Villagers use a ladder to collect tea leaves in Chashu Village, Nanchuan District, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality on
Though trees cannot speak verbally, Evan Raymond Luchkow, a 32-year-old Canadian filmmaker who graduated from Vancouver Film School, made ancient tea trees his new protagonists to "tell" their story of interaction with locals in Chashu Village, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.
As a participant in the Looking China annual youth film project, which invited eight young foreign directors to film Chongqing in April, Luchkow interpreted the topic through his lens -- focusing on a sleepy village that planted tea trees thousands of years ago.
When the Canadian stepped into the village in Delong Township, surprises kept coming. The local luxuriant tea trees are so tall that people need ladders to pick their tea leaves. Besides, the harmonious co-existence between man and nature in the village also struck him.
"In Canada, the preservation of nature normally keeps humans and nature separated. I never thought they can live together. On our way into this village, I saw lots of houses cradled by these mountains, which was truly surprising," said Luchkow.
He added that the view was just like a postcard which you know must have been sent from China. Soon he was able to set the tone for the filming, which depicts a silent dialogue between trees and people.
On the one hand, for thousands of years, the tea trees have been receiving people's care and protection from generation to generation. People sing folk songs, expand tree plantation areas and protect the trees from any risk of logging.
In turn, the trees also benefit locals by yielding good-quality tea leaves and thus bringing them tangible incomes. Now, in Delong, the tea trees span a total of over 8,200 mu (about 549 hectares) and are about to yield an annual revenue of 150 million yuan (about 21.66 million U.S. dollars) this year.
Last year alone, there were around 200 households in the village that each owns tea trees covering more than 5 mu, with an average annual income of 50,000 yuan per household.
"I think if the trees can speak, they might want to deliver their grateful emotions to villagers. That's what I tried to express via the film," said the foreign film director.
During the period of shooting the film, there was also a seminar held in Nanchuan District, Chongqing. Many experts were discussing the history of tea trees in Delong.
Meanwhile, at a black tea company named Chongqing Jinshanhu Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., Wu Ke, a 33-year-old production manager, was busy processing tea leaves picked at around the time of the Qingming Festival this year.
"With the help of the professors and local publicity, I just feel so lucky to do this business," said Wu, adding that his father and grandfather didn't know much about marketing channels and only bartered the tea for other goods, instead of raking in big profits.
Wu is not the only one who chooses to stay in their hometown and do their best to protect and utilize the tea trees. Luchkow's film, "The Tree Listens," tells the millennia-long story of local villagers who actively guarded the clean water and green mountains.
In the process of documenting the tea village's history, Luchkow also found that well-known Canadian coffee brand Tim Hortons had extended its footprint to Chongqing. While local Chinese take to coffee nowadays, his friends back in Canada enjoy Chinese tea a lot.
"The communication between tea and coffee is like the exchanges between the people. That's why I choose to participate in this program for the second time, which can give me a chance to go to some places that I cannot Google and also verify the diversified culture China has," said the Canadian.
