angst (fear) i - ix

Recordings at railway stations and train journeys in Uzbekistan as well as of border control on the train during entry from Kazakhstan. Overcrowded echoing rooms, minor noise, supposed silence on the train, border officials.
7:54

Marching music of the military parade, the office for special authorisations to travel to autonomous regions and the border with Afghanistan, Tacht-I-Sanghin in the Afghan border region, gun salutes on Independence Day.
6:46

Footage of a small market in Ürümqi with conversations and sales pitches by the traders. Again and again and more and more interspersed with Han Chinese music playing in the public space.
5:14

Recordings of the security checks at the entrance to Barkhor Square in the centre of Lhasa. Radios and announcements in Mandarin. Prayers of pilgrims, bells of the Maytreya temple.
7:12

Recordings from restaurants, under bridges, of gamblers, from the Forbidden City, from a manhole.
8:48

Recordings of everyday scenes. Waterfront promenade, crowds of spectators after a festival, parks, malls. Regularly cancelled out by noise (recordings of ventilation, etc.).
7:30

Recordings of the changing of the guard at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, from malls, parks, markets, amusement arcades and temples.
3:38

Recordings of the checkpoint at the entrance and exit to the Demilitarised Zone, enclosing all belongings in front of the infiltration tunnel.
3:44

Recordings from the Trans-Siberian railway, Lake Baikal, Orthodox cathedrals, Red Square.
9:15

fear i
Uzbekistan.
I am sitting on a train. In the compartment with me are two Russian tourists and a Karakalpak man. Karakalpakistan is an autonomous republic in western Uzbekistan. The atmosphere is good. We chat and listen to music together. Then I ask for interviews for my project. The two Russians immediately agree. The Karakalpak waves me off. One of the Russians tries to persuade him, I find it intrusive and also refuse. But she doesn’t let up. The man is very friendly, so of necessity he agrees. She asks him my questions in Russian and he answers in Karakalpak. She is disappointed that he gives almost no answer. He vehemently refuses to take a photo as a souvenir.

fear ii
Tajikistan.
I see a military parade in Chudzhand. As it disperses, I want to walk through it, take in the sound. A man in civilian clothes with a suit approaches me skeptically: Journalist? Tourist, I reply. He continues to watch me until he disappears into a building.
In Dushanbe, I see a policeman repeatedly hitting the driver on the back of the head during a road check. The driver, an imposing Tajik, ducks down and waits for it to stop.
During an interview that I conduct in the Pamir Mountains, a farmer tells me that the president is a good president and cares a lot about his people. No relation to the interview.

fear iii
Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Armored military vehicles are parked at the major intersections in Kashgar and Urumqi. Two soldiers stand back to back, machine guns at the ready. Police officers check men everywhere in the streets. They stop them, their ID is demanded, photographed and checked. Then the smartphone is held close to the face, photo, comparison. On the way to work, to the shops. All the time.
I’m walking down an alley. Two police officers call me. When I answer in English, I am allowed to move on.
I realize that it’s not just the hairs on the back of my neck that are standing on end.

fear iv
Tibet Autonomous Region.
There is also a high police presence in Lhasa. If I want to go to the square around the Jokhang Temple in the center of Lhasa, I have to go through a police checkpoint like everyone else. My ID is checked and my bags are x-rayed. As we drive to a monastery outside Lhasa, I keep seeing military columns.
I Ask people I get in contact with for interviews. For days, they keep asking me if I am a journalist. Until they trust me and answer my questions about my project. One person later tells me his life story. He tells me about “interrogations” by security forces that continue to this day. When he tells me about it, he asks in advance if I’m not recording and to switch off my cell phone.

fear v
China.
To be allowed onto Tiananmen Square, you have to get a ticket online in advance. It is cordoned off by security forces.
In all the cities I’ve been to, there are countless cameras for surveillance. There are security checks at every subway station, as well as at the train stations. During a train journey, I interviewed a young woman who said she was a member of the Communist Party. When I ask her about political influences, she replies that she doesn’t understand anything about it and would rather not answer.

anxiety vi
Hong Kong.
Since the protest crackdown in 2019, there has been a depressive mood among the progressive people in society. Many people are in prison or have gone abroad. Many are without hope that there is a way back to freedom of expression. The new security laws are taking effect.
I strike up a conversation with a pensioner in a temple. He had been a translator into Japanese. Would he give me an interview? He would like to ask the gods first. Let them decide. But before he asks them, he turns to me twice, already waving the incense sticks. Really no politics?

fear vii
In Taiwan, people speak freely. Their fear of an invasion of mainland China is great and justified by the statements of the government in Beijing. When I read about the history of Taiwan in a museum in Fuzhou in mainland China, I am presented with statements by scholars from earlier centuries that there were no inhabitants on Taiwan before the Chinese moved from the Fujian region. A cleverly placed historical falsification.

fear viii
South Korea (DMZ)
You can enter the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea only in a group. First we pass a checkpoint with South Korean and US soldiers. After a few stops, we arrive at the entrance to an infiltration tunnel that is said to have been dug by North Korea. We lock up all our belongings, including our smartphones, and go down seventy meters before we reach the actual tunnel. One by one, we walk to a concrete wall with a small pane of glass through which we look at the next concrete wall. In the middle, mystical plants grow in the bright tunnel light. Now we are really below the demarcation line.

fear ix
Russian Federation.
I’m on the Trans-Siberian Railway on my way from Vladivostok to Baikal. In my compartment are two oil workers and a bus driver for the military. No politics! Says one of the workers at the very beginning. When the driver starts later, he quickly interrupts him. You don’t know who’s listening. Agent! He shouts again and again, pointing at everyone who walks past the compartment. Agent! He tries to make a joke out of it, but I can clearly see the fear in his face.