Here are some upcoming screening dates for my documentary FAMILY INC.: 

San Diego Asian American Film Festival
Sat, Oct. 11 @ 1:10 pm
Wed, Oct. 15 @ 4:00 pm *FREE SCREENING

Austin Asian American Film Festival
Sun, Oct. 12 @ 12:00 pm

Pacific Rim Film Festival (in Santa Cruz)
Sat, Oct. 18 @ 2:00 pm *FREE SCREENING

If you live in the area, please come and support the film. My co-director Helen will be present at most of the screenings for Q&A. 

After China's glorious coming out party last night, it's actually pretty good timing to check out Sue Williams' Young and Restless in China, now available on DVD (and in our local HMV store).

Filmed over a period of 4 years, the documentary follows a myriad of young men and women as they're trying to find their way in life, work, and love against the backdrop of a nation that is globalizing in record speed. The characters include everyone from an internet cafe entrepreneur to a migrant worker to a local rapper to a medical resident. At first I thought there may have been too many characters for me to follow (I think there are 9 in total) but each tells their story with such openness and unabashed honesty that by the end of their 4 year journey, you delight at witnessing everyone's transformation and growth. Anyway, I definitely recommend it...

After YEARS of anticipation, the Olympics is finally here!

The Olympics opening ceremony has much in common with the Oscars:  the bloated overproduction, the endless cheesy song and dance, and how it's able to take itself oh so seriously through it all. Yet, you know that you will not miss it for the world.

But being Chinese and living in Hong Kong, you just can't help but being biased and be swept up in the sheer excitement of it all. You gotta love a country who gives the whole nation a day off on Olympics day (even though many will be expected to go right back to work over the weekend).  And you know, as bloated and cheesy as the opening ceremony was, it still delivered so many wow moments that took my breath away.

Gotta start with the drummers! I felt like all the extras from "Red Cliff" showed up for the occasion and delivered a more entertaining time. It was like watching a Chinese epic LIVE. The ceremony paid tribute to everything from the  movable type, to the Silk Road, to the Terra Cotta Solider, to the compass, to even the kite, which apparently were all invented by the Chinese. Each act flowed into the next beautifully and each act tops the one before. My favorite has got to be the building of the bird nest w/in the birdnest. Ha, clever.

The festivities end with another  spectacular dislplay of fireworks. Yes, it was not low on cheese factor but at least it didn't have any outright cringe worthy moments like the pick up trucks at the Atlanta opening ceremonies. Twelve years later, yes, I still remember. It's great to see the Chinese take so much pride in itself on a night like this. Despite all the shit that has gone down recently, they deserve a night like this.

The athletes have started to come in. Greece is always the first. I love watching the marching of the athletes because I feel like it's a great geogphraphy lesson. There are always countries I have never heard of before that I'm embarrassingly discovering for the first time.

And out of nowhere comes "Chinese Taipei" and probably the hugest cheers up until then. It took me a second to realize that this was the Taiwanese team. I've obviously been livining under a rock as I had no idea the name was changed for the Olympics. But you know, after over almost 60 years of cold war, it's nice to see the "Chinese Taipeinese" so warmly welcomed at the games . It's one world, one dream after all. Soon follows is Chinese Hong Kong which drew equal amount of cheers.

Wow, after countless of countries have marched by and met w/ quiet applause, Iraq got the biggest cheers after the two Chinese "cities." Iran, which came right after, were met with much less enthusiasm.

So apparently NBC is not broadcasting the opening ceremony live at all, which is certainly a change of pace since we normally. Every year during the Oscars, I have to "call in sick" on Monday just so I can watch. This is certainly one of the perks of having the games in your country. At least you know you will not have to watch any crucial games at 3:00 am in the morning!

Taking break from blogging...be back later.

This is the short film I made right before I came to HK...


Video: http://www.atom.com/funny_videos/one_night_stand/

Have you ever been to a party where you didn't know anyone, not even the host, where you're not even sure if you are even really truly invited in the first place? This was my worst fear as I went to my first AND event today - a boat trip where if no one ends up talking to me or if I didn't like anyone on board, I would have nowhere to escape to for 7 whole hours! Yet I knew that I just had to go to this event, not because it was a beautiful Sunday and I had nothing else to do anyway.. to understand the importance of this seemingly insignificant Sunday outing we would have to backtrack 3 years...

Three 1/2 years ago, my father demanded that I pay him back for putting me through college by coming to Hong Kong to help him run the family toy business. Actually, my father's been demanding that of me my entire life. But 3 years ago, he finally succeeded. I gave up. I wanted to come to HK to get my sentence over with and shut him up for good. I told myself I would do it for only one year and then I'm free to go back to NY. For reasons too complicated and longwinded to go into here, one year turned into two, two rolled into three, and by the end of this year, I would've been in HK for four years. Yet, every year, I still make a promise to myself (and a threat to my dad) that this year would be the LAST. And so, I never bothered to learn Cantonese and I never bothered to make any real friends or make any real efforts to pursue my filmmaking interests here. I told my dad that I would hate Hong Kong and I made it my mission to make it true. But who am I really punishing but myself?

So I decided to start making an effort. I want to meet people in HK who *gasp* actually really love it here and want to be here. I want to meet people who are actively pursuing the arts here in HK (proving me wrong that the two have to be mutually exclusive). I knew that these ppl all existed before but I refused to believe it because I just cannot accept the fact that I might actually like it here. Because then, my dad wins right? Bear in my mind that my dad was never around during my teenage years, so I guess I'm finally hitting my "rebellious age" now. But deep down, I knew, who am I fooling, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon and whenever I go "home" to New York I know that secretly I always end up missing parts of HK.

So a few google searches led me to this site and a whole community of artists, which completely opened my eyes.  4 days after joining, I get a mass invite to go on a boat trip with complete strangers. Most sane ppl would probably not venture on a boat where they know absolutely no one, and with no buffer friends in tow, but I knew that I had to do this on my own. It was important for me to at least make this effort if I ever want to try to make Hong Kong home.

And of course, there was nothing to worry about. This is a social networking site afterall. A boat full of a social networking site members will undoubtedly be social. I made some great contacts today that I hope I'll get to keep in touch with! If not, hey, just making the effort was a big enough step for me!