The Beauty

During the summer holiday when our fourth child was in fourth grade, two or three men who said they were from a film company came to the village to see the chief. They were to shoot exteriors at Baishawan in Shimen Township and needed many extras; they asked Mingde Village to help find people.

The company people said, “Report at seven in the morning, finish at five-thirty, forty dollars a day, about ten working days—who will join?”

In those days a woman weeding in the fields earned only thirty-five dollars a day. Being an extra took longer but was much easier, and cash was paid daily, so Laomei Village, Fuqi Village, and Mingde Village together had forty or fifty sign up. Three uncles also went to help keep order.

The location was Baishawan beach. The company was Union Film, founded by the Hong Kong director Li Han-hsiang.

He had come to Taiwan to film The Beauty, with exteriors at Baishawan. The story was King Goujian of Yue, confined three years in Wu then released to return home; Yue people learning their king had safely reached the border went to the seaside to welcome him. We played Yue women. Hundreds of men were needed, so Director Li borrowed a battalion of armoured troops through connections—the scale was huge.

Every morning at half past six the women extras gathered at the bus stop outside Mingde Village. The company borrowed large army trucks to take us to work. A full load of people, we reached the site, signed in, and I was responsible for issuing costumes and handing them out. We changed wherever we could and waited under the trees for the director’s orders.

On the first day people from the company came with us.

Among the village sisters, whenever something needed coordinating they looked to me—I understood both Mandarin and Taiwanese and could communicate clearly—so the company appointed me each morning to issue costumes and each afternoon after we got off the truck to pay everyone forty dollars wages. That was work beyond being an extra, and voluntary.

Our eldest daughter was happiest: every noon she took her younger sister and two brothers on the bus to bring me lunch and watch the bustle. The children had a fine time, but we adults in the shoot were all sunburned until the skin peeled—I did not know then to buy sunscreen.

On the eighth morning the person in charge came to ask whether I could find a thin seven-year-old boy.

A scene needed three children and two mothers: fishermen returning at dawn from the open sea with full nets, slowly entering harbour; wives with sons and daughters happily welcoming husbands and fathers home from the sea.

So my son and I, with the company’s bearded man, his wife, and their son and daughter, agreed to meet at Jinshan beach for sunrise.

On the ninth night at half past two I woke our fourth child and hurried to the stop for the bus.

On board, he slept on my lap. We reached Jinshan near four. The company had borrowed the Jinshan Youth Activity Centre to shoot.

As soon as we got off, everyone rushed to make up.

Our fourth child and the bearded man’s two children put on ancient fisher-boy clothes and hats first and sat aside while the bearded man’s wife and I were made up.

When all was ready and dawn was near, we extras were excited and nervous.

Just as everyone was about to go to the beach to start, several men from the coastal defence unit told the director, “Your company wants to film on the beach without applying to coastal defence first—you may not shoot.” A moment’s oversight by the staff meant all the actors and we extras had worked for nothing. Everyone was disappointed; we removed makeup and went home.

On the way back the person in charge paid every extra, adult or child, twenty dollars regardless. It had been forty, but because the scene was not shot, wages were halved. So much time on makeup for nothing—such a pity.

Those years were still martial law; cross-strait relations were tense; filming on the beach could not be done casually.

The bearded man was a real actor; he was kind to us and much of our work came through him.

Back from Jinshan I sent our fourth child home to rest and went with them to the main location. The bearded man asked whether I would take the better costumes home to wash—the pay was good. After I agreed to take on the laundry they sent a car to take me home.

On the tenth day I sorted the costumes and took them to the beach. The seawater had turned red.

I learned the last day was a battle scene in which Yue was defeated with terrible casualties; many “dead” lay in the water and actors had to play corpses in the sea. That shot was gruelling—everyone soaked through. By the time I arrived that scene was finished; I was glad to have missed it.