First off, apologies for the tardiness in getting this entry up. After the UC Irvine screening, I realized that I never wrote about the UC Santa Cruz showing that was held on January 25, 2010. This happened during the big winter storms here in the Bay Area. Fortunately, when we drove down to Santa Cruz, it wasn’t raining too much; it helped that we took Highway 17 when it wasn’t busy with commuter traffic. I’ve driven in that once or twice, and it’s not fun when there’s no rain, let alone a torrential downpour!

Department of History Professor, Gail Hershatter, greeted us when we arrive at the University. We had dinner with several of her graduate students before heading over to Merrill College Room 102. Due to the weather, Rae and I weren’t sure how many people would come, but we were pleasantly surprised to have over thirty students and faculty members present.

At the time of this writing, we’re getting ready to embark on our two and a half week tour to Las Vegas, Arizona, Maryland, Boston, New Jersey and New York. I’ve reread my packing strategy and packing recap posts from our October 2009 tour, and I’ve been making the necessary adjustments to get our load down to just two carry-on items for the entire trip. I’ll have a full post about this before we leave. In the meantime, here are a few photos from our UC Santa Cruz screening.

Adam and Rae with Qiu Jin's great-grandnephew!

This past Saturday, we screened Autumn Gem at the Willow Glen Branch Library in San Jose. The event was sponsored by the local chapter of the American Association of University Women, an organization dedicated to advancing “equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, philanthropy and research.” Marilyn, Linda, Mary, and the rest of the AAUW staff did an excellent job advertising the event. We filled up the Community Room to capacity with 63 people! Also in attendance was Kien-Wei, our friend who played one of the Qing soldiers in the film.

During the question and answer session, a question was asked about the whereabouts of Qiu Jin’s descendants. I mentioned that we’ve tried to locate Qiu Jin’s granddaughter, but have not yet been successful. “You just can’t enter Qiu Jin’s Granddaughter” in Google or Facebook and hope to get the address!” Imagine our surprise near the end of the Q&A when a Chinese gentleman in the front row raised his hand and stated that he was the great grandnephew of Qiu Jin! Charles then explained that he was very moved and honored watching our documentary. Suffice it to say, we were honored to have him at our screening!

Following the film, the AAUW held a reception for us in its house just next door to the library. Over delectable cookies and juice, we discussed the film and our future plans with the attendees. We also spoke at length with Charles and his wife; we’re looking forward to talking with him further about his memories of Qiu Jin from his parents and grandparents!

Last week, Rae and I traveled down to Southern California for a screening at UC Irvine. Professor Hu Ying, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages & Literature, was one of our three academic interview subjects in Autumn Gem. We showed the film at Connecticut College and Brown University during our October 2009 tour, so we were excited to complete our scholarly tour!

We drove down a few days before to meet up with filmmaker Arthur Dong, who screened his latest documentary Hollywood Chinese at the South Pasadena Library on Thursday. Meeting with him on Saturday at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles, we discussed methods to better market the film to our core audience of educational institutions and Chinese/women’s organizations.

On Tuesday, we returned to UC Irvine for the first time since we interviewed Professor Hu Ying in May, 2008. It certainly doesn’t feel like nearly two years have passed! We attended her Gender in Chinese Poetry class and listened to three of her students presenting their interpretations of Qiu Jin’s poems. Although the English translations were different, I could immediately identify some of the ones we used in Autumn Gem. Following lunch at the University Club, Rae and I retired to the spacious Student Center to get some work done before the screening. A few hours later, we headed to the McCormick Theater in the new Humanities Center building.

There was a slight problem with the AV cable in McCormick. The sound cable was attached to the VGA cable, but it was too short and couldn’t reach the sound-out port on Rae’s MacBook Pro. I didn’t bring a female-to-female extender cable (won’t make that mistake again), but I did have my MacBook Pro, which has all the ports on the same side. Running the presentation and film off that computer proves the point, “Always have a backup plan!”

By 7:00 pm, the theater completely packed with students, faculty and some people from outside the school. Thanks to all of the professors who brought their students to the screening; we appreciate the large turnout you helped bring! Along with Professor Hu Ying, Li Jing joined us for the Q&A session. One person asked who did the Chinese calligraphy in the film — that was the handwork of Li Jing, my Mom and Rae’s mom.

There was a question about how the re-emergence of Confucianism today was viewed by Chinese women today. In the film, we mentioned how women were not seen positively through the Confucian lens during the Qing Dynasty. Scholars at the time may have distorted Confucius’ teachings to suit their own agenda.

Our next screening will be next Saturday, March 13, 1:00 pm, at the Willow Glen Public Library. It’s sponsored by the American Association of University Women.

Finally, big thanks to Andy/Irene, Walt/Judy and Dave/Audrey for letting us stay at their respective houses in SoCal. And now for some photos from our screening at Irvine!

This week, we updated the look and feel of the Autumn Gem web site. The original site was blog-centric and was appropriate when we were in production and post-production. With the film complete, we’re switching the web site to focus on the finished product. You can learn about the film, attend one of our upcoming screenings, learn how to support the film or buy the DVD.

Don’t worry, we’ll continue to update the News section with recaps from our tour, press mentions, post-production notes and travel tips.

Let us know what you think about the new site!

Click on the image to see the large version. Feel free to send this to your friends and family. Our goal is to fill up Cubberley Auditorium, which seats 500 people. Help us reach that goal!

Normally, we play the movie off of Rae’s MacBook Pro. Everything was going fine until the midway point in the film when the video completely froze and the audio started repeating! QuickTime X was completely unresponsive and force quitting (command-option-escape) would not work. Fortunately, I had also brought my own MacBook Pro as a backup for this very situation. While Rae answered a few questions from the crowd, I quickly got my MBP set up with the projector and sound system. The rest of the screening went off without any major issues. Phew!

During the Q&A session, someone asked about airing this film on PBS. We reiterated our desire to have the film shown on television. For us, it’s a matter of finding the right contacts and going through the proper channels. If any readers have any contacts, please let us know!

Following the screening, we headed down to Stanford to pick up posters that the Center for East Asian Studies had made for us. We didn’t have much time to talk with the staff there, as we had to get back to our house for an interview with the Palo Alto Weekly. Back in 2003, I had done a photo internship with the Weekly; now, six years later, we’re the ones getting featured!

Here are some photos from the City College of San Francisco screening. Now, it’s on to publicizing our Stanford and Berkeley screenings on 11/30 and 12/3. Help us spread the word!

• Sing Tao Daily – Boston Screening
• Autumn Gem: The Life of Qiu Jin – J.B Spins, New York Screening
• “Maidens, take up arms!” – The Fword Online, University of Pennsylvania Screening

If you come across any additional blog or newspaper reviews, send them our way!

Our last stop was at the University of Pennsylvania. Following the screening at the Evergreen Senior Club in Delaware, Uncle Don drove us to Philadelphia. World Series fever was in the air, as we saw many banners for the Phillies, as well as people sporting Phillies jackets, hats and shirts.

We had an intimate screening, similar to our first stop on this tour in Madison, Wisconsin. Despite the small size, the audience was very enthusiastic about the film; I bet the cold weather and World Series fever contributed to the small showing; next time, we’ll mobilize and get those Women’s Studies and Chinese Literature professors to require their students to watch the film! Rae and I have definitely taken notes on how to get more people in attendance at our screenings; we’ll be testing out our theories in the ones coming up at Stanford (November 30) and Berkeley (December 3).

Among the audience members was my Stanford friend, Andreea. The two of us were the Theme Associates in La Maison Française our senior year. I have fond memories working with her on in-house classes, wine and cheese nights, and movie nights at the French House. Good times those were back in 1996-1997! Andreea is now an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the university. Her field of research is in Several Complex Variables, which is one complex variable too much for me!

On this tour, we’ve had all sorts of cuisine — Japanese, Mexican, Chinese, Italian, Kosher, East Coast Seafood, Afghan, American, Indian, Farmer’s Market, Dorm Food, Mediterranean, Chicago-style Pizza, New York Street Food and Vietnamese — but not African. Following the screening, Uncle Don, Andreea, Rae and I had dinner at Abyssinia, an Ethiopian Restaurant near the UPenn campus. Though I really wanted to get a Philly Cheese Steak from some street vendor, the lure of injera and doro wot was too hard to pass up!

And with the UPenn screening, we were done! 17 tour stops in 25 days! Rae and I were supremely tired but very happy with the outcome of our tour. Recap of the entire experience to come soon, but in the meantime, some photos from UPenn!

About two weeks ago, Rae’s dad told us to call one of his friends from college who now lives in Delaware. Professor Charles Ih (from the University of Delaware) was very interested in showing Autumn Gem to the Evergreen Senior Club at the Chinese American Community Center in Hockessin, Delaware. The only time that we had available was on the October 28th, our final tour date. We arranged to have the screening at 11:00 am, which would give us enough time to drive over to Philadelphia for our 4:00 pm screening.

We got back late the previous evening from our New York screening. Sleeping only a few hours, we woke up bright and early to drive two and a half hours from New Jersey to Delaware. The drive fortunately was uneventful, unlike the rain storm we drove through coming back from Boston the previous week. The CACC building also houses a Montessori School and Child Care Center during the weekdays. We saw lots of little kids and their parents running around during the screening.

From the CACC web site, the “Evergreen Senior Club is open to Chinese American Community Center (CACC) members 55 years old or older. The club meets weekly at CACC on Wednesday from 9 AM to 6 PM. The mission of the Evergreen Club is to provide activities and services to support and enhance the quality of life of its members and to promote Chinese culture.” When we arrived, the members were busy singing; I bet they enjoyed listening to the three choral pieces in Autumn Gem.

We had a terrific response at the club. Since the club is comprised of people from our parents’ generation, many of them already knew the story of Qiu Jin. There was one gentleman, however, who grew up near where Qiu Jin lived, but who had never heard of her until now! Better late than never! We always get a lively response from audience members familiar with Qiu Jin’s life. Many of them only knew about her nationalist work rather than her feminist work, but they all agree that she is a heroine to the Chinese people.

Rae and I are often asked what motivated us to do Autumn Gem. Growing up as American Born Chinese (ABC), we had never know about Qiu Jin; the idea of a strong, female hero isn’t the first thing that pops in one’s mind when thinking about China. Thus, bringing her story to the Western world and to people from our generation was one of our biggest goals. Doing the film also helped us connect with our own past and the past of our parents and their parents. This has been one of the more rewarding benefits — we’ve been able to develop ever closer relationships with our parents.

Following the screening, we had lunch with the Evergreen members before driving an hour over to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for our final stop on the 2009 Midwest/East Coast tour of Autumn Gem.

During our Pasadena screening, we received a very enthusiastic response from one of the audience members. Ann Lau told us that Qiu Jin was one of her role models and she was very excited to have seen the movie. She was instrumental in setting up our screening in New York. Putting us in touch with Peggy Chane from the Visual Artists Guild, we secured Tuesday’s screening at Tribeca Film Center in record time. Peggy is a great marketer, and she brought a nice sized crowd to the showing. It was also great to see friends and co-workers — Christine, Gaelen, Anand and Sid — on Tuesday night. The event was co-sponsored by the VAG and New York Women in Film and Television. All in all, about 40 people braved the wet weather to watch Autumn Gem.

Tribeca Film Center, as one might expect, has a great projector and audio system. We heard things in the movie that are usually muffled by lesser sound systems! I debated between showing the movie from the DVD or from my laptop. While the uprezzer for the DVD was really good, I still saw more detail from my laptop’s 720p version of the film. So, in the end, we went with the laptop.

There was a big discussion during the Q&A regarding the similarities and/or differences between foot binding and cosmetic surgery. Some in the crowd felt that there was no correlation between the two, arguing that cosmetic surgery is elective whereas foot binding was forced upon women. Others felt that societal pressures might have transformed foot binding into something women felt that they needed to have done on them.

After the screening, several of us went to the Greenwich Street Tavern for drinks. We didn’t stay that long because we had to meet up with Joon-Mo at the famous Joe’s Shanghai. We’ve heard from many people that Joe’s Shanghai has the best shu lam baos. The dumplings were indeed very good, large and juicy. It was good to catch up with Joon-Mo, who’s starting his first year at the Business School at Georgetown. We met up with Sid in Shanghai when we began our filming of Autumn Gem in February of 2008. Now, here we were a year later halfway across the world!