Teahouse
I was invited to participate in a documentary project with a creative team from Beijing at the end of December 2017. The idea sounded interesting enough for me to consider moving to an old village for six months and try to film the only remaining traditional teahouse there. I ended up spending a lovely six months among the people of Zhejiang province.
Despite China's extensive urbanization, the village sits in a different reality, with its own lifestyle and culture. People's figures seem to be frozen in time repeating themselves from day to day. Due to the large number of older people and the rarity of youth, there is no one on the streets after 8 p.m. Everyone is sleeping.
The teahouse's doors open for visitors at 3 a.m., and within half an hour, a steady stream of guests come in. Each day follows this pattern. They welcome the morning with a cigarette between their teeth and a glass of tea in their hands, every day in the same manner.
As part of my photographic ethnography, I naturally encountered intriguing moments from the lives of local people while attempting to record changes in the tea house and its guests. When the local tourism business owned the tea house and proceeded to "renovate" it, they did so in order to make it more upscale and cleaner for tourists. It's a shame, but time always brings something different, and I'm glad I was able to see and share parts of my life with these people via photographs.
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Kirill Hwan (b. 1993, Sakhalin Island, Russia ) relocated to Beijing where they studied traditional Chinese culture after graduating from high school. After university, Hwan became interested in filmmaking and quickly started to participate in the production of feature films. In 2017, they joined as second cinematographer on the Centennial Tea House project for the "Golden Horse" documentary film studio. Hwan then returned to Russia in 2019 to study directing at the Moscow School of New Cinema. In addition, they also practice Chinese martial arts, photography, auteur cinema, and create contemporary art. Follow them on IG @bai_asen