beyond the 5 senses

I watched a Chinese movie called, shadow magic(西洋鏡). It was a pretty interesting film. The story was about how a foreigner introducing Moving Picture to China the first time. The movie itself was light hearted, quirky, and romantic as well. I liked it quite a bit.

It was very interesting to see how the movie showed the reaction of Chinese watching moving pictures the first time. According to a review, those scenes were historically accurate. For example, Chinese would duck aside when they see a train traveling across the picture. Or they would sway along with the waltzing music while there were people dancing on the big silver screen. While watching these scenes, I was amazed. Because for most people at the time, they could not really experience the other kinds of living styles. The background was 1902 at Beijing. Although Chinese already had quite frequent contact then. Most of them would never really see an European city, street, housing, how those people play with each other. Most of them might never experience European music as well. But in this dark room, many Chinese see the other cultures eat, sleep, play, and just plain living the daily life. Although it was perceived through eyes, I think the amazement goes beyond all 5 senses.