The Real Thing

Only a few hours ago, my mouth was open for approximately 30 minutes in a random room in Abuja. I was seated on a swivel chair, with my ankles interlocked and my fingers interlaced on my lap, as my glossed lips were contorted in different shapes in reaction to what was happening in the room. There were about 5 other people in this room at the same time and they too were in that posture, or something similar. Seated, at rest, fixated on, and in wonder of what we were all experiencing. Maybe they didn’t open their mouths as much as I did, but I…I was transfixed, and very unbothered by how I must have looked the whole time. Something was happening in my mind and in my heart. I was not going to interrupt it with thoughts of my own embarrassment.

I was at the VR viewing of a short documentary titled, ‘The Real Thing’. On arriving at the venue, this was all I knew; that it was a VR experience, and I was going to enjoy it as the flyers had led me to believe. I had done no research about how I’d spend these minutes of my life. I just drove my Emmanuella¹ to the venue, expecting to have a pleasant Friday evening. I walked into the room for the viewing and was initially confused. But before I was able to comprehend the surroundings, I was beckoned by the nice lady to sit in for the experience. She gently placed the googles on my eyes, and put the ear piece in my ears. Almost immediately, the outside world and the 5 other people in the room were no longer of concern to me. I was in a different place, a different world.

The first scene of the film showed a coat rail of bridal dresses. But you see, it didn’t just ‘show’ me the dresses. I was in the room where these dresses were. I turned left and right and it seemed like I was in a museum of wedding dresses of sorts. In my ears, were sounds of a man speaking Mandarin. There were subtitles on the screen, in front of my eyes, but I was still trying to understand what this experience was about, and so I did not begin to read the subtitles immediately. I just continued to watch. Next thing I saw was the Eiffel Tower, and so I immediately believed that the experience was about Chinese migrants living in Paris. Their faces and the buildings were so up-close to me that it felt like I was there with them. The film continued, I realised that my understanding was false. As I kept watching, I saw more Chinese migrants in Venice, at the London Bridge, and then I began to understand what was going on. These were not Chinese migrants living in these places. These places that I was taken to, with the sounds and sights of children running, and people laughing and dancing on the streets, were in fact in China. I was in the replicas of these places, right there in the Shanghai region of China.

In Tianducheng, where the replica of the Eiffel Tower is, I watched children not too far from it, drawing their own mini replicas of this important landmark, with their crayons. I looked at the children and their scrawny drawings and I smiled at their cute faces, because remember, I was there with them. Suddenly, I was on a gondola on the Green Canal in Venice. Only when I turned to my back with the VR googles, did I see the Asian gondolier and his row, and was reminded again, that I was actually in Asia and not in Europe. The sound of the water was so clear and the houses on the left and right of the canal were so vivid.

In the final scenes of the documentary, it cut to this part about a photographer. There’s a London Bridge replica where newly wedded Chinese couples come to be photographed by him. He spoke about how much of a luxury owning a camera was in the part of China he came from, and now he is able to own one and be thrilled by all the pictures he can take with it. There were different couples in their wedding outfits, posing at different points, having their pictures taken and I was standing right there with them. “I’m sure that when I see the real London bridge eventually, I will know it inside out because of how much I know this one.” He said this, as if he not only spoke to the interviewer, but also to me. I smiled, knowing that he was certainly speaking to me. The experience ended and I went to speak to the nice lady who catered to me earlier. We chatted about the experience for a while, and I left to return to Emmanuella, and to my home.

On my drive home, I became painfully aware of how I was no longer in the VR experience. I honked at belligerent drivers, and wound my windows down, hoping that a semblance of breeze would touch my forehead now that I had wiped my sweat from my brow. My mind went back to the photographer and his certainty about visiting the London Bridge one day and being conversant with it. His level of audacity was so endearing that I found myself even now, nodding with respect. I did find it interesting that yet another person, served as a reminder for the need of visualization. Something Ndidi, had already done in the previous week. This fictional being from my head, landed on a blank sheet with a message to resonate with a week later. Amidst the blare of the horns behind me, I was amused and pleased.

There are places to go, places to see, dreams to turn into reality. Sometimes, before the real thing, is the replica, the miniature, the figment of imagination. The motorist behind me honked at me. I looked at the standstill traffic in front of me, looked into my rearview mirror and rolled my eyes. I suddenly remembered this old song and searched for it on YouTube. I looked into the rearview mirror again to look at the driver. We both had places to go but we were both here now. We would be fine.

1. My car.