Author: Adam Tow

South Pasadena Public Library Screening Recap

Standard

Autumn Gem in South Pasadena

Back in February, 2010, we attended a talk by filmmaker Arthur Dong at the South Pasadena Public Library prior to our film screening at UC Irvine. Following Arthur’s showing of Hollywood Chinese, we spoke with several of the organizers, including City Librarian Steve Fjeldsted, about bringing Autumn Gem to South Pasadena. We gave him a DVD and communicated with him over the next several months, ultimately setting up the screening we held on October 21, 2010.

First of all, big shout of goes to Steve, members of the South Pasadena Chinese-American Club and the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library, for bringing out over a hundred people! It’s always great to have large crowds come out to our screening, and it’s a bonus when they all stay to the end for the Q&A. We made some contacts as well, so there’s a good chance we’ll be coming back in 2011 for additional SoCal screenings.

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »

UC Santa Barbara Screening Recap

Standard

Autumn Gem at UC Santa Barbara

Our first stop in our final SoCal tour of 2010 was at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Our screening was arranged by the East Asia Center and held at the Multicultural Center Theater. Rae and I drove down from the Bay Area; we started our drive at noon, since I had an event that I was covering at Apple. Fortunately, we encountered no traffic on the 101 and arrived at Santa Barbara in just four and a half hours.

The crowd at the MCC was mostly comprised of students and graduate students from the university. Normally, students are a bit shy to ask questions, but a couple of students were particularly inquisitive and kept asking us questions. That’s good! We love to field questions and hear what people think about the film.

The screening was co-sponsored by the East Asia Center and PIRE-ECCI (The Partnership in International Research and Education in Electron Chemistry and Catalysis at Interfaces). Thanks go out to Professor Mayfair Yang and MCC Associate Director Viviana Marsano for organizing the event.

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »

Women in Asia Conference Screening Recap

Standard

Women in Asia Conference at ANU

Our final screening1 while in Australia was held at the Tenth International Women in Asia Conference at The Australian National University in the capital city of Canberra. The theme of this year’s conference was Crisis, Agency, and Change, certainly apt descriptors for the time that Qiu Jin lived at the turn of the last century. I attended a panel on Raden Kartini, Indonesia’s first feminist. Kartini lived and died around the same time as Qiu Jin. Like her Chinese counterpart, she left behind many writings (from her correspondences with European friends) in which she commented on the condition of Indonesia women. Certainly during this timeframe, there was a lot of activity in the women’s movement across the world! We had never heard about Kartini before this conference, much like non-Chinese have never heard about Qiu Jin.

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »

Deakin University Screening Recap

Standard

Deakin University screening

On Tuesdsay, we took the Metlink Tram to Burwood where one of the campuses of Deakin University is located. Deakin is a relatively new university, having only been established 25 years ago. It has campuses in several locations, including Geelong, the site of the 2010 Worlds Cycling Championship happening this week. Had we more time, it would have been fun to see some of the top racers in the world duke it out — drug-free hopefully — for the rainbow colored jerseys.

In contrast to the RMIT University screening the previous day, we had a lot more staff and outside guests come to this screening. There were several friends of my parents’ friend Bella in attendance. In addition, two of Li Jing’s compatriots from the Beijing Wushu Team were present. We have enjoyed meeting and making connections with the extended family of all those who contributed to the development of Autumn Gem!

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »

RMIT University Screening Recap

Standard

RMIT University screening of Autumn Gem

On Monday, we had a screening at RMIT University in downtown Melbourne. The city features a wide range of architectural styles, and the RMIT student center was definitely a unique example. One of the buildings looked like it was covered with green slime! Our screening was organized by Professor Lisa French in conjunction with her “Asian Cinemas” class. Lisa’s research interest is in gender and feminist issues in film, so we thought our film would be a good fit. The audience consisted mostly of students, as well as our friend Jen and Melinda O’Connor from 3CR Radio, who had interviewed us a few days ago.

We had our first technical glitch during this screening. The VGA connector down by the stage wouldn’t sync resolutions properly with either my MacBook Pro or iPad. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to try setting up the computer in the projection booth, so we verbally gave the Keynote presentation and played the movie via the DVD. The mantra that I’ve been saying in previous posts holds, “Always have a backup!”

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »

Life Matters Interview at ABC Radio

Standard

There’s a popular public radio program in the United States called All Things Considered; in Australia, a similar program is called Life Matters on the Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio station. We were interviewed by Sydney-based program host, Richard Aedy, in the Melbourne station on Tuesday morning prior to our screening at Deakin University. This was our second radio interview, the first being at 3CR Community Radio 855 AM in Melbourne.

I think I speak for most people that hearing my own voice played back to me sounds odd. Do radio hosts, such as Richard, who have such soothing and melodic voices, feel the same way?

The actual interview will be broadcast next week, and we’ll try to get a podcast or MP3 of the interview that we can link to in this article. Until then, check out the photos from ABC Station!

Here are photos from our radio interview on the Life Matters program at ABC Radio.

Chinese Association of Victoria Screening

Standard

Chinese Association of Victoria Screening

On Sunday night, we had a screening at the Chinese Association of Victoria. In the late afternoon, Rae and I took the train from Flinders Station to Wantirna, a suburb of Melbourne. Lillian and Rex Lai picked us up from Blackburn Station and drove us to the CAV. The association was founded back in 1982 by a group of 30-40 Chinese from Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia immigrants who shared common objectives for the future of Chinese in their newly adopted country of Australia. After meeting in members’ homes and rented facilities for several years, they opened up the CAV Centre in Wantirna in 1995.

It was at the CAV Centre where we held our screening. We always enjoy showing the film to Chinese organizations such as these, because their primary membership base are often people from our parents’ generation. One of the things that I enjoy asking is how they came to the decision to leave their country of birth to immigrate to Australia or the United States. As we take Autumn Gem to additional international locations, we’ll be asking this question more and more. I find it fascinating to think how one decision changed the course of history for them and their families. As first-generation American born Chinese, we have been fortunate to have grown up in relative prosperity. The decisions we made in our early twenties pale in comparison to those our parents faced. We owe a great deal to them for their sacrifice in providing us a better tomorrow!

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »

3CR Community Radio 855 AM Interview

Standard

Rae at 3CR Community Radio 855 AM in Melbourne

On Saturday, we were interviewed by 3CR Community Radio 855 AM in Melbourne. Peter Krausz and Melinda O’Connor from the Media Moves program interviewed us about Autumn Gem and our upcoming screening tonight at RMIT University. I’ve been interviewed before on radio, but this was Rae’s first time. I thought we did a pretty job, though I’ll have to listen to the podcast to confirm!

With one radio interview under our belt, we’re looking forward to our second! Tomorrow morning, we’ll be heading to the Melbourne ABC Radio station for the Life Matters show. We hear that this program is comparable to NPR’s All Things Considered!

Here are some photos from our radio interview at 3CR Community Radio 855 AM.

Australia-China Friendship Society Screening

Standard

Screening in Melbourne

On Friday morning, we got on an airplane from Sydney to Melbourne. The flight was a little over an hour long, and it reminded me of the trip from San Diego to the Bay Area. Upon arriving, we noticed a number of people wearing black and white striped outfits. At the time of this post’s writing, the Grand Final game for Australia Rules Football is happening right now just a mile away in the Melbourne Cricket Ground Stadium. Earlier today, we walked to the stadium and waded through the throngs of Magpie and Saints fans who are now eagerly cheering for their respective teams. If the Chargers ever made it back to the Super Bowl, would I be so enthusiastically dressed in blue and gold? You bet!

The previous evening, we had a screening that was sponsored by the Australia-China Friendship Society and the Confucius Institute. The film was shown at the Carrillo Gantner Theatre in the Sidney Myer Asia Centre at the University of Melbourne. The venue had a great projector system which showed the film in glorious HD. There was also an Elmo overhead projector, which I used to demonstrate our Autumn Gem Preview application for the iPad.

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »

University of Sydney Screening

Standard

University of Sydney Screening

Following our morning excursions to the Sydney Opera House and Bondi Beach, we went to the University of Sydney for our evening show. The screening, sponsored by the Confucius Institute and the China Education Centre, was held at the Education Building in Lecture Theatre 351 at 6:30pm. They brought a nice-sized turnout to the screening, with about 60-70 people in attendance. Uncle Clement brought some of his colleagues, and a classmate of my father’s was also at the screening. It’s been great to travel around the world meeting people who have some connection to our parents or to Qiu Jin. We certainly didn’t expect this when we started the project!

It was also nice to meet Sue Wiles, an independent scholar who wrote her thesis on Qiu Jin. Her paper questioned whether or not Qiu Jin was more of a feminist or patriot. Wiles felt Qiu Jin leaned more towards the nationalist side. In China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Qiu Jin is definitely know more for her patriotic and nationalist efforts. With Autumn Gem, we present both sides of the argument, and we let the viewer decide for themselves. This is probably why her story is so interesting — there is no clear cut answer!

Read the rest of this post and see the photos »