Mohe Journey Short Film "Retuga" Желтугинская | A absurd journey to the northernmost part of China

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A few months ago, two director friends and I were going to the far north and east of China, that is, from Mohe to Fuyuan, to shoot a movie along the Sino-Russian border. What the three of us have in common this year is that we all live like homeless people. The authorities’ prevention and control policies have affected many things for us. We ourselves have also encountered many confusions and bottlenecks in our respective work and lives. For me, as a self-proclaimed historical and cultural travel writer, I have only written one route this year. I hope to have such a thing to end at the end of the year, so that this year at least does not seem too wasted.

The preparation process was exciting. Compared with the relatively mature video careers of the two friends, I had always been writing and knew nothing about making movies. We had meetings together to study scripts and schedules, and I also found a lot of things. Friends in the film industry consulted and bought an action camera, intending to record the entire film shooting process as their own creative material. This proved to be a wise move and saved the trip and my mentality.

What happened after that, to make a long story short, was a complete absurd drama, which I find very incomprehensible even when I write it down.

The three of us arrived at Mohe Railway Station. When we exited the station, we were notified that if we were transiting in Harbin for more than 2 hours, we would not be allowed to enter Mohe. My two friends were directly advised to return. After preparing the film shooting plan for several months, I took the train with my luggage and equipment for a day to Mohe, and returned before leaving the station.

Yes, our film was not shot at all. The film you see now was shot by me with an action camera.

Unexpectedly, I was allowed to enter Mohe while traveling with them. Perhaps it was just the negligence of the staff. I insisted on staying alone in Mohe with the mentality that I had come all the way. This was just the beginning of the entire absurd drama.

When I arrived in Mohe, Arctic Village and Beihong Village were not open due to the closure. In fact, almost all scenic spots were closed except for the northernmost point in China. So I found a driver to take me to the northernmost point in China. The driver was very nice. In order to make up for my regret of not being able to see other landscapes, he took me on many wild roads in the forest that almost no tourists visited. This also made us The car got stuck in the snow again and again, and we had to clear the snow with our bare hands to pull the car out. The whole process was very worthwhile. The scenery on that road was really great. Fortunately, we finally reached the northernmost scenic spot.

However, the snow in the northernmost scenic spot had not been cleared. The staff told us that it was impossible to continue moving forward. We had to return only a dozen kilometers away from the northernmost point. We set off at 8 o'clock in the morning and had already returned to the city. It was around four o'clock in the afternoon, and I spent the whole day in the car like this.

The next day I headed to the northernmost point again, and this time I reached it successfully. Contrary to what I imagined, there is no barbed wire fence on the border here. The boundary markers are on the river bank and the real border center line is on the river. However, because the river is frozen, people can walk up and there is no center line mark. If you are not afraid of being caught by the patrol, You can actually run all the way to the opposite side of Russia.

I crossed the boundary marker and ran to the river. I tore off the title page of my book "Blind Flow" on the center line and buried it in the snow.

I slipped on the center line, and when I got up, I found that my phone was missing. The driver and I rummaged through the surrounding snow, but we couldn't find it. The phone had mysteriously disappeared in the northernmost part of China.

Then the driver took me and rushed to the city. The shops in Mohe got off work very early. I finally rushed back to get a new phone card and bought a temporary mobile phone. Otherwise, it would be very troublesome to travel without a mobile phone at this time. It’s a pity that my mobile phone has The information in the past six years is gone, including all chat records. Maybe it will sink into the Heilongjiang River in the next spring, or it may be washed to the other side.

Fortunately, the driver took a photo out of curiosity, and my book was placed on the northernmost boundary monument, becoming the only witness of my northernmost journey.

This is nothing compared to what happens next.

Because Beijing is a relatively sensitive epidemic area in my itinerary, I planned to stay in Mohe for 7 days before going to other places. However, I found that the entire Heilongjiang except for the Daxinganling area has high-risk areas, so my The safe range of activities is within the Daxinganling area: Jiagedaqi, Songling, Xinlin, Huzhong, Mohe, Huma, and Tahe. Due to the reduction of trains, leaving Daxinganling requires a transfer through Harbin, so I was actually trapped in Daxinganling. , unexpectedly, after escaping Beijing, he was stuck in a blind corner.

After the 7 days are up, I plan to go to Jiagadaqi to stay for a few days. On the morning when I was about to leave Mohe, I suddenly received a notification that Mohe was silent.

In this place, which has had almost no epidemics in three years, a case was discovered the night before I was about to leave, so the whole city fell into silence and all public transportation was suspended. The driver said that he was not sure that the train station would be closed, because the railway and the local area are not the same system. Maybe there was still time to go, but his car could not take me, so I had to walk to the train station by myself.

There was also an episode where I was going to do a nucleic acid test first. I waited in line for half an hour on a cold day with snow falling. When I got to the person in front of me, I was told that the equipment for making nucleic acid was gone and it was very early. Even though I called, it didn't arrive. It seems that because there are almost no epidemics in normal times, we didn't prepare enough nucleic acid equipment for all employees. In the end, everyone dispersed and the nucleic acid was not prepared.

I braved the snow and walked for 40 minutes with my suitcase to the train station outside the city.

Entering the station went smoothly, but the train station did not receive a notice not allowing passengers to enter. Just when I was feeling lucky, authorities staff came to the train station and told everyone that they had to wait for notification from superiors and were not sure whether they would be allowed to leave. While we were waiting, police officers came to the waiting room to guard the ticket gates. I had a feeling that things were going to be bad. As a result, the government staff delayed the train to leave until the ticket check was over, using rogue methods to retain the passengers. At the same time, the police blocked the gate and could not force their way through. Finally, the bus took everyone back to the city.

Fortunately, the hotel owner seemed to have a premonition that I would not leave so smoothly. She left a room for me and I still had somewhere to stay.

The whole city was silent and no restaurants were open. The imam of the Arctic Mosque in Mohe learned that I was stranded in Mohe. It was -28°C and he walked to the hotel and gave me a bowl of noodles with a lot of meat and fruits. I met that imam when I visited the mosque a few days ago. With the decline of forestry, the number of Hui people here is much smaller than before. Now there are only about 20 households. The imam’s main daily job is to slaughter sheep for two hot pot restaurants and Receiving foreign Muslim tourists, he guarded this mosque in the northernmost part of China, the only surviving building from the Great Khingan Mountains fire in 1987, alone.

On the third day of silence, I suddenly received a call from the Tourism Bureau. They were worried that the silence time would be extended and the situation of foreign tourists would be very bad if there were no shops open, so the director specially approved that foreign tourists should leave Mohe first. A car took me to the train station. It was on the same road that I walked in the snow for 40 minutes two days ago and was finally blocked from returning. The same staff at the train station who blocked us two days ago were now sending me away with a smile. The passengers left, it was so interesting.

Perhaps out of their emphasis on the tourism industry, compared to other places where tourists were stranded after the silence, Mohe handled the situation relatively well. Under the premise that they could not change the prevention and control measures, they tried their best to make the situation as stable as possible with their personal goodwill. So ugly, as the Siberian exile literature said, the government workers here are more humane than the bureaucrats in Petersburg.

When I left Mohe and returned to Beijing, the building where my home was located was considered a high-risk building. In the past, when the risk was low, the community had to be sealed with iron sheets, but the residents prevented them from succeeding. As a result, after the risk was high, the community entered a very strange state of anarchy. The community staff completely disappeared, and the residents came and went freely. Everyone seemed to have some idea. This tacit understanding is dragged to a certain node in the chaos.

The night I returned to Beijing, I stayed at my friend Qian Geng’s house. The next day, the Health Treasure pop-up window didn’t allow me to take the bus, so I stayed at Qian Geng’s house for seven days. Everyone knows what happened next. After the elder passed away, the authorities quickly abandoned almost all prevention and control policies, and my trip to Mohe became the absurd ending of a long joke.

By the time I finished this film, Mohe had completely returned to normal and was enthusiastically promoting the Daxinganling Ice and Snow Festival to save the delayed tourist season. What I experienced a month ago seemed to be a vague memory of the previous era.

After returning to Beijing, I used the footage from my action camera to make this film. The title of the film comes from a regime that once existed in Mohe - the Republic of Gertuga. More than a hundred years ago, an Oroqen hunter discovered gold in Rouge Valley, north of Mohe River. Gold-mining adventurers from all over the world came here, with Russians being the most numerous, as well as Chinese, Koreans and Europeans. People built a prosperous The town was called Million Street. In order to maintain order, an autonomous government was established, with a city hall, parliament and court, called the Republic of Gertuga.

But this country only existed for three years before it was annihilated by the Qing army. The Qing government nationalized the gold mines. There is a grave of prostitutes in Rouge Valley. It is said that many prostitutes once came here with the gold mines. They used Rouge makes the river water fragrant. This is the origin of the name Rouge Valley.

The paradoxical thing about living in this land in this era is that most people have a high need for stability and hope that their lives will be sown on time and harvested on time. But in fact, our lives are more like digging for gold, just like the people who gathered here back then. Like the Republic of Zertuga, opportunities always appear by chance, and when they disappear, people are unable to resist. The adventurers can only make more money before being driven away by the imperial army. After that, all the relics are eradicated as if nothing happened. After that, people go to look for the next gold mine and survive by relying on luck while running around.

My journey is like being in an abnormal place, forcing myself to pretend to live a normal life, but the price is that I must bear the abnormal results. Maybe I am lucky enough to find gold, but most of the time I will find nothing. Our life is one joke after another. Some jokes are ridiculous, but people can still laugh at themselves to relieve boredom. Some jokes are so cruel that you can't tell whether you are laughing or crying. You must accept that you are the protagonist of the joke, and you must be able to take the initiative calmly. Tell a funnier joke.

If I have to say what I gained from this trip, I feel that I am calmer and have a better sense of humor.

If you want to know more about my book "Blind Flow" and the creative process that appear in the film, please click: I yearn for the bright winter in the gloomy summer | The story of "The Sea of ​​Doubt"

If you want to watch my previous documentary "The Book and Me in Amber", please click: I sealed the book and myself in amber - "Sea of ​​Struggle" personal documentary "The Book and Me in Amber"