The Careful and Amorous Project
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We met a guesthouse one morning. She started talking. "Amorous is my husband. He's sick. Something he ate."
Careful is 31. She was born in Xinjiang, China.
In 1991 while working for Ramada International Hotels in Beijing I traveled to Xinjiang to act in a movie about a hero who dies at his post. They needed a foreigner. My Swiss GM said, "Go for it." For ten days we filmed at the Chinese National Petroleum oil fields deep in the Tarim Basin. I wrote about this little adventure in my traveling novel, A Century Is Nothing.
She remembered the film and famous scientist. He developed a new drilling technique. He died at his isolated post surrounded by test tubes, mathematical scribbles, rusty oil drilling rigs and sand dunes. Then the Chinese Communist Party Propaganda Department had to approve film scripts depicting famous heroes. Especially dead scientific-political ones. He's in the Chinese national scientific hall of fame.
She's a freelance magazine editor in Shanghai. Amorous is an engineer from San Detour, California. He designs financial surf boards studying the effects of wave theory using electromagnetic pulse detectors. They met at a house party in Shanghai.
"When he came in I saw a deer," she said. She was the hunter and he was the prey. She is highly talkative. He is brilliant and taciturn. They dated for a year and married last year. First in her home town of Hubai province and then in Tomorrow Land.
They got her residency card. They returned to China and quit their jobs. They hit life's highway.
Careful remembers everything, especially the long ago past.
"When I was a little girl growing up in Xinjiang, all I wanted was a book. I grew up with mountains and rivers. One day I saw a newspaper floating in the water. I dried it out and tried to read it. I couldn't. Then, when I went to school there was a girl - her father worked with my father as a public servant - and her family was well off. She had books. I didn't like her but I pretended to so I could see her books. That's how I started to read.
"It was a real struggle for me in Shanghai. I had no formal education, but I could write. I forged a C.V. and got on with an advertising company. Good money. I was looking for the perfect love. Then I met Amorous."
"I want a home," she said. "We'll need to make a decison by May," he said. "We either return to the states or find new jobs in China."
"Look," she said, "I'm in my early 30's. I want to start a family. I need a child."
"First we need a home," he said. "Everything's in storage."
"Ok," she said. "After we're done traveling and doing this project, we'll decided where we want to live."
"Fine."
"It was my idea this project," she said. "Amorous agreed."
The project involves using various masks and props to create mysterious, surreal images around Asia. They plan their shooting schedule, Careful wears the costumes and Amorous makes the images in a raw format.
They won an Oscar this year for:
"Best Supporting Partner While Traveling For A Year in Southeast Asia While Working On A Crazy Yet Meaningful Artistic Project In Diverse Exotic Locations Using Bizarre Masks and Costumes."
Metta.
Careful in Lhasa, Tibet.
Careful in Cambodia.
