Today Eumi and I were in Wendy’s short film/film exercise.

Wendy writes stories about Asian American people; both of us want to be storytellers. My chosen medium is the printed word but Wendy’s is film. Film is probably better, no?

Wendy is the only one out of all of us going to film school. It is all of our hopes that one day she will become a brilliant and famous director. Then we can all cash in and ride some serious coattails.

The Assistant Cameraperson taking light meter readings off of my intensely reflective head. You can’t tell in this photo but when the sun hits it just right it blinds passing pilots, causing planes to fall out of the sky.

Eumi had a lot of close-ups, which is hard for her because she’s camera-shy. The camera loves Eumi but Eumi doesn’t love the camera. It is a tragic romance between a human being and a Panaflex.

Here I am carrying the battery pack. It is attached to the camera so I couldn’t go very far. With the batteries slung over my shoulder I felt I resembled Chewbacca so I thought I should take an “I am a Korean Chewbacca” photo.

The Panaflex continues to pine.

I crashed on Wendy’s floor in Beijing. If I knew you I would sleep on your floor too. Her Chinese boyfriend broke her name into two distinct syllables, clearly pronouncing it “Wen Dee.” I thought that was kind of cute.

Here it looks as if Wen Dee is making some histrionic directorial gesture, but in fact she is throwing a red pepper in the air and catching it, happily, in the manner of a little girl. I tried to capture the red pepper while it was in the air but I am a hit-or-miss photographer.

When it’s not your turn to carry the battery pack or “act,” there’s a lot of downtime. Luckily MB lent me a copy of “Shanghai Baby.” I’m only fifteen pages into it but so far so good.