“In life, there is no greater pain than this type of bereavement,” said Hualun Wang, the father of Peng Wang, a Chapman University student from China who died in an accident on a USC student film shoot.
Moviemaking was 29-year-old cinematographer’s dream. He grew up in a small town in northern Sichuan province, where his family ran a small convenience store and scrimped and saved everything to support their son’s filmmaking career.
He spoke at the three memorials for Wang, including one attended by 200 classmates, friends and colleagues at Chapman University.“He was so much of a philosopher and a beautiful human being,” Jensen said, his voice quavering. “He wanted to help poor people in China. He had grand ideas of how we could all live better, together.”
Around 2015, he left China for the U.S., earning a film studies degree from the University of Minnesota. He then went on to Chapman’s graduate program in Orange. After he graduated, Wang had hoped to return to China to help independent filmmakers there. His father said that he traveled to Africa to make public service films and also to underdeveloped areas in China to teach.
Without translators, Hualun said he hasn’t been able to speak with police and has not been in touch with USC or the students who were in the vehicle with Wang."[Peng was] a very cautious person,” Wang said. “He was in the habit of wearing his seatbelt.”