Catch Flights, Not Feelings

（我到底要用中文述說，還是寫英文會比較貼切呢？沒想到連這個我也沒辦法決定！）

最近好多好多的感觸，好想全部同時捕捉起來、鎖緊在一個玻璃瓶內然後丟到大海裡去。說不定飄洋過海後，這一罐濃縮的情緒會神奇的消失掉。

但是其實並不是不想去處理這些感覺，而是沒有勇氣去掘發更深層的內在。除了發文，我不知道要怎麼去面對這些情緒。為什麼感情一向那麼複雜呢？感情再怎麼不想去面對也還是要面對、再怎麼不想去理睬也還是會浮現、再怎麼的不願管理或經營也終究會倒閉。（當然有時候很不幸的不管你再怎麼努力的付出一樣還是倒閉的情況···）

這幾天常常會想到妳，想到我們不久以前的視訊。每次都說好不再連絡了，可是還是會不知覺的想到妳。上次視訊後理會到「一見鍾情」的意思，讓我不知所措。我發現我能維持這兩年遠距離的關係原來是因為我每次看到妳的時候，在我心中屬於妳的那把火炬會重新開始燃燒！每次見面後心中又會充滿了愛，好比幫一個盆栽澆水、餵肥料。

我心知肚明一直會想到妳的理由當然不只是是我想念妳，而是因為最近開始跟另外一個人走得很近。我不知道我該如何去面對這些交錯的感情。對妳、對她、對我自己都要負責··· 是我想太多了嗎？是我太在乎要快點走出這個感情混亂的時刻嗎？我知道我的感覺沒有對或錯，只有想不想去實現。

A Decade in Reflection

While people are digging up photos of them from the beginning of the decade to post next to photos of them ending the decade, I find myself combing through my writing. (Mostly because I didn’t find any “good” pictures of me from 2010, but also I realized some major shit went down in my life at the beginning of the decade:)

2010 was the year I’d fully come out to myself and started to accept who I am. It was also that summer I went to my first pride parade and celebration – by myself – because I wasn’t really out to any of the friends I could go with. I remember it so clearly like it was yesterday, strangely enough. I had lied to my mom about having a “overnight weekend rehearsal so everyone is sleeping over at the rehearsal studio”, and arranged to stay with friends (both of them queer) who lived in the West End then. I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what I was discovering within myself, and how attracted I was to people who are of the same-sex. I remember feeling free, and I remember feeling like I was myself for the first time.

That summer was also the first time I (half-jokingly) asked someone of the same sex out. She was the director of a show I had stage managed just before the summer, and rumour has it everyone who’s worked with her had a crush on her (I was no exception, evidently). I remember waking up after dancing the night away at Oasis (who remembers when that club existed on top of the Denny’s on Davie?), I was steaming buns for breakfast in her kitchen. She remarked on my ingenious method of steaming the bun, and made small talk. I, feeling courageous and silly, asked her if she’d like to go out with me. Even though she didn’t give me a direct “no”, my crush didn’t last long enough for me to ask her out again at the end of the year, when my studies have finished and she wasn’t a teacher of the school I attended any more.

At the beginning of the decade, I struggled to reconcile my faith and religion with who I was. I couldn’t fathom how I could be a Christian and lesbian at the same time. (Actually, according to an old blog post, I identified as “bi” then). I didn’t know where to go for help. I didn’t know if I’m even allowed to feel what I was feeling, let alone talk to someone about it. The more I thought about it the more trapped I felt. I couldn’t deny who I was and follow my religion blindly, when my church clearly rejects the “types of people” I was becoming.

So more events of note that started my decade:

-I worked at my first real theatre job in 2010, at the newly finished SFU Woodward’s, before any of the students were allowed in.

-I made a short film with three of my really good friends called Straight Forward that I bill as my “coming-out film” (embarrassingly, because I wasn’t good at story-telling with moving pictures yet).

-I was super productive in terms of my writing/ blogging, producing an average of almost 6 blog posts per month in 2010!

-I wrote about having a girl crush for the first time (and then many more posts about my feelings for her in the following months, including one where I wrote “I’m sorry” like 10,000 times)

Here’s a brief summary of my decade by the numbers:

-graduated from SFU with a BFA

-worked on 12 short films, maybe more?

-stage managed 19 shows

-designed lighting for 12 shows

-dated 6 people, slept with 11, and married 1

-travelled to 23 countries (and counting!)

-attended 3 high school best friends’ weddings

-gotten 4 tattoos

2010 launched me into a decade of self-discovery, love, and growing up. I wouldn’t have traded the last 10 years for anything, and I’m excited to step into the new year to see what the next decade will bring.

bitter 30

I am turning 30 tomorrow. And while I have never really felt or looked my age, the last few days have all been about reflection. Just what have I accomplished in my life? What do I want to do next? What do I want now? Seems like the older you get the less clear your goals and ambitions become; and the more clouded your judgment and decision-making get.

I am turning 30 tomorrow, and there’s a big void in my heart. I don’t have a best friend; I don’t have any really close friends, and it’s near impossible to get anyone to come out to do anything with me. I’ve lived in Vancouver for 19 years and still haven’t found someone I call close. I feel like I don’t belong here. I am a product of immigration, amalgamating cultures, and discrimination. English isn’t my mother tongue and I am not taught to think critically for myself. But when I’m back in Taiwan the locals can tell I am ‘foreign’ just by the way I dress! So I am nowhere and here, stuck in between one homeland and the next.

10 days of working the Vancouver Queer Film Festival have never made me feel so close to being a part of my community yet so lonely. No one besides the staff working at the office knows who I am, because the nature of my job is always behind the scenes. While I enjoy the solitude of my job, I also resent the fact that I remain mostly anonymous. I don’t have a name tag, I don’t have friends, I don’t exist if I don’t show up. I don’t have a QPOC community to which I belong; I don’t have any QPOC friends who shows up for me other times of the year. Once the festival ends I don’t see any of my festival ‘friends’ until the next year. I often volunteer to stay at work later than I need to because I have nothing to come home to, or friends to hang out with if I depart early. Nothing is home except my insanity and the occasional guitar music therapy.

I am turning 30 tomorrow, and I am a queer woman of colour. There. I said it. Checking all the boxes. But that doesn’t make me more memorable than the other white boys on a work shift. No one recognizes or remembers who I am even though we’ve worked together or crossed paths numerous times. I remember who they are, why don’t they remember who I am? Do I have a very forgettable face? Do the things I say not have any weight? Why do I have to keep re-introducing myself? I am practically invisible.

I am turning 30 tomorrow, and I wish I could celebrate with my family. I can’t believe I’ve lived without my dad for 11 years now. Where did the time go? Am I stuck at age 19 from the trauma and shock of losing my father? Would he have been okay with me being into women? Would he have fought with my mom in disagreement over accepting who I am? Would he have been on my side? Would he have defended or disowned me? Would he have shared relationship advice – because that’s all I think about when I encounter difficult situations in relationships? Would he have performed Peking Opera again, just for my amusement? Or maybe we could have worked on a show together? He was definitely the best at giving advice though, and I know that when I turn 30 soon he would have said something wise.

Well, here’s to turning 30: fatherless, friend-less, and hopeless.

Queer Film Festivals

First drafted/ written Sept 2016:

I thought I’d get back to the roots of it all – queer cinema was what started this whole blog back in 2011, so I should get back to talking about that for once (instead of talking about my feelings) especially now that I’ve been exposed to a wide range of queer films thanks to the film festivals circuit.

I have been lucky enough to have been involved with the Vancouver Queer Film Festival for the past four years. The first year I participated as an “artist” (aka filmmaker) when my short film Bill, Please! was accepted and took home all three short film awards they hand out at the festival! The second year, in 2014, I was engaged as a jury member for one of the awards. Then in 2015, they decided that I am a useful human being with a skill set adequate enough to help coordinate the tech side of things so they employed me. I must have proved myself worthy because they asked me to be part of the team again for their 28th festival this past August.

…then again in 2017! Hopefully this will continue be my stable summer activity for many years to come. 2018 is going to be Vancouver Queer Film Festival’s 30th anniversary. That means I am turning 30 years old (I am the same age as the festival!) during the festival; and this year will also mark my 5th consecutive year of involvement with the event, from artist to jury member to staff! Exciting times!

I forget what I was originally going to write – probably something about the films I saw in the festival. Which makes sense, because I wanted to go back to the ‘roots’ of this blog and discuss things that made me start it in the first place. Oh well. Maybe come August inspiration will hit again and I’ll write about the many queer films we are very fortunate to see on screen. Until then, if you are curious:

http://queerfilmfestival.ca/

You Stealing My Juice is a Microaggression

This happened Dec 1st, 2017.

I was working a show at the Annex downtown. Involved prospects are dancers in a specific dance training program, which I probably shouldn’t name because it’s not the program that caused my juice to go missing.

But this was no ordinary juice. It was a “booster shot” that I had purchased out of the blue moon; one of those healthy concentrated mixes of natural ingredients. There is supposedly nothing but nutrients your body is dying to receive. Well. I left it in the fridge that was accessible to everyone backstage thinking that I could have it after the show is done and strike finished. But when I came to grab it at the end of the day, it was gone. Nothing but air in its place. Having it taken was a devastating blow to my day. I needed my expensive, almost unnecessary boost of nutrients. I wouldn’t have gotten it if I didn’t need it; and I rarely needed a stupid, over-priced 3oz of concentrates to help me feel better about my day.

It was gone. No one knew what had happened to it. No one I asked even knew about the shot I had kept in the fridge, and no one knew just how frustrated and upset having my juice stolen made me feel. What the actual fuck? Was this because I am Asian? Was this because I am a woman of colour? Was this because I am a queer woman of colour? Was this because I am a lesbian? Was this because an asshole decided that no queer woman of colour is deserving of a nutrient boost?

Who gave the prick the right to take something that wasn’t theirs? Whatever happened to the honour system? Why are the millennials so inconsiderate? Was that a generalization? Was it unfair for me to think that you stealing my juice is a microaggression? Your casual inconsideration becomes what feels like a targeted attack on a queer woman of colour – me – albeit unintentional in degrading any marginalized groups. I know thinking that could be a bit of a stretch, but so was stealing. Any excuse to convince and soothe myself from the hurt and anger triggered by someone taking something that didn’t belong to them, were whole-hearted welcomed – even if I was countering a wrong with a wrong.

Four

I’m writing because I want to remember what tonight felt like. Tonight, after having dinner and a movie with my family in celebration of Mother’s Day, all I could think about was how I wish I could come home to you: your support after an obligatory family occasion, your arms, your eyes, and your love. There was nothing I craved more than for me to open the doors to my apartment and find you on the couch, in the kitchen, or lying in bed.

As the dates of your visit near, my longing for you seems to have risen to a whole new level. I am craving your love, your voice, your admiration/ adoration for me, and your body. It was a kind of hunger that I don’t think could be satisfied. I am so sure of us that carrying on this long-distance relationship for the next two years seem like an effortless task. Nothing is going to shake us, nothing will break us, and nothing will change how I feel as long as I remember what I felt tonight.

LDR

These past nine days in Halifax has been unreal and overwhelming. That’s really the only two words that encompass and describe all that I’ve felt and am feeling. Unreal, because things actually happened. I hopped on a plane and flew 4000+kms to see someone I’ve only met once two months ago. After all the texts, sexts, messages, pictures and videos we’ve exchanged we were finally talking and seeing each other in person. I could touch her, feel her breath on my skin, kiss her, caress her, whisper in her ears and tell her how much I love her.

And all of that is overwhelming. I have not spent more than 10 days with her but I already love her. How do I know that for sure? How do I know what I’m feeling if I can’t even believe this is all happening? What are all these feelings that have suddenly surfaced? The last time I was in love was four years ago; how will I know what it’s like to be in love again? This whole time I was looking for answers for my own feelings. What am I feeling? What am I doing on the East Coast? What is it like to realize these feelings that we’ve confessed over text in person?

I felt numb. I didn’t know what to feel or what to do. Our time together has been so perfect it’s like a capsule of happiness. Perhaps that’s the magic of a long-distance relationship: you treasure every moment you have together because you know you’re never in the same place for long (at least for the near foreseeable future). You know you’re both returning to your own realities once the time is up; you’re back in your own world, with each other only skimming the surface of your bubble of your everyday life.

But what I realized as the plane took off from the tarmac in Halifax was that amidst the overwhelming sense of surreality, I did fall in love. The whole experience was unconventional and dumbfounding, but it was love. And that’s the only thing that matters.

Privilege Check-Mate

I’ll admit that Philippines was never on my list of countries to visit or places to travel to, but work was calling and I rarely turn down an expense-paid trip to go somewhere I’ve never been. The sights of the still-developing country was eye-opening. The streets were dirty, building covered in black exhaust dust from all sorts of vehicles, and the traffic was unmanageable. A little circle around the block could take up to 10 minutes to complete, and to go anywhere outside of a 20-min walking distance it’s safest to give yourself an hour for transport.

Parts of the major city were desolate and filled with dwellers on the side of the road in their make-shift shacks. Children run around on the sidewalk without shoes on, a girl showers naked atop a table from a bucket her mom is holding over her head; another kid sits on the ground playing with his friends completely undressed. In another corner of the city, a girl not older than 4 or 5 extends her arm and stretches her fingers out to ask for money while her mom begs in front of a convenience store that is steps away from a dance studio. Other kids who are older carry trays of snacks and work the bars at night trying to make sales. It was heart-breaking. It was hard seeing how poverty was so close and the divide so wide. I had not realized before this visit that this was the state of the country.

At many of the Q&A’s after our shows we could see the eagerness in the students’ eyes. Their aptitude and work ethic is truly beyond what I was used to seeing in North America. It seems like they work extra hard and treasure whatever opportunity they get because they know that to be able to dance and study it is precious. All of our studio showings have been bursting at the seams because people want to learn. They have the interest but not the means (when you compare on an international level), so when opportunity presents itself they grab and hold on to it.

Philippines is a country and a visit I won’t soon forget. Those images of struggle and despair have forever imprinted in my mind. I will carry them with me wherever I go and use them as reminders how good I have it. And that, in itself, is yet another privilege.

用中文說

今天用錢買了快樂。簡短暫時的快樂很不是滋味。逛了一整天的街才發現，我這次回來台灣是真的有要為未來可能會搬回來的意願來做準備嗎？ 總有一種我是在逃避的感覺。說不知道在逃避什麼也不是，在溫哥華過自己的生活雖然有自由可是也有煩人的雜事。這是不管住在哪裡都會有的困擾吧！

台灣有很多東西我很喜歡，相對的不喜歡的事也多。在這邊東西便宜，消費率高。從捷運站走回家一定會經過便利商店或是各種各樣的路邊攤。襪子，小錢包，服飾，雞蛋糕，黑糖糕，滷味，炸雞，烤地瓜等等，選擇多得很。這麼多小東西，現實感也特別強，隨時隨地都可以滿足你的渴望及需求。想要填飽肚子只要在附近走走一定有吃的，想要喝個飲料樓下便利商店沒有你想不到的口味。

不過好像就是這種馬上就有的現實感會讓我有時候怪不自在的。要什麼沒有什麼找不到的。現在的小孩好像就是在這種速食主義下成長的，所以才沒辦法專心把一件事做好，注意力沒辦法集中。而我呢？可能也是一樣的，漸漸地越來越沒辦法執著在一件事上。這樣要怎麼才能把事做好呢？還是先沈溺在這方便的城市中吧…

Crazy

All I could think about on my touristy walk around the park was where we could fuck in public without being seen. So many dead corners and blind spots without a visible soul in sight. So many missed orgasms and pleasure-inducing sexcapades waiting to happen. I am possessed; obsessed with your bright, beautiful, shining eyes, those tempting lips, the charming smile, and the impossibly perfect hands. I long to touch you, to hold you in my arms, and to feel your breath on my skin. My insides are screaming, aching for you. I don’t understand but I let it happen. I let thoughts of you occupy every cell in my body and give in to lust and desire.