At the end, I was supposed to give some kind of testimony to a girl playing a reporter. Since it didn't matter what I said, and no one there spoke English particularly well, I gave her a running commentary of the direction I was getting, with editorial response about why it was impossible or just a bad idea. Example :"He said don't move my head but use body language and now I feel like I can't move and I'm supposed to move this hand but not that hand and smile while seven people are yelling at me in two languages and I only had three hours sleep last night I wonder if I'm still smiling..." It was funny and needs a science fiction ending to the narrative of the commercial, I'm sure. As I left, the agent pointed out the owner's brand new BMW next to his brand new Mercedes, so I guess there is a market for orange mold.
I was happy to finally leave, it was dark already and we had a long trip. The cell phone was louder now, and the guy who really did nothing the whole time was singing along, but quietly so you could only hear him on the plosives, like "t" "s" "k" sounds. It was really annoying, and I started anticipating the next sound, which added to the annoyance factor. When Oksana got out halfway through the trip back (she lives in shinju) I realized he was just holding back out of the embarrassment of singing in front of a female, because he started singing louder. It reached a crescendo when Bon Jovi's it's my life song came on. A truly dreadful song, made worse by the tiny treble heavy speaker, augmented by chinese accented english sing along. And broken up by the coughing fits that came from this guy the entire trip back. The air was quite polluted at some points of the trip, and this guy smoked a lot, thankfully only on breaks. He would open the window for air, which just made it worse as the air was thick with dew and pollution, and the open window was doing weird things to the pressure in my ears. I was testing myself to see if I would crack and strangle this guy, but i'm happy to say i made it. yay me. After telling me they could drop me in Banchiao, they dropped me near an inconvenient MRT station on the far side of Taipei and I made it home 13 hours after I left. My pay, $2000 nt, about $65 us dollars. But it was kind of interesting and maybe they will give me another, better job next time since I did this one. I was going to meet richard last night, and that had to be cancelled, which was annoying. Oh well.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
acting/modeling job in chang hua pt. 1
I got a call on friday asking if I would be interested in the job. In broken English, she said something about it being in Taichung. Her English was not clear so we switched to chinese. I said, well, maybe, send me the details in an email and i will think about it. When I got the email, it said I had the job, without an audition, and it listed a taipei address. Foolishly, I assumed they had changed the address to some place people would be willing to go. I showed up, after a bad night with under 3 hours sleep, wearing my suit, and found out I had a 3 hour taxi ride to Chang hua ahead of me. I considered leaving, explained to the agent that they hadn't been clear with me, and ultimately decided to make a little money and have an adventure in a place I hadn't yet visited. The taxi was not comfortable, but I commandeered the front seat, which was bearable. At some point, one of the 2 taiwanese guys (1 was the agent, the other seemingly did nothing but smoke and annoy) started playing awful music on a cell phone, which was very annoying. I didn't sleep. We finally reached a town and they bought us lunch. The annoying guy was pushing for a boring looking lunch place - I said "bye" and went to the vietnamese place nearby. They begrudgingly followed me, and I enjoyed my lunch of sour and hot noodles with fried spring rolls in lettuce with mint and basil in sweet sauce. None of them had had vietnamese food before. The Ukrainian girl, Oksana, has lived in Taiwan for 2 years and never eats out, preferring to cook potatoes and meat for herself. She asked for something "not spicy." When I think about tying to sell food, it's people like this who scare me- no interest or adventure at all. Just eat and do the same things over and over again- nothing new. Oksana had come to taiwan to get her MA because she got the best deal here- fair enough, it just seems like a shame to me. She has learned no chinese and just took vacations to sit on the beach. I love the beach, but there is more to life.
After lunch, we sat in a 7-11 and waited for the production crew to come get us and lead us up the mountain. I had been told to bring all kinds of different clothes, so my backpack was too full to squeeze my chinese book in. I was happy to find my flashcards later- they really helped to kill time while waiting. I sat and tried to hold up a conversation with Oksana for an hour while we waited.
They came and led us up the mountain to the factory. I enjoyed the clean air and the old chinese style houses we drove by. Many Taiwanese prefer new homes, so when they get $$$ they rip down the old. In rural areas with less money, the old sometimes survives. Nice. When I came in, they put a white lab coat on me and did my makeup. Of course I didn't need any of my other clothes, just a white shirt and a tie. Then they did my makeup, which was quick. It took much longer for Oksana, and while I waited I tried the product the commercial was for. It seemed to be a special kind of mold, grown on organic rice. It was orange and brewed into a tea. When she was done, we went through an airlock, sprayed with alcohol, then more alcohol spraying, until we came to a large growing room filled with glass bottles. Mold was growing, first white, then green, finally orange and tendril-y in each bottle. I tried to find out what this stuff was supposed to do, but they could only tell me, "it's good for your health." It was funny that we went to so much trouble to decontaminate, but a guy in the crew was chewing betel nut and things really weren't that clean. With multiple long breaks, we (Oksana and I were filmed together, as the foreign scientists_ eventually did our scenes, staring in amazement at the strange, orange growth, listening and pretending to write as a taiwanese scientist explained things to us, then trying to look surprised a lot. They weren't recording sound, so we could say whatever we wanted, but it had to look like we were talking in many scenes. Oksana isn't much of a conversationalist, so I had to do most of the talking, which was a challenge. For one part, some people were yelling "smile! smile! smile!" while another was yelling "look surprised! look surprised!" and another "raise your hand!" another: "lower your hand!" and various other things in english and chinese. Try to smile and look surprised. Not that easy!
After lunch, we sat in a 7-11 and waited for the production crew to come get us and lead us up the mountain. I had been told to bring all kinds of different clothes, so my backpack was too full to squeeze my chinese book in. I was happy to find my flashcards later- they really helped to kill time while waiting. I sat and tried to hold up a conversation with Oksana for an hour while we waited.
They came and led us up the mountain to the factory. I enjoyed the clean air and the old chinese style houses we drove by. Many Taiwanese prefer new homes, so when they get $$$ they rip down the old. In rural areas with less money, the old sometimes survives. Nice. When I came in, they put a white lab coat on me and did my makeup. Of course I didn't need any of my other clothes, just a white shirt and a tie. Then they did my makeup, which was quick. It took much longer for Oksana, and while I waited I tried the product the commercial was for. It seemed to be a special kind of mold, grown on organic rice. It was orange and brewed into a tea. When she was done, we went through an airlock, sprayed with alcohol, then more alcohol spraying, until we came to a large growing room filled with glass bottles. Mold was growing, first white, then green, finally orange and tendril-y in each bottle. I tried to find out what this stuff was supposed to do, but they could only tell me, "it's good for your health." It was funny that we went to so much trouble to decontaminate, but a guy in the crew was chewing betel nut and things really weren't that clean. With multiple long breaks, we (Oksana and I were filmed together, as the foreign scientists_ eventually did our scenes, staring in amazement at the strange, orange growth, listening and pretending to write as a taiwanese scientist explained things to us, then trying to look surprised a lot. They weren't recording sound, so we could say whatever we wanted, but it had to look like we were talking in many scenes. Oksana isn't much of a conversationalist, so I had to do most of the talking, which was a challenge. For one part, some people were yelling "smile! smile! smile!" while another was yelling "look surprised! look surprised!" and another "raise your hand!" another: "lower your hand!" and various other things in english and chinese. Try to smile and look surprised. Not that easy!
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