In January, 2016, a three-episode TV documentary, Masters in Forbidden City, was broadcast on China Central Television. It soon became popular—the first episode alone has been watched nearly 1 million times so far on the video website bilibili.com.
Now the documentary has been made into a film, and came out on Dec 16, 2016. It is about how professional antiquity restorers (文物修复者) in the Forbidden City repair ancient paintings, calligraphy, clocks and bronze pieces. It may not sound exciting, but the restorers' patience and their 100 percent focus on even the smallest things is enough to impress people.
In fact, many of the restorers are young people. It has also made the documentary popular among their peers(同龄人), as it has shown them possibility of a different lifestyle. After Masters in Forbidden City was broadcast, about 20,000 people applied to work in the Forbidden City. Most of them were new college graduates.
The job has become popular. So have the restorers. But was it difficult to be part of a documentary? "It was only supposed to be difficult for the director, not for us. We simply did our jobs, paying no attention to anyone else around." said Shi Liancang, one of the restorers, when asked during the film's premiere(首映) in Shanghai. To make the documentary, the production team also did five years of pre-research and four months of uninterrupted(连续的) filming in the Forbidden City.
Indeed, these restorers keep this peaceful state of mind and devote themselves to doing the same thing they deeply love day after day. As the poster for the documentary says, "Choose a career and do it for a lifetime."
