I Need Permission

Part. 27 I Need Permission

It was exactly the same with movies. My dad has always been into high definition sound systems. He has friend groups who enjoy sound systems as much as he did. After a few years of contemplating, my dad decided to order these custom-made speakers. He said it was cheaper that way for the same quality sound. He really liked what turned out to be the product, I did too. The wood was solid, smooth, golden, marbled. The sound was good, combined with his already good amp, and whatever voltage stabilizer he got that was the same model as a surgical operation room would have in hospitals.  I heard stable current or voltage, whichever it was, was supposed to bring out better sound. 

I have no idea if any of those is true. I don’t believe anything he says most of the time. The amount of time I caught him lying has taught me he’s not a man of his words. I always took everything he said with a grain of salt. Maybe that’s an understatement. I should say I stopped taking him seriously at a very young age. 

However, for how much he liked his custom-made speakers and amp and such, he wanted to try all kinds of sounds, bass, flute, acapella, all kinds. He’d always take me to what was called a Computer Center (“合丰电脑城”) back in the day to get all these american movies and CDs. That’s when I started getting into Final Destinations, Spy Kids, Titanic, National Geography and all the american stuff. My dad would only allow me to get two movies at most each time. Otherwise I’d watched way more. However, later I learned how to borrow DVDs from the library close to home. After a while, they started stopping me from borrowing DVDs from there too. 

Either way, I did feel like I was granted permission to watch movies, enjoy movies, just not when it’s “excessive” in their opinion, that I never thought of it as something I could make a career out of. I also just had a funny realization as I was writing this: I always respected authorities, even when people think I don’t. I had to get permission to write from the headmaster, and the permission to make movies from my dad. I had to get permission, I still need their permission.

PART 28. It’s Hard to Pursue a Vocation When Your Parents Are Against It

My dad gave me life, gave me a home, gave me food, gave me access to education, it’s hard to say my life is mine and my vocation is mine without considering his take in all of these. It’s hard and selfish for me to say, I’m going to spend most of my life doing this, pursuing this, no matter how difficult, I will not give up, it will exist in one shape or another in my life, always, sometimes I’ll make money, other times I won’t, but I will not give up, as it is, my calling. My dad gave me life, gave me home, gave me food, gave me access to education. It’s hard to say my life is mine and my vocation without considering his take on all of these (hi, yes this line is intended as a repetition). According to my dad, we have been 孙 and Changshanese for “at least” hundreds of years, as the only child of the oldest son, I apparently had to consider my lineage. It’s not something I realized I do until recently. This is so old-school, I really didn’t think I was that old-school at that young age, and still very old-school in that way, at an older age. 

Even though I got permission to do these things, but only as hobbies, not as a vocation. I could do as much of it as I wanted, as long as it didn’t affect me doing the more important thing, which was supposedly my main career as a full-time student. My job was to study, but more like, to memorize after middle school. It was unclear to me what a career was, it was like something you make money with that you could keep getting better at or not better at, if you do it for an extended period of time, they call it a career. But a vocation was not that confusing of a concept to me, it meant something I was supposed to do. Therefore, it’d feel like it's something I was supposed to do. However, I didn’t feel like I was supposed to do anything for a long time, so I was convinced vocations didn’t exist for a while. 

Even though I didn’t fall into filmmaking until more or less the end of 2017, I had been spending a lot of time on it, as a hobby, but more intense than a hobby. I liked to binge, I liked to go to movies alone. I liked to watch movies alone. I liked to know biographies of all the directors that made me curious, and followed up for more work done by the same people. That list later expanded to screenwriters, now producers, music supervisors, choreographers, VFX studios, and distribution companies. I liked it, but it was not a vocation. I would read screenplays, finding it very funny, and laugh to myself, but it was not a vocation. I’d rather watch movies alone than spend time with people, but it was not a vocation. 

When I realized what it meant to direct in 2018, I asked myself, can I pull this off? After observing each department, and how challenging of a schedule a director has to keep up with, my conclusion was, it would be possible, but it would be extremely hard. It would be even harder if I stayed in China for longer, and it would be close to impossible if I couldn't get my dad’s permission. I felt like the entire family would have to be on the same page about this: I’m about to do something extremely risky and challenging, probably will never succeed, and by the time I realize I’m not good enough for it, it will possibly be too late to switch paths. I can’t have them be pulling me one way, when I’m trying to go another against the headwind already. I had to focus. 

That fall before I came back to the US after my birthday in 2019, I went over the scenarios over and over again with my parents, trying to convince them and myself of going for this, as I feel like I kind of do have a head start.  I’ve always been such a self-conscious person. I always thought I was bad at everything, but when it came to the subject of performance art, literature, movies, music, i always had pretty strong opinions, and i didn’t really care for other people’s opinions on those. On top of that, because I was allowed to write and watch movies, those became my mediums of expression, words, and moving images with sound. I felt kind of confused, because I had been trying this idea of “vocation”, and I was about to give up. I was about to just do whatever I need to do, an easy stable job or whatever is easiest for me. Then I found out that experiencing the process from a creative aspect that participates in the making instead of a consumer aspect of movies who only enjoys the product, is still fun, or should I say even more fun? It was kind of a weird feeling. Because I already decided that you can't find a job you like, not just a job that makes you survive. You will always hate your job. The idea of having something you feel like you are meant to do is bullshit. Then I sort of went down a rabbit hole of how I always turned to it whenever I needed help, the kind of help I couldn't get from anywhere else. I kept going back to it, and I got confused. I told my parents “I think” I want to make movies in one shape or another. They were even more confused, what do you mean you “think” you want something so strange and confusing? Isn’t working for a bank clear enough? What’s up with this new show you are putting on right now? It’s a joke, she’s not serious, it’s time to stop trying this. She’ll get over it, just watch, she will give up. Her wants always come and go. It won’t last.