AW (she/her) is a film and television student at Humber College in Toronto. We met at the University of Toronto during the fall of 2020. We spoke about diversity in the film industry, living in between Eastern and Western cultures, looking for role models, and the importance of mental health.
From Psychology to The Farewell
I recently graduated from the University of Toronto. I was a psychology specialist with a political science minor. But I decided I didn’t want to go down the path of research and grad school. I’ve always really loved film and TV, but never saw myself doing it, because there’s so little Asian representation. I didn’t think it was possible.
In 2019, I saw The Farewell. And I was like, oh! It was so inspiring, it made me realize that film and TV is something I could do. That plus all the uncertainties around COVID, I figured I might as well do something I like. Now I’m at Humber doing a one year post-grad program for film and multi-platform storytelling. I’ve been writing, I’ve been doing videography stuff. I found myself a camera and learned how to use it. It’s been super fun. None of it has been paid, but I still enjoy it.
As a child, I often used movies and TV as a form of escapism. I find it really fascinating the way we can immerse ourselves into a story world and be able to empathize with a situation that we didn’t personally experience. I also really enjoy the community building aspect of it. There are so many fandoms and people meeting because they like a film or TV show.
I find it really fascinating the way we can immerse ourselves into a story world and be able to empathize with a situation that we didn’t personally experience.
AW
It’s really empowering seeing yourself represented on screen. Ten minutes into watching The Farewell I was crying, but not because it was sad. It was because of the Nainai. I was like, that’s my own grandmother. The words that the main character spoke had literally came out of my own mouth. It was a really special feeling.
Right now, I’m shopping around and seeing what roles suit me. I’ve been writing and I like writing, but I think I also want to get into production. In an ideal world I would direct something that I wrote. I definitely want to do some producing as well. So I know where the power and the money is. So I can help other people with their projects as well. Because I know a lot of people are bootstrapped and don’t know where to get financing.
The Search for Diversity
I full on expected the Humber program to be 90% men and 90% white. But it’s actually more diverse than I expected. There are some international students. I don’t know if there are other queer people, but I have a sense there’s at least one other person because of the stories they’re writing. Other than that, I think I’m the only Chinese person, but there are other Asians in the program.
There is a trend towards diverse voices in film and TV. I think it is empowering the more people who do it. But it’s also very performative in the sense that they say they’re going to hire diversely, but it doesn’t actually change anything. Still, that message is being sent out. I think there are more people getting involved, which is really good.
An Industry Inching Forward
Changes need to come from the top down, which is not realistic. I think, realistically, it’s going to come from the bottom up. In an ideal world, we would have people of color, queer people, people of all different kinds in positions of power. We’d have them hold executive positions and be in control of funding. If we have them making the decisions, we won’t run into the problem of Disney making Mulan with no Asian key creator. How does anyone think that would be a good idea?
I guess things are getting a little better. At least the cast of Mulan was Asian. But when they first announced that Li Shang was going to be white, people were like, no. They ended up making Li Shang Chinese. But the changes are too dependent on public opinion. And sometimes public opinion is too distracted. It needs to come from people in power. The president of Disney needs to not be an old white man. But yeah, it’s not going to be easy.
Photo credit: Eileen Liu
When they announced that Ron Howard was directing the Lang Lang movie, Lulu Wang was like, hey, listen, this is not going to work because you can’t possibly know the nuances of growing up in Chinese culture. People were really upset about that because they’re like, does that mean no one can write about stories that they haven’t experienced? But people misunderstand. Because, sure, if you’re a white man who’s lived in China for 15 years and you understand the culture, then yeah, go off and write about that. But you have to be able to draw from something.
Once I thought it’d be cool to include a deaf character in a story. But then I realized the amount of research I’d have to do. It’s not just about communicating with sign language. They see the world differently and I don’t have that perspective. There’s no way I can gain that perspective in three months of research. You have to really immerse yourself into the lives and cultures of people you’re trying to write.
Being Asian in Entertainment
There’s an inherent pressure to constantly be proving myself, but also always undervaluing my own work. Even yesterday, I was applying to something and I kept questioning whether I have the experience. Because my experience is not super legit. I just did my own thing—does it count? That’s something I’m always going to be struggling with.
At the end of the day, even though people outwardly say they want to hear my story, I know it’s going to be harder for me than that white man in my class. They already have the resources and the connections. The reality is, when I came to Toronto, I didn’t know anyone. A lot of it comes from family connections. I asked my mom if she knew anyone and she was like, no, how would I know anyone? That’s one thing about being an immigrant, not knowing anyone here.
At the end of the day, even though people outwardly say they want to hear my story, I know it’s going to be harder for me than that white man in my class.
AW
Also, moving to another place and being in an industry that’s not really held by a lot of Asians, where you could ask around but no one would know anyone. But if I was doing banking, my mom would probably be like, oh, yeah, my friend’s son’s friend is someone, and that would somehow connect me. But it feels like I’m by myself.
At the same time, I do feel optimistic for the kinds of stories I want to tell, because I know there’s an audience for it, even though it is more niche. I feel like there’s at least space for me to be in, which I wasn’t aware of back in the day. That’s the one reassuring thing. But all the other stuff? It’s going to be super hard.
On Writing
I didn’t realize I had such an affinity for writing until very recently. Looking back, my mom said she wasn’t surprised, that I was writing as a child. But for some reason, I believed I was a horrible writer. Maybe there was one English essay where I got a 70. And I was like, yeah, that’s it, I’m horrible at this.
During COVID, the first story I wrote was a fictionalized, autobiographical account of events in my life. It was really helpful because by fictionalizing it, I was able to objectively make meaning out of the things that happened. Now, I’m not even sure if I created those events in my head or if there were real.
What is Being Queer?
I always refer to myself as queer because it’s easier. But I guess more specifically, I’m homoromantic asexual. It tends to be difficult to lay that on someone, which is why I generally go by queer.
I knew when I was pretty young. You know how in elementary school people were like, oh, who’s your crush or whatever. I would always have to make something up because people genuinely didn’t believe me when I said nobody. They’re like no, no, you’re lying. So I’d be like, there’s this boy in China, you wouldn’t know him.
At one point, I thought, why do I have to keep making up people. When people describe their crushes, I genuinely can’t understand them. In a way, I’m still figuring things out. As a kid, I was also struggling a little bit with my gender identity. To be honest, I’m still not super comfortable with my body. In many ways, I feel like that affects my sexuality.
Photo credit: Eileen Liu
For a long time, I didn’t realize being asexual was possible. As people say, you just wait and somebody will come along, and then all of a sudden, boys! I don’t know if there was a specific turning point in my life. I don’t remember a specific thing. But even in high school, I was super obsessed with all the gay ships. That should have sent me a message. Retrospectively, five-year-old me was wearing boy shorts. It’s obvious, thinking back.
I came across the term asexual on Tumblr. I don’t remember when or how. I was also on fandoms. I don’t remember if there was a specific instance. But I was like, huh, interesting. There was also this guy who did a TED talk about it. He created the first big ace organization. I read into it and was like, this make sense, gotcha. Honestly, there’s so many terminologies within the ace spectrum. I’m still learning.
Finding My Way
I literally had no idea what I wanted to do. I didn’t know where I want to go. Obviously, my mom wanted me to apply to the best university. So I did. I got into UofT, McGill, and UBC. My mom wanted me to stay in Vancouver, live at home, and go to UBC. But I was like, no, no, no, I can’t do that. So I moved. She was fine with it, because I told her that UofT is higher ranking.
In UofT, I was in the general social sciences. I took classes that I was maybe interested in. And then I applied to literally every single program that I was eligible to apply to, because I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
There was this one psychology introduction course. The professor was really engaging and I really liked him. I also wanted to have a good GPA, and I was doing well in psychology. So I thought I might as well stick with it.
A Childhood In Between
I have very poor memory from my childhood. My mom and I moved to Vancouver when I was five. I honestly don’t know why we moved. It kind of just happened. They probably told me when I was five but I don’t remember. Then it was just me and my mom.
We moved back and forth a lot. She had a business in China. There was a whole family drama where she was running her business with her brother—and then her brother took over the business. So because of that, we moved back and forth a lot. It’s kind of a mumble jumble in my head. Where was I in sixth grade? I don’t really remember.
But I didn’t move around within Vancouver. At first we were in the downtown area, but then my mom wanted to live in a more Asian place. So we went to Richmond, literally the most Asian suburb. It’s like Hong Kong.
We’re from Shenzhen, which borders on Hong Kong. But whenever I say that, people are like, no, no, no, you’re not from from there, because people tend to move there for work. It gets super complicated. That’s where I was born, but Chinese people are like, where’s your home town?
Moving so much, I felt conflicted a lot because whenever I made friends in one place, I’d have to leave them all over again.
AW
Moving so much, I felt conflicted a lot because whenever I made friends in one place, I’d have to leave them all over again. The one good thing was that I always went back to the same school in Shenzhen. It was a good international school. So like, I made friends in second and third grade, I left and I came back in like sixth grade, and some of them would actually still be there. So I could still reconnect with them. That was at least one positive thing.
For a long time, I thought of the moving back and forth as a really negative thing. I remember carrying four suitcases in the airport when I was 10 or whatever. But now that I think about it, it was actually pretty nice. Because whenever I did move back, I was living with my grandmother, so I got to spend a lot of time with her.
Now, she’s moved back to her home town and I haven’t visited since I left for university. I don’t even know when I’m going to visit her again. I’m glad we got to spend that time together.
Because I moved back and forth, my Mandarin is actually pretty good. It’s not horrible. I can speak and understand it. I know that if I lived here, I would know nothing. My mom sent me to Chinese lessons, but I never learned anything. Trying to learn Chinese is probably the hardest thing ever. It’s really hard.
Asian Role Models in Film
Personally, I don’t know anyone that I could go to with question. I do have some friends that I’m close with that are also queer and also Asian. We talk about these things, but I feel like, generally, we’re just a collection of confused people. We can’t actually go to someone and say, hey, do you know this? Because we’d be like, I guess we can Google it. There’s not like one person who’s like, oh, so wise.
No, there’s not someone I personally know that I can call a mentor. But there are definitely role models. Like Alice Wu, the writer/director for Saving Face and The Half of It. She’s my queen. I find her story so inspiring. She was doing computer science, and then she was like, “I wrote this screenplay.” Saving Face came out in 2004, like, are you kidding? That’s groundbreaking stuff. I was like, what? She’s living her life, you know?
Alice Wu, the writer/director for Saving Face and The Half of It. She’s my queen.
AW
She did a couple of promo webinars for her latest movie. She seems like such a nice person. I was like, oh, you’re so sweet. Anyway, I’m talking as if I know her, but I don’t. I feel like we could vibe about everything. Our favorite movies, cooking stuff. She made this taco sausage recipe for the movie. She’s a fan of Yakult, I’m assuming, because she included it in the movie.
I feel like her experiences, oddly enough, mirror mine. In Saving Face, the mom dates a younger man. And both the mom and the daughter have secrets. My mom right now is dating a younger man. That was a whole thing because she was like, listen, I need to talk to you about something and you need to be open-minded. And I was like, open-minded? Sure, no problem. I thought that was really funny because that’s literally the plot of that movie.
The Rise of Women’s Soccer
I’ve always really loved sports. I’ve played soccer since I was four. For a long time that was my dream. I wanted to win the World Cup. But back then I didn’t know there was a women’s World Cup. So I thought, I’m going win the men’s World Cup!
But then it didn’t really happen. I still play. Before COVID, I was on intramural teams. There was a period of time where I completely stopped because I was like, well, it’s not happening. But now, I play for fun and I enjoy it.
Before I found out there was a woman’s soccer league, I was a big fan of Manchester United. But now I don’t watch men’s soccer. I only watch women’s soccer. I’m a huge fan of the Canadian women’s national team. I went to the women’s World Cup in 2015 in Vancouver. I bought a seat for all the matches. And I’ve met Christine Sinclair. It was amazing.
And when the Olympics are on? I’m hard core. Hard core. I’m so excited for the new rock climbing events because they look so dope. It’s a fun sport. I’ve done some bouldering before. When it’s frustrating? It’s so frustrating. But when you get it, it’s like, yeah. I don’t know how the professionals do it, though. That’s next level.
A Love and Hate Relationship
I love music. My mom forced me to play the piano when I was four. But I was like, no, I refuse! So then by the time I got to the levels for exams, I quit. I’ve played like some guitar, bass guitar. I really want to play the drums because I beat box. But a drum set is so expensive. That’s why I thought, might as well learn how to do it without a drum set. I spend a lot of time picking up really random skills. I spent literally hours practicing beatboxing.
I used to be a massive fan of Pentatonix. I was trying to do all the stuff Kevin does. Oh my god, I was such a huge fan. I used to be in their Patreon, that was the level of my dedication. I went to their concerts like thrice. It’s so good live.
I love listening to music. I have a really weird habit where I listen to one song or one album repetitively for however long it takes for me to get over it. Sometimes it’s weeks, sometimes it’s months.
I don’t really sing though. For a while, I thought I could join an a capella group, but I didn’t have time during university. Sometimes my friends and I will jam a little bit, but none of us are that good to improv. And I’ve actually started picking up the piano again. Because it’s a very nice instrument. It’s nice not having to sit and practice for hours, or get scolded by the piano teachers.
We’re Close, But Not That Close
I don’t know if this is cliché, but at the end of the day, my mom is the most important person in my life. I would say we’re close. It’s funny, though, because I think she thinks that we’re super open with each other. That we talk about everything. Even though that’s not the reality of things. But I let her have the illusion of it.
I’m not out to my family. I’ve already accepted that we’re just never going to talk about it. At least, until they pass away, which sounds really horrible, I know. But I might as well keep it from them to maintain family harmony. Everyone’s got their secrets. I know they do.
Photo credit: Eileen Liu
We talk pretty often, even when she’s not here. She raised me by herself. She’s a hard worker and that’s really inspiring. Even now, on the daily, she’s still hustling. She’s the one learning blockchain stuff and telling me about it. She tries to tell me about cryptocurrenct, and I’m like, what are you talking about?
She’s still thinking of business ideas when she’s supposed to be retired. There’s something about her where she’s constantly hustling. She set this really high expectation for me to achieve. I think the expectation used to be overt. But now, I think a lot of it is implicit. And a lot of it comes from myself. During university, she told me, hey, your grades don’t really matter. But it was too late. My motivation had already become so tied to my grades and external validation.
She’s pretty supportive of my interest in film and TV. I think because for so long, I was really, really lost. I had no idea what I wanted to do, but now I can say that this is something I want and look, you can actually have a career. She’s happy that I found some sort of path.
She’s still supporting me financially. It’s super important, because otherwise, I can’t afford taking unpaid jobs and stuff like that.
AW
She said I can take one to two years to figure it out, and that she’d still financially support me. It’s super important, because otherwise, I can’t afford taking unpaid jobs and stuff like that. It’s huge privilege, honestly. I’m super happy and grateful that she is supportive.
But in a way, I’m also kind of scared because obviously the content I create has queer characters. I can’t selectively show her B roll things don’t have triggering things for her. I can’t tell her, you need to stop here. You can’t watch the rest. Episode one and then no more. I feel like eventually, it might get complicated, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.
Changing Motivations
My motivation does come from a lot of external validation. But I’ve been trying to lean away from that. And I think a lot of times I’m pushed to not fail or not feel shame or guilt, which is not healthy.
But recently, because I have a strong goal in mind, I think that’s what motivates me. I want to make this web series or I want to get this short produced. Having these goals is really motivating. In the larger sense, I also want to have better representation in the media. I don’t want to be the only one to break into the industry, but I want to help other marginalized individuals tell their stories as well.
Toronto vs. Vancouver vs. Montreal
I like the pace of Toronto. It’s faster. It’s just like [snaps]. In Vancouver, at least in Richmond, it’s so slow. There’s nothing going on. It’s super gloomy all the time. My seasonal affective disorder was really bad.
I love going back to Vancouver during the summers and vacations because the moment you land, it’s a different kind of space. The ocean, the breeze, the vibes, the food. It’s very nice. But I definitely like being here because for some reason, it motivates me. Even though the weather, ugh, the winter, ugh. I don’t even want to think about it. But at least there’s sun. Vancouver’s just rain, rain, rain, cloud, cloud, gray, gray, gray, gray.
I took French in elementary school. I know the numbers. Comment ça va? You know, that’s stuff. I could learn, but I don’t know… I’ve been to Montreal twice now. It feels a little bit more racist than the rest of Canada. Like next level. They’re like, salut and then if you’re speaking English, they don’t like it. It’s the same vibe as Hong Kong where you can either speak Cantonese or English, but don’t try to speak Mandarin. Plus, it’s colder in Montreal.
Patience and Self-Awareness
I think even now, I’m not a patient person. But especially back when I was younger, I was super lost and didn’t know what I wanted to do. I felt like I had to figure it out, it was a mindless searching for something. I went through so much mental health stuff. I had zero creativity. If there was an opportunity to create a thing, I’d just be blank. Nothing. I couldn’t come up with anything. So I thought, I’m clearly not good at this. More recently, though, I’m in a better mental space and I’m having ideas left and right. I got to a good place, but that took a lot of patience.
Younger me had absolutely no idea. I had no clue about any mental health stuff because my family low key refused to acknowledge that it’s really a thing. Even though I literally study it. They were like, okay, but it doesn’t happen to us. So I was super confused.
It’s my number one priority because I know if my mental health is good, I can get through anything.
AW
I’d like to be more self-aware. It’s scary to look inwards and I was like, we’re going to have a can of worms that I don’t want to open. I want to reflect upon my life more. To know that today, my brain’s not feeling too hot or that I should like a break or that I’m pursuing an unhealthy habit.
I’ve gotten a lot better at that. I’m more aware when stuff happens to me. I can see it’s time for me to talk to someone. I can spot the more manic behaviors and say to myself, this doesn’t seem healthy and I need to reach out to a social worker.
Honestly, that’s my number one priority because I know if my mental health is good I can get through anything. If it’s bad then it doesn’t matter how good my life is. I won’t be really enjoying it.
