Filmmaker Statement

As the child of Taiwanese and British parents, I spent the first nine years of my life growing up in the UK, and the next nine, in Taiwan. Despite spending half of my childhood in Taiwan, it was still a place that I felt I never entirely belonged to. It was only after leaving to attend university in the UK and subsequently settling in the US, and in that resulting separation, that I realized its significance to my identity. Every year I travel back to Taipei to visit my family, to an experience that is beautiful, yet often haunting. Like seeing an old friend for the first time in years, places are laden with an overwhelming sense of unfamiliarity and yet poignance. I find myself revisiting scenes from my childhood. Places that seemed of little significance at the time, that now radiate with wistful nostalgia, yearning and sometimes, pain. The word ‘nostalgia’ in Chinese carries with it several associations, but important among them are homesickness and a longing for one’s country -