My cozzin Luis tells us his
father is buried in the Cimeterio Chino and offers to take us
there today. I wonder how much is this gonna cost. He makes a
big deal about bringing cash to bribe the gatekeeper who he
calls “the witch”. But when we arrive, the gatekeeper opened the
gate and willingly let us in without asking for any money. It
makes me wonder about Luis. Is he pulling a fast one on us
today?
The gatekeeper is a character right out of Indiana Jones. He
walks around with one machete strapped behind his back while
swirling another around as he talks along in his rapid fire
colloquial Cuban Spanish. He’s spinning non-stop tales as he
takes us through the cemetery maneuvering through bushes and
trees cutting them out of his path at random.
I’m having difficulties wiping
the fog off my lens, adjusting the changing light and keeping up
with him in this scorching humidity. The time delay factor with
Valeria’s translation adds another handicap to this real-time
shooting. By the time I get the translation, he has already
moved on to his next tale. I’m losing sync with him.
Part of his job is keeping track of the decaying process of the
typically shallow Chinese graves, dig up the bones, then clean
and transfer them into tin boxes for storage in their respective
family crypts. I’m tracking him on this one sequence where he’s
telling us this funny story about how this particular Chinese
fella just won’t decompose because he’s so well preserve from
all the Chinese herbs he took when he was alive. Due to the
delay affect of the translation, I’m a jarred by him cracking
open the said tin box to show me the bones before I got the full
story translation.
He motions to Cheuk and I to enter the Kwan crypt as he opens
the creaking trap door. Cheuk is going down and I follow. I’m
feeling goose pimples all over. There’re no lights down under so
I could only go so deep without maxing out my gain and crushing
my DV signals.
Many of the tin boxes are not securely shut. You can see
many with their bones still sticking out. The tin boxes are
marked with birth dates and village names. Cheuk is surprised to
find that there are many Kwan’s from his grandfather’s village
of Gau Kwong… he is also having his date with destiny after all.
The air is musty. I smell death all around me. I pan across to
catch Cheuk glancing into my lens with an inquisitive stare…
asking me if he should go in deeper… I can tell Cheuk is scared…
I’m getting creep out myself… so glad he decided to retreat
before we started to see dead people.
Above ground nearby, Luis has found his Chinese grandfather
Enrique Chung’s grave. He gets very emotional about his Chinese
heritage as we interview him in front of the burial site. He
even got teary eye about his duel identity. But it’s sad and
unfortunate that I can no longer tell what’s true and what’s
fake with my cozzin anymore. I like to believe in him… but it
gets difficult… so we’ll never know.
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