简体中文
Instead of flying to Turkey at the request of his parents, Iraqi man Ahmed chose to stay in China and started a short film named "The Truth" to reveal what was really happening there at the peak of COVID-19.
As an actor in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, 26-year-old Ahmed realized that he had to do something to bust the rumors and fake news about China in recent months.
As the Chinese government encouraged hundreds of millions of people to stay indoors to break the transmission chain, Ahmed said his parents were cheated by online rumors and thought he was suffering hunger when he stayed put.
"The fact is that I can buy anything I need in a nearby supermarket," he said.
He cooperated with a Chinese screen director and made the 15-minute film starring himself, which displays what he saw and felt during the epidemic in China, including shots of many COVID-19 prevention scenes on the streets, at highway entrances and in the supermarkets.
Five years ago, Ahmed came to the city of Shizuishan in Ningxia, where his uncle's family live. He had experienced wars in Iraq and Syria and narrowly survived with a gunshot wound to his waist.
"I kept crying almost every day during the first month because I knew nothing about the new place," he said.
His first job in China was teaching Arabic. Once by chance in 2017, he was chosen to play a minor role in a movie. Since then, he has participated in the shooting of 21 films.
Before coming to China, all Ahmed knew about this country came from movies, especially Kungfu movies starring Jackie Chan. "I thought all Chinese people could play Kungfu, so I was a little scared at the very beginning," Ahmed said.
He had never expected that he could be an actor one day, let alone shooting movies with his hero Jackie Chan in 2018.
"I couldn't even breathe when I saw him in the film-making site. He said 'hello' to me in Arabic and took an ice-cream to me when we ate together. I was so excited," he said.
Ahmed has made a lot of friends and fallen in love with spicy Chinese food and beautiful sceneries, such as the snowy mountains in Sichuan Province, crystal blue sea in the island province of Hainan, and the traditional gardening architecture in Jiangsu Province.
Since the epidemic outbreak, what Ahmed has felt is safety and warmth. "I am moved by many public-spirited acts," he said. Seeing community workers work around the clock, he tried to buy them some face masks online and posted his intention on Wechat. Not long after that, he received lots of donated masks from people across the country.
This year, Ahmed is going to marry his Chinese girlfriend. They plan to open a restaurant selling both Chinese and Arabic food in the future.
"I came to China with nothing but a bitter memory on war and separation, but now I have hope, dream and a beautiful fiancee," Ahmed said, adding that he hopes the epidemic would end soon.
