Taiwan Docs

“Memory” and “Time” remain the core of my works. Seven years have gone by since I had the opportunity to be by the side of the protagonist: documenting her life from 88 until her death at 92 years old; I spent another year reinvesting the history, a year reconstructing the fragments of her memories and turn them into reenactment, and another year in post-production. Reflecting back to the moment when I first encountered her in the least conspicuous corner of the island, that dilapidated and peculiar old house, I’d always sit in the same seat and observe Grandma: her memories, her disappointments, and guilt. While also, I imagine a time of joy, sorrow, anger, and pride that she might have experienced. I tend to picture a personal history that’s nested under the greater history of an era. The fragment of time that grandma was unwilling to look back upon, must it had affected her life for the following few decades. Allocating this time under the modern history of Okinawa, what grandma went through was a mere tiny part of the Japanese Imperialism and colonization; it was an entanglement between Taiwan and Japan.

As an "immigrant" -a resident who has been an "outsider" from the beginning to the end, the cuts and complexities she experienced long ago had become insoluble knots. And I, how fortunate I was to be able to accompany grandma through the last four years, as a visitor, harvesting the fruits and flowers made of the past memories in her lonesome daily life.