Q: What image did you have of the Chinese before shooting your series on their overseas communities? Were you influenced by such stereotypes as the Hollywood images of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu?

A: I had not seen those films but I had seen Shanghai films from the 1920s and 30s and I liked their feeling very much. I had always been interested in places where cultures meet and come into conflict; Shanghai is such a place, as are the Jewish and overseas Chinese communities. I really wanted to know how the people in these communities handle cultural conflict and build a future for themselves.

Who is the "foreigner?"

My earliest impression of the Chinese came from Paris's Chinatown in the Thirteenth District, which seemed to be a completely closed world that excited people's curiosity. The inhabitants were so far away from China, yet they had their own organizations, spoke their own language, had their own stores, supermarkets, banking system and set of rules to live by--completely self-sufficient. They paid no attention to "foreigners" and would not pay attention if you wanted to take pictures of them. They were the hardest people I have ever photographed; in their world you were always just an absolute "foreigner."

Q: With such a big communication barrier, how did you break through and shoot the things you wanted?

A: I was introduced to a certain overseas Chinese man. We both grew up with the experience of cultural conflict in the face of French society and became good friends. It was through him that I established relationships with the Chinese community. Later we went to China together to travel and take photographs.

We also quarreled a lot because be had so many taboos and was sometimes very defensive, not wanting me to take pictures of what he thought was the "bad" side of things. Often when he was translating he was not willing to tell me the whole truth. The more things went this way, the more I wanted to get to the hidden story, being a photographer who wants to convey the truth.

I learnt a lot from my friend and I even went to his hometown. It was then that I found out just what a difficult affair it is for the overseas Chinese to return home. His feelings were very up and down and he did not want me to shoot certain things; he was like Santa Claus giving out Christmas presents but it was certainly not all happiness. On the contrary, there was a side that was very hard to accept.

Know thyself

The second time I went to Hongkong and found a German reporter who lived there to accompany me, thinking I might be able to communicate somewhat better this way. I never thought that on our first meeting in Hongkong I would discover he knew absolutely nothing about Chinese society. When we went to take pictures together I felt that he always seemed to be very angry and demanding and I suddenly realized that our roles had changed--he was the Westerner and I had become Chinese. I kept asking him to be a bit more patient, telling him that you could not say certain things and that other things were best left not done. It was a very special experience for me.

Q: Using intermediaries, how can you be sure that what you convey through your lens is the true picture?

A: I always thought that if you want to understand a different culture you must first carefully observe and understand your own culture, so I spent a lot of time photographing Jewish people.

Of course, I know my limits. A lot of people ask me the same question: "Looking at the Chinese community through Western eyes, will you not just come up with stereotypes?" The name of my book will be "The Eye of the Long Nose," which is important because it explains that the impressions inside are purely individual and very subjective.

Q: In your experiences of photographing Jewish and overseas Chinese communities, can you say what areas they have in common or where they are markedly different?

A: They have many common points: Due to certain historical factors both communities have been scattered throughout the world and most of their members have had to take certain jobs, such as doctors, tailors or businessmen. They also have a common respect for the family, numerous taboos and a respect for tradition.

Jewish people understand what I am doing

Of course, I realize there are also big differences. I usually felt that when I was photographing Jewish people we were speaking the same language and that they understood what I was doing. No matter whether they were in government or business, they had a high artistic and cultural sensitivity, which is part of our Jewish culture . . . .

Q: Well, I would say it is part of Chinese culture as well.

A: I would not say so with the overseas Chinese. It seems to me that the overseas Chinese artists are a minority separated from the others, who are mostly involved in business and therefore have more to hide. We were not speaking the same language. I was on an artistic or journalistic level; they were on a business basis only. If you look at my diary then you will know how frustrated I got and how many setbacks I had. They gave me a very hard time. I wanted to go beyond the stereotypes and the traditional image given to Westerners of the Chinese, but it was so difficult. Some people were just thinking of their own "advantages" and would only let me shoot in return for some kind of exchange, such as publicity.

Maybe it is part of their culture of Taoism which teaches the Chinese not to make trouble and to hide their emotions and have little contact with people outside. This is very different from the Jewish people since my parents' generation who, due to historical factors, especially World War Two, want to be rid of painful experiences and avoid a repetition of history by actively letting their children integrate into society and not be cut off.

A thousand varieties from the same grain

Q: Do you think your choice of subjects such as the overseas Chinese, Jews or Thai prostitutes, might by the very nature of such categories actually be putting people into stereotypes?

A: I have nothing against stereotypes as soon as they correspond to a reality, but I am against wrong stereotypes. For example, many people say that the Jews always think about money; in some areas the Jews are really like that, although I know plenty who are not. It is the same with the impression most Parisians have of the Chinese, that they are all hard working, smiling, clean, polite people who do not make trouble. Their image is better than that of the Arabs or black people, but I know a lot of French people who have this impression then go to China and are shocked when they see that the people there are not polite at all!

I am prepared to accept some stereotypes, then go beyond them to investigate. If you completely deny stereotypes, that is also dangerous, because some people could really be true to them. It is a very delicate situation.

Q: Are there any visual differences or similarities between the two communities you have been looking at?

A: The Chinese and the Jews both have deep cultural traditions and strong family relationships. If you want to be a good Chinese or a good Jew then you have to do things in certain ways; everyone is worried about how others see them, so you get a kind of visual tension and anxiety on the faces of many people.

A burdened people

When photographing Chinese people, they always insist that you take their best side and do not like you to shoot certain things, but it is just those things that I am specially interested in. They seem to be extremely worried about the impression they give to others, perhaps because, with a more closed and less integrated society, they are less willing than others to reveal their bad side.

I think that the overseas Chinese should learn from the Jews and try hard to open up to the out-side and integrate. It is only when immigrants can balance their own traditions with the cultural, social and even political communities of the host country that they have any future. I do think that the second generation of immigrants can do a bit better, however. In America, for example, I photographed some new immigrants and they had integrated very well. One thing my book will do, at any rate, is to let the Chinese know how they are seen by "big-nosed foreigners." Of course, the Jews should also learn a lot from the overseas Chinese.

Q: It seems to me that the image of the Chinese in the West for the past 150 years has been a very distorted one, which is why immigrants are so careful about giving a good image to outsiders and quietly go about their own business and life. You have photographed overseas Chinese societies all over the world, was their uniformity a problem for you? If so, then how did you solve it?

A: Yes, you often discover the same traditional values. Sometimes I separate my use of black-and- white and color photographs: For external things, such as traditional street festivals, I use color, while I use black-and-white to express the unseen, what is hidden. Thus in San Francisco I used color for the Chinese new year, while in New York I photographed the old and new immigrant communities in black-and-white.

I also stress different points. In Indonesia I wanted to express the oppression of the people and their Muslim beliefs, in Malaysia I shot the spirit festivals and in Taiwan I photographed patriotic old soldiers.

Who missed the best pictures?

Q: I remember several years ago I saw in the news that a group of Western photographers had gone to mainland China to take pictures and were very upset when they got home because they just missed the opportunity to take pictures of the Tienanmen Square events. What is your view of this?

A: That was in the spring of 1989 when a group of western photographers went to China to do a series on a day in the life of China. Personally, I do not like that way of doing things very much.

At that time I wanted to go to mainland China very much. I wanted to understand what democracy meant for the young people there. I wanted to draw a portrait of the youth there through examples, such as a student leader, an unemployed guy, the popular rock singer Cui Jian. After the funeral of Hu Yao- pang, I really wanted to go and take a look but could not get the financial support. At that time the media were only interested in the events in Panama and finally I could only find a tiny French magazine that was willing to give me travelling expenses. I arrived in Peking on the first day of the hunger strikes.

I began to follow the events and was very moved. This was the first time that I had seen Chinese people express their emotions so strongly and I felt that it was also the first time I had really got in among them and been accepted. I could finally relax and put all my heart into taking photographs. In the square I knew clearly that I was not just a reporter but also a person. What I came to witness was a massive growth in the strong underlying tension of the scene, which I absorbed very deeply.

A great period before the storm

Later on a lot of Western journalists arrived and of course a lot of people wanted me to supply photographs. I remember that C.N.N. alone had six camera crews, while I was on my own and without full equipment. But I believe that what they shot was all the same, while I had my own point of view.

Many people only paid attention to the suppression that came later, and the media was full of tanks and blood as if everyone had forgotten what went before. In my view that marvellous time earlier was the important point and is what holds the only hope for the future.

Q: Just now you hinted at the predictability of the media. As a news photographer you cannot avoid having to collaborate with the media, so what are your principles?

A: I have an interesting example: The first photographs I sent back to the magazine in France were taken before the massacre and they were put on page five. The layout was very creative but the cover featured a drawing of a naked woman tied up with ropes--very provocative. Even the art editor wanted the boss to change it and use one of my photographs instead, but the boss would insist, "My magazine must make money!" In the end the magazine went onto the market just as the massacre happened, causing him much regret.

I was very grateful for the support given to me by that magazine and it is interesting that, in the end, my photographs were used by a lot of magazines, including French, German and Italian publications. However, out of all of these it was only Life that had nothing to do with sex. The Western media always preach freedom, but the pressure of circulation and advertising is very big. Sometimes I am very happy with creative layouts but at other times this is not necessarily so, and I get the feeling that the editor is just using my pictures to express his own views. My principle is to first select the best and then fight as hard as I can until the last.

Patrick Zachmann held a forum to appraise the works of Taiwan's young photographers when he was in town for the opening of Magnum's "In Our Times" exhibition. (photo by Chang Yung-chih)

An image of mainland China, 1982, featured in Zachmann's book L'Oeil du Long Nez ("The Eye of the Long Nose").

A student performs street theatre before the massacre in Tienanmen Square, 1989.

A young Hassidic Jew prays before a chicken is butchered for Yom Kippur and becomes a subject for Zachmann's photo series on problems of identity. Paris, 1981.

Apartments for elderly Chinese in New York's Chinatown came under "the eye of the long nose" in 1987.

An immigrant family from Taiwan in New York's Flushing, taken in 1987 for L'Oeil du Long Nez.

An image of mainland China, 1982, featured in Zachmann's book L'Oeil du Long Nez （"The Eye of the Long Nose"）.

A student performs street theatre before the massacre in Tienanmen Square, 1989.

A young Hassidic Jew prays before a chicken is butchered for Yom Kippur and becomes a subject for Zachmann's photo series on problems of identity. Paris, 1981.

Apartments for elderly Chinese in New York's Chinatown came under "the eye of the long nose" in 1987.

An immigrant family from Taiwan in New York's Flushing, taken in 1987 for L'Oeil du Long Nez.