What seems like centuries ago, I toyed with the idea of becoming a "Maoist". So, as a consequence, I was ever keen on figuring out how life actually did unfold for "the ordinary people" who were embedded both historically and existentially in the revolutionary upheals unfolding in China back then.
Well, as they say, that's all over. China today [politically] may well still basically be in the hands of an autocratic few, but the economy [like the social interactions] is anything but what it once was "back then".
It appears that the "cultural revolution" has given way [almost unimaginably] to a rendition of "state capitalism" that some argue will soon become the dominant economy around the globe.
So, naturally, I'm curious once again to understand what life might be like for the "ordinary people" now that these enormous changes continue to reconfigure what I once thought was into what I think might be now.
In
Old Stone, "a Chinese taxi driver finds himself plunged into a Kafkaesque nightmare where no good deed goes unpunished...in a society rife with bone-chilling callousness and bureaucratic indifference."
On the other hand, as with Daniel Blake's travail in England above, is the ordeal endured by Lao Shi in China basically a snapshop of the world to come for all of us? Is this the path we are all headed down? And how typical is this sort of thing in modern day China?
Stil, as with Daniel Blake, in turn, it's just a single snapshot of a particular narrative revolving around a particular context. So, by and large, we will generally take out of it only that which we first put into it: our own unique sense of reality.
Here's how one reviewer [Manohla Dargis] reacted:
His first mistake is reporting the accident; his second is trying to help the bleeding victim instead of splitting. No good deed goes unpunished in this vision of contemporary China, a dog-eat-dog world in which the strong don’t just consume the weak, they also suck the marrow out of every last bone. What else is there until someone is able to tell us definitively that which all "rational and virtuous" men and women are obligated to think and to feel.
Until then, we're on our own.
This is basically the story of an honest and decent man who tumbles down into a set of circumstances that reconfigures him into something altogether different. Then it's only a matter of asking yourself, "what would I have done?"
And this is also a world in which, yet again, as with Daniel Blake above, Lao Shi's own unique set of circumstances [as a teeny tiny individual] get dumped into a labyrinthian procession of one or another official "procedures".
at wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stonetrailer:
https://youtu.be/1CGfmjazFz4Old Stone [Lao Shi] 2016
Written and directed by Johnny Ma
Doctor: We need to get him registered first so we can perform surgury. The cashier is over there.
Lao Shi: But isn't this covered by insurance?
Doctor: Hurry!
...
Sign on the wall in the hospital: HAVE YOU SMILED TODAY?
...
Cashier: It's 234 rmb for this bill. And this one is 12,340 rmb.
Lao Shi [shocked]: how can it be so expensive.
Cashier: The surgery alone is over 8,000. And the emergency room is 1,000.He may as well live in America.
Lao Shi [to the police]: I was driving, and I had a passenger who was very drunk. He grabbed my arm all of a sudden causing me to swerve. That's how I hit the motorcycle.
...
Police: It's against procedure to leave the scene before we've arrived.
Lao Shi: I had no choice. The doctor said he would have died if I had been any later.
...
Wife: What's wrong? You've been acting strange all day.
...
Insurance agent: Normally the driver should report the accident to the company as soon as possible. Then the company reports to us. That's the procedure. Now, the most important thing is the police accident report.
Lao Shi: I tried to save someone. I didn't have time to wait for some report.
Taxi company official: We have our procedures, so does the insurance company. They can't just pay if we don't follow the right procedure.
Insurance agent: Mr. Shi, without the accident report, we cannot know if the man's injuries are from the accident or from you driving him to the hospital. How do we know if it's our responsibility to pay?
Lao Shi: What are you saying, that I hurt him by helping him?!So, it's all about the money there too. And now the guy on the motorcyle is in a coma. With bills mounting everyday.
Captain: What's that?
Lao Shi [holding a phone]: Someone left it in the cab. I think it belongs to that drunk guy I picked up the other day.
...
Wife: So what were you doing at the hospital today?
...
Wife: My husband is a taxi driver, and he had an accident a few days ago. He took the guy directly to the hospital and didn't wait for the police to arrive. These are the hospital bills. We've been paying for everrything so far.
Lao Ma [a lawyer]: This is not a nice thing to say, but if he had died at the scene, this would be a much easier situation. But now this is a lot more complicated.
...
Wife: How much more have you not told me? What else are you hiding?
Lao Shi: I just didn't want you to worry.
Wife: How did you know their family doesn't have money?
Lao Shi: His wife told me.
Wife: His wife?! What about your own wife?!
...
Wife: So what do you propose we do now?
Lao Shi: I already told them I would pay.
...
Lao Shi: Nurse, I wanted to ask...how often do people in his condition wake up?
Nurse: It's hard to say. Some after a few days, others a few months. But the one on the 9th floor, he's been laying there for five years. Still asleep. The ones who are asleep, they have it easy. It's the ones who are awake that are suffering.
...
Cashier [after swipting Lao Shi's credit card]: It says you don't have enough funds.
Lao Shi: I just used it yeaterday.
Cashier: Do you have another card? It says there are "insufficient funds".
...
Lao Shi [on phone]: What happened to all the money in the account?
Wife: I took it all out. If you're not going to protect this family, I will.
...
Lao Shi: You took my taxi. Do you remember?
Taxi passenger [the drunk who caused the accident]: Taxi? Oh, right...to the airport.
Lao Shi: You were pretty drunk that day.
Passenger: I left my phone in the taxi.
Lao Shi: That's why I'm here, to give it back.
[the man tries to offer him money]
Lao Shi: No, no, no. I didn't bring your phone because of money. I need to talk to you...when you took my cab, we got into an accident. The injured person has been in the hospital all this time, and hasn't woken up. I've been paying the medical bills for months now.
Passenger: How's this my problem?
Lao Shi: You can't possibly forget. You were so drunk that day, and you grabbed my arm, causing me to swerve...
Passenger: I grabbed your arm?
Lao Shi: Yes.
Passenger [aruptly]: Thank you for returning my phone, but I really have to go now, really.Nope, he's not nearly so foolish as Lao Shi. There's what's true and there's what's in his own best interest.
Passenger: Why are you following me? Even if I was responsible as you say, can you prove it? You go ahead and try.
Lao Shi: I know your address...and I know about your bastard kid.
Passenger: What do you want from me?
Lao Shi: Not much. Just come to the police station with me and make a statement. And I'll never bother you again. Simple as that.Though not quite as simple [and dumbfounding] as what comes next.
Lao ma [to Lao Shi]: Even though the patient has been discharged from the hospital, his head wounds have not fully healed. His future expense will continue to be your responsibility. If something should ever happen, and you default on your legal obligation to pay then the debt will be transferred to your family. You need to stop dragging them down with you.Of course all the while we are reacting to this as someone who knows where the truth really lies here.
Man from the motorcycle accident: Where you from? You look kind of familiar.
Lao Shi: Just passing through.
...
Man from the motorcycle accident [yanking off his head bandage]: I'm sick of wearing this all the time just to get an extra bit of money.
...
Man from the motorcycle accident: Help! Help! Murderer! Don't come any closer...stop right there. What did I ever do to you?!Cue the really grim [and really ironic] ending.