She, a Chinese

Took the girls to Chaoyang Park for a couple of rides at the funfair and some tobogganing down an artificial hill. Freezing cold (-10C) but fun and good to get out. Less fun was Liz's continued toothache and a rather miserable film, She, a Chinese. It's about a young country girl who moves to Chongqing for work and then, through a twist of fate, ends up in London. The director, Xiaolu Guo, was herself from a peasant family, studied film-making in Beijing and then moved to London in 2002, so there's probably some of her story in this too. Full marks to her for securing the backing of Film 4 etc, as well as getting John Parrish (of PJ Harvey fame) to score the music - all on a shoestring I'm sure. The main character's time in China is bleak, but her experience in London isn't much better, which includes marrying an elderly widower and a relationship with a young Indian immigrant, and ends with her staring out to sea, heavily pregnant by the latter. Guo is actually better known for her novels. Her third, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers, was nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction.