Author: Adam Tow

Bondi Beach

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Bondi Beach

Following our short visit to the Sydney Opera House, my uncle took us to lunch over at Bondi Beach. Located 7km from the city center, Bondi Beach is a very popular beach that reminded me of beaches in La Jolla where I grew up. I don’t think I ever appreciated how amazing La Jolla was until I came back to San Diego during my college summers. Seeing the Pacific Ocean open up as one exits Highway 52 is a lovely and amazing sight. I do wonder what it would be like to live in one of those houses just on the waterfront. Would I become desensitized to the view over time or would I remain captivated everyday with the brilliant blue sea?

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Sydney Opera House

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Sydney Opera House

Before our screening at the University of Sydney, we spent a few hours in the morning and afternoon doing some sightseeing. At the Sydney Opera House, we had a good view of people climbing up the Harbor Bridge. That might be a fun thing to do when we are back in Sydney next weekend. The Opera House was as striking up close and personal as it was in the photographs and videos I had seen of it prior.

The city of Sydney was very beautiful and very racially diverse. In many ways, Sydney and Melbourne remind us of the San Francisco Bay Area where we are from. The ocean’s right there, and nature is just a short drive away from the city centers. Great food from nations across the globe are present too. We could certainly see ourselves living in Sydney — or at least visiting it again!

Check out some photos we took of the Sydney Opera House.

University of New South Wales Screening

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Rae at the University of New South Wales

We had a screening at the University of New South Wales yesterday afternoon. Thanks to Professor Haiqing Yu who set up our first screening of Autumn Gem on international soil! We had mostly academics and professors at the screening, and this led to a very good discussion about how best to promote and distribute our film to educational markets. We’re beginning a big push to get Autumn Gem in 2011, namely because it’s the 100-year anniversary of the fall of the Qing Dynasty. We’re betting that many people will be wondering, “What was the role of women in the early 20th century?” We want the answer to be to watch Autumn Gem!

Before the trip, I was thinking about leaving the laptop at home and bringing just the iPad to run our Keynote presentation and present the movie. I’m glad that I didn’t, because I needed the MacBook Pro to interface with the projector in the Robert Webster Building. The resolution was locked to 1280 pixels wide, and I couldn’t find a way to change that from the projector control panel. The iPad’s VGA adapter outputs at 1024×768, so everything looked stretched on the screen. Switching to the laptop and setting the resolution to 1280×768 fixed things. The takeaway from all of this? Always bring a backup!

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Arrival in Sydney

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The flight from SFO to Sydney took fourteen hours. For me, that time went by quickly enough, since I was asleep for eight of those hours. Rae didn’t not fare as well, but she has been able to rest at our lodging for the evening. We’ll be heading out to the University of New South Wales in a few hours, as we have a screening today at 4:30 pm. And so begins our first international tour of Autumn Gem! We have eight screenings in thirteen days in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

Australia Gear Packing List

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We’re just a few hours away from flying off for our first international tour of Autumn Gem! This evening we’ll be taking to the skies to head Down Under for eight screenings of Autumn Gem in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Australia.

With a new trip comes new gear for travel! We’ve learned a lot from our two previous tours to the Midwest, East Coast and Southwest. Our current goal is to be able to bring one carry-on bag that can fit under the airplane seat! With that in mind, I’ve adjusted our gear list with the following new additions. Here’s a photo of mostly what I’m taking with me on the trip.

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Autumn Gem Screening Map

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I spent the evening adding markers to a Google Map showing all the places where Autumn Gem has and will be screened. Our Summer and Fall 2010 tour schedule will be taking us to Australia, Texas, Vancouver, and Southern California! It’s amazing that in the past year and a half, we’ve shown Autumn Gem in over fifty places across the country!

We will continually update this map as the film makes its way to more and more places around the globe!

Autumn Gem Preview for the iPad Available Now!

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Download Autumn Gem Preview from the App Store

We’re pleased to announce the immediately availability of the Autumn Gem Preview application for the iPad!

Using selected video clips, archival materials, and interactive features, Autumn Gem Preview introduces you to this fascinating figure through an extensive trailer of the film.

On the home screen are three Chinese characters: Woman, Sword and Country. Tapping on each character will take you to a different section of Qiu Jin’s life.

Learn about the oppressive conditions imposed upon women during Qiu Jin’s time and her struggle to break free of them. Follow her path from childhood as a privileged daughter of an official’s family, to a young woman forced into the traditional roles of marriage and motherhood, to her rejection of those roles and her transformation into a radical women’s rights advocate.

See how she became involved in a rebellious plot to overthrow the last dynasty in China. Use your fingers to control Qiu Jin as she trains in martial arts to prepare herself for battle.

Tap to buy the Autumn Gem DVD and learn more about Qiu Jin on the official Autumn Gem web site.

Autumn Gem Preview provides a unique experience that introduces you to the compelling story of modern China’s first feminist.

You can download it from the iTunes App Store today.

Note: Due to the size of the application, we recommend you download it using a WiFi connection or via iTunes.

Saratoga Public Library Screening Recap and Photos

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Autumn Gem at the Saratoga Public Library

On Sunday, the Chi Am Circle club sponsored a screening of Autumn Gem at the Saratoga Public Library. Ninety people were in attendance for the screening, including Qiu Jin’s Great Grandnephew, Charles Fan, whom we first met at the Willow Glen screening back in March. Now that we’re back from our Spring 2010 Tour, we have time to start planning our next steps with the film: more screenings, interviews, a study guide for the Institutional version of the DVD and the iPad application.

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