They Chose China Documentary

[Karriem Drewery]

Hellodoes anybody in Jinan know Howard G. Adams, a former US GI who came to live in China after the Korean War? I saw the documentary "They Chose China" a few months ago and was fascinated by this group of men and their stories of living in China. If any body could advise if they have met Howard Adams in Jinan and have contact information, I would be most grateful.

I am not a reporter but would very much like to meet Mr. Adams in person to hear his story of living in China over the past 60 years.

Thanks,

Eamonn

If you check out the documentary "They Chose China" on Youtube, it describes the decision 21 ex-POW's made to live in China after the Korean War, a really fascinating story. If anybody knows Howard Gayle Adams (the last one remaining in China), I would appreciate if you could let me know how to contact him, he would be 88 this year.

It is unlikely but worth a shot, would be fascinating to meet the man, his story would be amazing no doubt. If you happen to come across him in Jinan or meet someone who has, would appreciate if you could let me know. Thanks

Hello Nigel, I sent you some messages on this topic back in 2013 but did not get a reply. I understand that Mr. Adams is still alive (at the age of 92) but prefers not to discuss his past, I received an email of that effect from his daughter which politely declined my request to meet him. You seem to be one of very few people that he agreed to speak to about his life in China, must have been a fascinating story. Would you be willing to share some of the details?

Regards, Eamonn

Not sure if you'll see this or not, but Howard Gayle Adams was my grandfather. I never met him obviously. His daughter, my mother was just a toddler here in the states when he went over to the war. Was just curious if you were ever able to get in touch with him? If so I would love to hear about it. Thanks.

I was a student in Shandong University about 30 years ago. Howard was my English teacher teaching spoken English. He used to call my name to answer random questions in almost every class. The University had a beautiful campus, and he could often be seen on campus riding his bike. Sometimes I played basketball by myself and saw him doing the same in the basketball court. We would have some brief conversations.

Hi Michelle; thank you for your message and the update on Mr. Adams; I actually made contact with his daughter about 10 years ago but she declined my request to speak to Howard Adams; she advised that her father was quite forgetful and did not want to speak about his past; considering that Howard Adams was born in 1925 I would be surprised if he is still alive as he would be 98 years old. One of the group of 21 POW's (David Hawkins) that moved to China after the Korean War is still alive and will be 90 this year; living quietly in the US. Regards, Eamonn

Been fascinated by Howard Adams story for a while. Hope the relationship with his family was ok after he stayed in China. There's a blog by a guy who met him in the early 80's that's a very good read.

Kate,

Thanks for the review, I'd really like to see if I can find a copy.

I'm not sure if he's mentioned in the documentary, but I have always been intrigued by Robert F. Williams. Williams was an African-American civil rights activist who lived in China during the Cultural Revolution. Fascinating story.

He's not mentioned in the film (thanks for the link to your piece on him--I missed it last year somehow), but there are references to (and some photos of) the 1950s and 1960s international community in Beijing. Anyone aware of writing on this subject?

Just a footnote. I met James Veneris in 1985 in Jinan, and he didn't seem at all like the sort of person you'd expect to take an unusual political stand; very low-key and almost shy. Aside from a few comments about how happy he was that US-China relations had warmed up, he steered the discussion away form politics. From the vantage point of 2008 what's striking about the conversation (or at least what I remember of it) is how starved he was for news about American pop culture -- something he clearly missed and had been unable to get any real access to for years. How times have changed -- I wonder where on the globe you could be that cut off from american pop culture today.

To anonymous,

I am writing a book on Western residents in China during the Mao era including a discussion of Andrew Condron. I would very much like to know what he did after he returned from China with his wife and son, and would be delighted to make contact with a relative.

for Anonymous. I am making a documentary film about the Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett. He was goof friend Andrew Condron, and I have copies of some correspondence between them that may interest you. I can be reach via: snasht AT gmail dot comuirwtksd

foarp; you are soooo wrong! People have always talked to Andrew Condron. I'm a relative of his by marriage, but didn't know all he'd been through when I first met him.

You must be very young. Andy Condron was the most honest human being I have ever met in my entire life. Painfully so.

I have the feeling that you'll say otherwise; but then, you never met him, and I did, and treasured the man; and he never made any excuses to me. What's your excuse for going off half-cocked?

I'm Shuibo Wang, the filmmaker of They Chose China. The film can be watched on Youtoube now. I couldn't find a way to contact Mr. Andrew Condron when I was working on the film. He is a great man! Please send my regards to his family.

Dear Shuibo Wang,

I'm not sure of exactly when you made your film - but Andrew Condron died in 1996. I very much enjoyed your film. I am writing a chapter on the POWs for my book on Western residents in China during the Mao era and wonder whether I could get in touch with you (or if you could get in touch with me). My email address is b.j.h...@sheffield.ac.uk

Beverley Hooper

This documentary looks really interesting, I studied Condron's story for my BA dissertation several years ago and got a very favourable impression of the man.

It is sad that these men are still treated with the 'pack of traitors' mentality they met from the Daily Mail at the time.

Condron was given a free choice whether to stay or to go home, there was no treachery in that, and numerous fellow POWs came out to testify to his good character.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Debbie Elliott. There was much talk last week about how smaller films had seized the Oscars from big Hollywood blockbusters. Well, if you really want small, forget Hollywood or even Sundance. Think the Black Maria Film and Video Festival. Black Maria, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, specializes in short, often experimental films, and instead of drawing celebrities and industry bigwigs to a red carpet or a ski resort, the Black Maria Festival takes its show on the road. From member station WHYY, Joel Rose reports. JOEL ROSE reporting: The first movie studio in the United States wasn't in Hollywood. It was here in West Orange, New Jersey. (Soundbite of traffic) Mr. JOHN COLUMBUS (Founder, Black Maria Film and Video Festival): For a movie studio, this is small, this is tiny, it's unassuming, but it did the job. This was the dark room where they developed the pictures themselves. ROSE: This is a reproduction of the primitive studio Thomas Edison built on the grounds of his laboratory in 1892. John Columbus has been coming here since he was a cub scout. He says Edison essentially built a big box on wheels. Mr. COLUMBUS: The whole building could be rotated to follow the sun, so he'd just take the whole building and rotate it with that, this roof open here and face toward the sun so there would be enough light to illuminate the actors inside. ROSE: Edison originally called it the rotating photographic building. Columbus says it was covered in black tarpaper to keep out the rain, hence the nickname. Mr. COLUMBUS: To some people, some of the vaudeville people that performed for Edison's cameras, it reminded some of them, and the workers as well, of police paddy wagons which were also known as Black Mariahs, so they nicknamed it the Black Mariah. ROSE: It was in the original Black Mariah that Edison shot some of his first motion pictures. The films were short, some just a few seconds, with titles that tended to give away most of the plot, such as Fred Ott's Sneeze and May Irwin Kiss. The studio was in operation for less than a decade, but John Columbus decided to name his festival the Black Maria in part because the works he was showing were all short. (Soundbite of film The Man Who Could Not See Far Enough) Mr. PETER ROSE (Filmmaker, The Man Who Could Not See Far Enough): This material was shot while I was walking down to the Long Island Sound from the house where I grew up in Queens... ROSE: The first Black Maria Festival included this film, called the Man Who Could Not See Far Enough by Peter Rose, no relation. It's a meditation on the nature of seeing and the death of the filmmaker's father. Festival founder John Columbus says he likes it because viewers have to think while watching it. Filmmaker Peter Rose says few would have gotten that chance if it weren't for John Columbus. Mr. ROSE: There was this sense in the early days of film that the medium hadn't yet fully been discovered, and I think John continues to feel that way. ROSE: Rose is now the head of the Film and Video Department at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where John Columbus taught a class for 10 years. Rose says the Black Maria remains very different from Sundance and other high profile festivals. Mr. ROSE: The big festivals tend to foreground feature film work which, you know, one might call independent, you know, only by a sort of a stretch of the language, I mean, the work which has, you know, a lot invested in it. John's real passion is for usually shorter, more personal, more idiosyncratic work. ROSE: In the United States, experimental and abstract film blossomed after World War II in the hands of artists Maya Deran(ph) and Stan Brackhage, among others. But experimental filmmakers often have a hard time getting their work shown. With that in mind, John Columbus raised a few thousand dollars to start the Black Maria Festival in 1981. (Soundbite of traffic) Mr. COLUMBUS: Our seed money sponsors came to the show and were a bit taken aback, to say the least, by some of the more experimental work that we showed. ROSE: In fact, Columbus says, they hated it, but he struggled on. For the first four years, he put the festival together by himself. Now he has a small jury and a staff of three to help him sort through almost 700 submissions. The jury chose about 30 films for this year's festival. Columbus and his staff picked the other 28. (Soundbite of film Mercurial Son) Mr. LURRIE BELL (Chicago Blues Guitarist): (in Mercurial Son) There's just a lot of things that's been on my mind, I couldn't understand back then, you know, and I was wonderin' why I was goin' through changes, hearing voices or whatever you, you know... Mr. COLUMBUS: I would call Mercurial Son edgy. Mr. ALVIN LARKIN (Associate Director, Black Maria): Is there a quality difference there? I mean... Mr. COLUMBUS: Well, I think edgy is important in this film festival. ROSE: Ultimately, Columbus and associate director Alvin Larkin decided to pass on Mercurial Son, a documentary about Chicago blues guitarist Lurrie Bell. There was also debate about another documentary, They Chose China, about a small group of American soldiers who decided to stay in China after the Korean War. (Soundbite of the film They Chose China) Unidentified Man: (in They Chose China)We are South Koreans, American and British who love our homes, our people and our countries. What unites us all is our desire for peace, for real democracy and social equality. Anyone who breathes the word peace in America now becomes at once a communist and an outlaw. ROSE: The jury did vote to include this one. Juror Patti Bruck teaches filmmaking at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Ms. PATTI BRUCK (Black Maria Juror): Was it propaganda? Some people really felt uncomfortable about that aspect of it, but it wasn't clear that it was and the subject matter seemed so important that people ought to know about it. ROSE: Brooks says there are a handful of other U.S. festivals devoted to short and experimental film, including the Athens, Ohio International Film and Video Festival and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. But only the Black Maria takes it's movies to the audience. The festival tailors the program to each of it's 70 or so venues. Juror Patty Brooks says it will screen different films in Anchorage, Alaska than it will in Savannah, Georgia. Ms. BROOKS: So the filmmakers get an opportunity to have their films shown in a number of places that might not have access to the films otherwise. And, another things that's really unusual about this festival is that every time a film does play somewhere, the filmmaker gets a rental fee. So the filmmakers are getting something back out of this beside just having material chosen for a festival. ROSE: But just getting their movies shown can also give filmmakers a boost. John Columbus points to a movie from last year's Black Maria Festival, called S.P.I.C. by cartoonist Robert Castillo. Mr. COLUMBUS: Wonderful hand drawn animation about a young man who happens to be Hispanic, episodes from his life. It's just uplifting and fun and clever. The representative from the Tribeca saw it and put it in the Tribeca. And then he's been getting gigs, you know, that he didn't have and offers and, even in some cases, commercials, which helps him have money to make more films. ROSE: For most filmmakers, getting their work shown in the Tribeca Film Festival is a long shot. Many aspiring film and video makers are streaming work on their own websites or distributing it directly to video ipods. But director Peter Rose, whose films have turned up in several Black Maria festivals over the years, says there's still something to be said for screening the work in a darkened room. Mr. ROSE: There's nothing like seeing your work with an audience. It's very different than looking at it on a computer screen. It's very different than looking at it on an ipod. There's a quality of attention and quality of connection with other people that you only get in a screening. ROSE: Rose and other frequent Black Maria contributors will be the focus of a 25th anniversary exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in October. Festival founder John Columbus says even the shortest films deserve to be called art. Mr. COLUMBUS: It's like in art. There's monumental paintings and there's gems that are small little pearls. They're just as valid. Not everything has to be grandiose, you know. We have enough SUV type things in this culture. But there should be a place. ROSE: Thanks to Columbus, there is. After 25 years, the Black Maria Film and Video Festival is still a lot like the work it shows. Small, under-funded and willing to take risks. For NPR News I'm Joel Rose. DEBBIE: You can watch clips from films featured in the Black Maria and find out where and when the festival will be stopping next at our website, npr.org.

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