ITALIANA - AIC Associazione Italiana Autori della Fotografia ...
ITALIANA - AIC Associazione Italiana Autori della Fotografia ...
ITALIANA - AIC Associazione Italiana Autori della Fotografia ...
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<strong>AIC</strong><br />
LNDRO<br />
All'ombra<br />
A 1 1 A 1<br />
<strong>della</strong> grande muraglia<br />
Avevo vent'ott'anni nel '56<br />
quando fui mandato in Cina: un<br />
poveraccio calato a Roma dalla<br />
I was sent to China in 1956 at the tender age of 28: a greenhorn from the<br />
provinces of Venice who had just arrived in Rome. I went to China for two<br />
months, and wound up staying there fourteen! My first contact with that<br />
magnificent country was incredible, as it was the old China: lunch with<br />
Chou En-lai, and with his Prime Minister, an extremely refined man who<br />
had studied in France. The emotional impact was also extraordinary, as<br />
I was the only member of the crew who actually "became" Chinese, living<br />
with the Chinese all the time, with a Chinese interpreter etc.<br />
I discovered a completely new world, a world that was perhaps similar to<br />
the peasant ivorld of the Veneto district Not that a Chinese and a peasant<br />
from Treviso or Belluno are identical, of course! However, they are very<br />
similar, in that they both have wonderful peasant qualities — in the most<br />
positive in the most positive sense of the word Thus, my relation ship<br />
with the Chinese was excellent<br />
The following episode will give you some idea of what I mean: We were on<br />
the Yellow River (there is also a Blue River, but the Yellow River is further<br />
north, nearer Mongolia). In the spring, the frozen waters in Tibet melt,<br />
bringing with them enormous masses of ice, which form dams across the<br />
river and block the flow of water.<br />
And from where I was standing on the bank, I could see just how wide the<br />
river was, its far bank being several kilometres away. When the ice dams<br />
melt, the waters inundate an area as big as the three Venezia regions put<br />
together, causing the deaths, by drowning, of4,000 to 5,000people, and<br />
sometimes as many as 1,000,000.<br />
At that time, the Chinese possessed Russian Uiuskin aircraft, and they<br />
used to bomb the dams, to release the water and allow it to flow<br />
downriver.<br />
We had gone to the river to film the bombardment, and had already set<br />
provincia Veneta. Vi andai per<br />
due mesi, e invece ve ne restai<br />
quattordici! Un impatto<br />
violentissimo con la Cina, la<br />
vecchia Cina che ho conosciuto.<br />
A pranzo con Ciu-En-Lai, col