I don’t want to hear this crying about Chinese polluters from people in the United States. There are important issues to consider: “It is estimated that the average American still pollutes between five and six times more that the average Chinese person.” (BBC) There are tons of people in China who don’t pollute, and, living in the United States, it’s impossible not to pollute. I was having coffee today with Celia Hoffman, and we talked about keeping a daily journal of waste produced. This is an interesting idea, and I think this is a really important! It’s only a matter of being aware of how you’re affecting, and believing the Chinese kid in the environmental education program when he tells you one plastic bag matters when every person is thinking about their one plastic bag. This is the scale issue that Bill Moomaw tells us about in our film. It comes down to an issue of education, and China is doing work to solve this problem.

According to the BBC article “China building more power plants”, the policy of moving manufacturing out of the developed world into China and India has been a “climate disaster”. This article was published in the middle of June, take note. I think China’s environment has become a more contested issue since the Olympics in August. I think it’s important to note that, as Greenpeace director John Sauven, also quoted in this BBC article, said, “Responsibility for China’s soaring emissions lies note just in Beijing but also in Washington, Brussels and Tokyo.” It’s something important to think about, but it doesn’t get the same kind of attention, because, I guess, it’s not easy blame.

I don’t know where this post went.

Ben and I met yesterday to look at the video editing that he has done so far–maybe 20 seconds. Turns out, it takes a long time to make a movie. I wrote an email to Dan Perlman at Brandeis, after meeting Ben: “I just came home from a meeting with the video editor and he had put together maybe 20 seconds of intro and it looked so great I wanted to weep! Daniel’s score matched the thrust of the footage perfectly, and I could feel Jeff’s carefulness in it, and I could feel my hopefulness in it, and it was a grand culmination of the last three years of my academic life–20 seconds! I can’t begin to tell you how rewarding this is. Ben is doing a fantastic job of matching my hopeful excitement about what is happening in China with the footage that Jeff shot. We’re talking about how to integrate the cartoony Olympic characters and photos into the film to make something really fun to watch.”

Ben is leaving for a few weeks to go to Europe with his project, Border Stories, but we have a meeting scheduled when he comes back and before he leaves for Paris. very fancy! Ben’s uploaded my footage though, so that he can do work on the airplane, and we he will keep me updated about his progress. I just want to work on this project all the time!

I emailed the Aspen Environmental Forum to see if I could drum up any interest in hearing more from us. Ben told me he could have a cut by the forum on March 25 through 28.

Also, Kyle Westgard of My Green Campus got in touch with me the other day with some advice pertaining to distribution and possibly working together when we get to this stage.

My advisor in China, libo, has also talked a little more to me about using his networks to distribute in China, and so the next step for me is to set up meetings at Brandeis with my potential translaters. It seems a bit premature to do this when we have no movie yet though.

Last week I did my first solo interview with Tim Morehouse. Tim went to Brandeis, and so I had access to him through the staff at the Hoot. Thankfully, Jeff had a contact at Brandeis ask around about someone who was available to help me set up the camera. I had a Brandeis student, Illona Yuhaev, to help me with the microphone and camera set up. I still have not watched the interview, but I’m excited to look at it with Ben and see what he thinks. I like the shot we set up, but I hope that the sound is O.K. Thankfully, I’m very confident with Ben’s ability to gloss over any mistakes I may have made.

I realized it is much more fun to do this work with a partner, and it made me miss Jeff. I was tired at the end of the day, but not in the fabulous way that I was always tired at the end of the day in Beijing.

The next step is to digitize the film and start building a story with Ben. I’m pushing for a trailer by the end of November. Daniel is buying equipment to finish making the music. I like what he’s done so far a lot.