The Chinese Saumon (2022)

2022 European Cinematography Awards, Best Student Director

The Chinese Saumon is about identities and contradictions. This documentary presents a story about a Chinese immigrant family living in Paris who runs a Japanese restaurant. The story is divided into four parts: Dad, Mom and Daughter, ‘Aunt’ and Son. Each part talks about a specific member of this family, yet not confined to the character itself. The ambition for this tetralogy is trying to find the vague connection between each part, and emphasising the affinity and distance between them. The couple came from Wenzhou, one of the most famous immigration origin cities in China. Before departure, they had no ideas about why going abroad. However, some primitive impulse drove them to follow their ancestors, to see ‘what the world like’. In France and most of the Western world, Chinese immigrants at the very beginning could only get some ‘lower-occupations’ like restaurant waiter, and this becomes an inertia. The Chinese dish was widely known as cheap fast food, so the former taxi driver, the dad, decided to learn ‘the fine dining’— Japanese cuisine and slowly crawled along from an apprentice to a restaurant owner.

As their business grew, their family ties slowly began to be forged. Their daughter and son were born in France, they were raised as Chinese inside the family, yet exposed in the public space as French. This blurred identity as well hampered the build-up of the rapport between them and their parents. They did not follow the traditional stereotyped Asian career: to study hard, to become a good student. Instead, they dropped out from their school, and determined to carrying on the family's catering business…

August 2022

Paris, France

Haotian LIN