wife’s cousin.

After the war was ended, the husband came back to Shanghai. He had forgotten about his first wife, but she was poor and actually ended up as a maid in his house. During a party, while she is serving, she finally discovers that her husband is living in the house. When the second wife finds out, she forces the husband to divorce the first wife. And in the end, the first wife commits suicide by jumping off a bridge.

The lead actress was Bai Yang. There was also Shangguan Yunzhu, she’s the one who had a relationship with Mao Zedong and later committed suicide. She played the cousin [of the second wife]. And there was Shu Xiuwen. I forgot the name of the male actor, but he was not bad too.  All of the actors were very good. The female lead actress especially, made everyone cry in sympathy. In the movie theater you could hear the sounds of all the people crying.

The first time, I went with my mother to watch it. After that, the time when I was fifteen, we watched together with my school class. The tickets were only 20 cents, which is less than 5 cents in the U.S. The school organized the trip, and we just walked there. At that time, because of the government, the school organized all the movie trips. It took five minutes to walk from home to the theater, which was on wumajie [Five Horses Street]. It was called wumajie because the street could fit five horses across, for when the governor would visit. Back then there were no cars. Now it has become a walking street for shopping.

Inside the theater, you could buy food inside the entrance. We ate guazi [roasted plant seeds]. But those were too loud to eat in the theater, so sometimes we ate cookies, or candy, hard fruit candies. The name of the theater was just dazhongdianyingyuan [Popular Cinema]. There were two floors in the theater. There weren’t any ushers, it was just like the movie theaters now, we don’t have ushers either. There was a doorkeeper to check your ticket, just to make sure you bought one. The theater was very bright before the movie started, so everyone could find their seats. Not like now, now they turn off the lights before you go in.