Of all the subjects I’ve had the chance to film, Zhang Bingai took the longest to warm up to me and reveal herself. We’d known each other for eight years before she confided to me the story of her life. When there is water about to rise up and submerge your house, and you are burdened by the huge pressure to make final decisions, all the memories of your rough life come raging out like floodwaters breaking through a dam. I was caught in this riptide and I drifted, unable to move at all, enveloped in a story I felt as though I had heard before, and I even shuddered for an instant with the feeling that I had touched her soul. As Bingai talked unhesitatingly to the camera in between her busy farm work and heated negotiations with officials, I understood how all her past choices and actions were based on her own life experiences. As I was editing Bingai, I came to realize that parallels emerged between her history and current situation entirely in the order in which the scenes were shot. A life’s richness and complexity goes far beyond our imagination. This coincidence made me lament over my silly and unnecessary efforts to try to “compose” the film.