Bohe With the Sea

I was born in Maoming, Guangdong Province, a small third-tier city in southern China with a quiet and slow pace of life. Situated on the south coast of Maoming, Bohe provides a more peaceful and simple life for people to live here, supported by fishing and related processing and transportation industries. When I was in high school, I had many classmates from Bohe, who often told me about their lives growing up by the sea, running to the beach at dusk, listening to the sound of the waves and collecting shells. I always longed for such a comfortable and relaxing life. The first time I went to Bohe, the dock captured my heart with the fishy smell in the air and the bustling fishing market with people coming and going. I witnessed how these people acted as their roles in the industrial chain on the dock, doing their job in a full-fledged fish processing and transportation industry brought about by the traditions. I also perceived how, starting with the prime generations, people have slowly drifted away from the conventional fishing industry, away from the sea, just for a smoother life and a way to sustain it. And when I followed an old fisherman couple to the offshore netting, I recognized the dependence of the old generation toward the sea. In this short documentary film, Bohe with the sea, I focused on fragments of the daily life of contemporaries of Bohe in a completely objective way to link up their collective memories. Also, via this short film, I hope to represent the connection between Bohe and the sea, with the three generations living here.