Bridge 2: Life of Chengcheng
Assignment:
I created multiple deep or thought provoking questions to give to my partner, Chengcheng Cui in an interview which we would later use for a film in Studio. With the information garnered from his answers, and my memory of how the interview went, I was assigned to weave some of his own words into an original portrait using and twisting it with my own creative interpretations and additions of fictional narrative. With this profile, I also had to address the topic of forgetting, memory, or language.
Questions I asked:
- What is the story behind your name?
- What do you believe in?
- What is your biggest regret?
- Describe your biggest fear.
- Describe your favorite place.
- What do you think is the biggest problem in the world today?
- Do you think you could do something to fix it?
- What would you like to forget?
Essay:
It is nearing 2:00 in the morning and the city is falling asleep. But it is at this moment when Chengcheng wakes up on the floor of a Mcdonald’s bathroom on 14th street, cold, disoriented, and with no recollection of what had happened. He looks around at the dirty tiled walls and rusting sink, not understanding how and why he got there. He finally stands up and notices all his belongings strewn across the floor. Bending his long body, he first reaches for his headband and combs it through his long black hair, feeling satisfied by the lack of hair brushing his face. He then feels a bump on his chin and peers into the mirror to find a small cut scabbing over.
Memory flashes back to 11:30 in the morning. He woke up late, pressed the snooze button five times, and his roommates didn’t bother to break his slumber. Chengcheng never wakes up past 9. He already missed his morning meditation class. Today was not to be like any other day for this young college student. In a rush to get out the door before his favorite coffee shop closed their breakfast menu, he shrugged on his signature blue tracksuit, cut himself in the process of roughly shaving his chin, and popped a mint in his mouth, opting out of brushing his teeth.
Slowly regaining his memory of the day, Chengcheng reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumpled receipt not from the coffee shop, but a music store he’d never heard of.
12:15. The coffee shop had indeed closed their breakfast menu, so Chengcheng left the store in a hurried disappointment. Back hunched, hair hanging down his thin sleep deprived face, he dragged his beat-up Nike sneakers, in a slow shuffle, annoying a few rushed New Yorkers in the process. But his black eyes lit up as he noticed a promising music shop across the street. Chengcheng made music in his downtime, writing deep new-age poetry about his childhood in China and creating beats to accompany them. Only a select few had the privilege of Sung 3
listening to these. As he entered the shop, and took in its content and customers, he knew he had been let down. His eyes scoured through the records of mainstream pop and alt-rock, and settled on one of an underground Japanese punk-rock band. He shrugged his bony shoulders and thought, “Eh, why not. I might get some inspo.”
Chengcheng looks around for the cd on the bathroom floor, but finds only a chewed-up straw. Grossed out but a little curious, he struggles to find memory behind the object.
5:00. He wandered around the streets, going from store to store without the intention of buying anything. He walked into one, asking for a cup of tap water. With a straw. He walked out, leaving his record on the front counter, only with cup in hand, and leaned against a brick wall. He pulled out a fresh pack of cigarettes, his fingernails were long enough to cut through the plastic. He stood there, smoking cigarette after cigarette, observing the passing New Yorkers, silently judging them through his narrowed eyes. Soon half the pack was gone, and he placed the straw in his mouth, chewing it to stop himself from finishing the pack. He was only constrained by his own habits.
Napkin from “The Fat Cat”. 10:00. Bored from wandering the streets, he walked into the next bar he saw. He was tall enough to pass the half-assed inspection given by the bouncer at the front door. He ordered the cheapest drink on the menu, and sat in the corner to observe the room. He was disgusted by the lack of control people had on their primitive instincts. They threw cash to satisfy their thirst and hunger. They hit on each other to fulfill their sexual desires. But soon Chengcheng’s mind tired from the relentless judgement and analysis it was giving out, and he succumbed to his own patterns of human desire and asked to keep the drinks coming. In the midst of his drinking spree, he saw the glowing sign of McDonald’s and his stomach growled in anticipation. Sung 4
Overwhelmed by all the memories that came to him at once, Chengcheng sits in the bathroom for a couple more minutes until he walks out and hails a cab. He sits in the front seat and for the first time in the day, his body relaxes. He does not look out the window or try to talk to the driver, but just sits there and appreciates this silence and pause in his life.
Reflection:
I enjoyed writing this piece, as I do with most creative writing assignments. I started off the essay having a specific idea in my mind of how I would make Chengcheng look from the outside perspective. However, once I started thinking deeper about his answers to my questions, I realized it wouldn’t be so simple to personify him through mundane actions. I knew I wanted to do a day in a life type of structure for my essay, but I didn’t know how to make it engaging and incorporate some elements of his true personality to it. Ultimately, using my perception of Chengcheng and the information from the interview, I made his profile about a seemingly simple day but twisting with the deliberation and specific meaning behind each of his actions. A possible failure could have been its lack of deeper introspection on his character in the profile, which could have made the essay more engaging.
