2024
In Deshan Carrying a Bowl, a gōng'àn (koan) of a disciple questioning his master ends with a complete reversal of the master’s behavior, in some versions even with a prediction of his ultimate fate:
Yantou clapped and laughed at Deshan and said: To be celebrated, the old man got the last verse! From now on, the world cannot get hold of him. A shame, though, only three more years left to live. Three years later, Deshan died. *
After shooting thousands of documentaries on local culinary cultures across China, grassroots filmmaker Zhang Dalei made a journey halfway around the world and smuggled into the US. There, he works to this day as a masseur.
In one of his last videos before leaving China, titled Lay flat from 40 years old, sit through a whole morning in the death hut, get drunk on a kilo of Shao wine and go home , he went to a small snack bar in his hometown, where a large bowl of Shaoxing wine and two plates of snacks were offered for 16 yuan (2 euros) from early morning. A “death hut” is what this kind of place is called, Zhang explained in the video, because people come here simply to get drunk, every day, until their death. As usual, he had little vocabulary to critique the food, “Tastes bad!” He shouted after sipping the wine. Then he laughed and drank all that was left.
A connection was found in the Deshan gōng'àn: a very rigid twist, as if it is an error, a failure of the process of narration. A twist that lacks justification and stubbornly insists on being meaningless. They demonstrate the logic of a kind of true story, which contain the entire reality, the logic that the body of the story would fall apart the moment you contemplate it. It is clueless in itself, or pointless to think about. At the same time, the integrity is apparent and firm, it holds because it exists.
The project aimed to document the story of Zhang Dalei in the form of a book of film stills in two parts: a catalogue of Zhang Dalei’s career as a documentary director, listing and presenting the full body of his films; an adventure story, of Zhang’s journey in 2023 to the US, where his documentary directing career seems to be coming to an end.
The final production of the book was cancelled, following the advice of the print shop workers in Chaoyang, Beijing, it was late at night around 10pm, they (two women and a guy, young) were very tired and talking about plan to have some instant mashed potatoes, they expressed confusion and reluctance on taking this time-consuming and very expensive print job, I thus left them to the mashed potatoes, the project was presented in draft version, printed with school printer and hand-bound with cover recycled from a free book taken from Antwerp Central Station.
I thank my teacher Andrea and his visiting guest Nerijus for encouraging me to finish the project.
* Volume XVI, The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp
Full text in Chinese
雪峰在德山作飯頭，一日飯遲，德山擎鉢下法堂，雪峰曬飯巾次，見德山乃曰：鍾未鳴，鼓未打，老和尚向什麽處去？德山却歸方丈。師(岩头)在堂中聞之，拊掌曰：大小德山猶未會末後句。德山聞舉，令侍者喚師去，問：你不肯老僧那？師密啓其意。德山來日：上堂説話，異於尋常。師到僧堂，撫掌大笑云：且喜得堂頭老漢會末後句， 他後天下人不奈何。雖然如是，也秪得三年。三年後果然遷化矣。
（宋） 道原 纂《景德傳燈錄》景德傳燈録卷第十六 《吉州青原山行思禪師法嗣第五世七十二人》，乾隆藏本，第7-8頁
