Throwback post: Why I wrote 'Call of the sparrows'

Last year saw the first PAT original being staged at The Herald Theatre in Auckland, Call of the Sparrows, written by Chye-Ling Huang and directed by James Roque.

A cast of 6 Asian NZders brought this epic tale to life. Check out this sweet piece in Metro about how it came to be!

Why I wrote Call of the Sparrows

by Metro and Chye-Ling Huang / 12 October, 2016

Proudly Asian Theatre, a new theatre company dedicated to giving a voice to Asian theatre artists in New Zealand, debuts its first original production at Herald Theatre this week. Call of the Sparrows blends shadow play, masks and interactive performance to create an ethereal world like no other. Its writer (and Proudly Asian Theatre co-founder and actor) Chye-Ling Huang, describes the inspiration for the play in her own words.

Chye-Ling (left) with her sister, Chye-Mei.

This is a photo of me in Malaysia when I was about 11 (on the left with the bumbag). I was born and raised in Auckland on the North Shore. My mum is from Christchurch, with Irish roots, my Dad is Chinese, born and raised in Malaysia. Travelling there for the first time was a life-changing experience. As one of four matching, adorable, mixed-race daughters, we were doted on like crazy and given the best that Kuala Lumpur had to offer. The sights, sounds and smells were nothing short of otherworldly - spiky durians being hacked open, raucous mahjong games til dawn, temples rising up into the sky.

I became obsessed with the stories of our Chinese family. My Dad grew up in KL, but I later learned my Kong Kong had fled his village in Southern China after the communists came through in 1949. The details are hazy. There was the story of Kong Kong’s first wife who died suddenly, a voodoo doll found under her mattress. The evil auntie, who ended up saving Kong Kong from execution, my Ah Ma, who would swear and argue for hours at people who weren’t there. Under the giddy influence of childhood, my Chinese history became a folklore, a collection of mythologies, and it’s only now that I’m starting to unravel the truth behind them all.

James Roque and Chye-Ling Huang, co-founders of PAT, graduating acting school

This is James Roque (left). James and I were the two Asian kids in our class at Unitec, where we trained as actors (and graduated as wizards). We started up Proudly Asian Theatre (then Pretty Asian Theatre) in 2013 as a reaction to the despondency we felt at the lack of Asian representation in theatre and film in New Zealand. It was a blessing having someone else sharing a Kiwi-Asian experience as an actor, let alone someone I actually could jam with creatively who was a pretty cool human. Without James’ support and friendship this wouldn't have been impossible.

This is PAT’s first original show. James is Filipino-Kiwi, I’m Chinese-Pakeha, and one thing we had in common was that the superstitions and stories of our Asian families were impossible, theatrical and spoke to a deep-seated need for meaning and connection. This play is a way for me to explore that world and begin to understand the humanity in the folklore. It’s also a way of reconciling my own beliefs, from a New Zealand lens looking back at pieces of my Chinese culture I was never happy to identify myself with, and the things I remembered vividly from the stories I was told. It’s about the messiness of identity, what we hold on to and what we would rather forget.
 

Call of the Sparrows rehearsal. 

I’m still figuring out the kind of stories I want to tell, but this one feels like one I know deep in my bones. There’s something childlike in the imaginative world of this piece that has let us run wild with its theatrical presentation, and I’m immensely proud of the fact that we’ve put five Asian performers, mostly women, front and centre, with Asian creatives in the key roles. Whatever happens, we are getting the chance to do something big and challenging created by us, for us, and for me that is everything.

"I guess that's why love is so alluring, because we believe in it even when it seems like the odds are not in its favour." - Nathan Joe, playwright of Losing Face

"What lengths do people go to save face, and how important is it?"

Award-winning playwright Nathan Joe takes some time out from his busy schedule to chat with PAT’s producer, Kelly Gilbride about love, writing for theatre and the first play he ever wrote, Losing Face. Losing Face will be making its debut this Wednesday 13 September at The Basement Theatre at 8.30pm! For more information visit our Facebook page.

Fun fact about Nathan - he is also one of eight leading men in Asian Men Talk About Sex - an intimate short documentary created by Proudly Asian Theatre and Loading Docs. Watch it here!

Playwright Nathan Joe.

Kelly: This is the first play you ever wrote and you really took the plunge into quite an epic and sad love story. Was there anything specific, an event, a train of thought, that drove you to write Losing Face?

Nathan: Anyone familiar with gay relationship dynamics will tell you the younger Asian male and older white male is a notable one. It's a pairing that is also easy to be a bit cynical about too. One that I know people can often look down on and even sometimes scorn. So, then, it seemed natural to try and resist the impulse to judge and write something from the perspective of understanding.

Kelly: You’ve presented a relationship that is complex in more ways than one and that seems to be affected by some major external forces - different races, a wide age gap, the coming out of an older widowed man, societal norm. Can you speak to this - do you see these forces as barriers? What are you exploring with this relationship?

Nathan: Prejudice is at the heart of the play. Whether it's to do with race or age or what is simply expected of you. But I'm also interested in how prejudice can bring people together, as well as tear them apart. The notion of face is important here too. The idea of preserving your name or your social status. What lengths do people go to save face and how important is it?

Kelly: It seems rare to to see a play that explores an interracial relationship. How much do you think race plays a factor when choosing a sexual partner?

Nathan: I don't want to make too many bold claims, but race definitely has a major effect on how we judge or perceive potential sexual partners. Just like anything else. Admittedly this can be unconscious, but it's usually unconscious because it's a bias that has been left unchallenged.

Nathan Joe in Asian Men Talk About Sex, a 3 minute documentary

If you believe the personal is the political, then it should naturally extend to the bedroom too. That's not to say you should feel obligated to have sex with every race. That's silly. But if you have an aversion to any particular race then that definitely says a lot about you.

Kelly: Do you believe that love can transcend against even the greatest odds?

Nathan: Oh God. I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to think so. But I guess that's why love is so alluring, because we believe in it even when it seems like the odds are not in its favour.

Sorry if that doesn't answer your question.

Kelly: What do you hope audiences will take away or learn from Losing Face?

Nathan: Just leaving with a greater sense of empathy for the characters and people in general.

Kelly: What is the driving force behind your writing?

Nathan: Curiosity - if I can understand what makes a character tick that's really satisfying. And exploring the notion of right versus right. Where nobody is necessarily in the wrong. Where everyone has their reasons.

Nathan's play 'Like Sex' explored the dynamics of teenage sex and was staged earlier this year

Kelly: What do you find most frustrating about the theatre you see staged in Auckland?

Nathan: Lack of scope or ambition can be frustrating. But that's less about the makers and more about a lack of resources. Also I feel that we don't have a strong culture of really nurturing directors. Luckily we have plenty of talented actors who are willing to rise to the challenge.

Kelly: What are the most exciting things you’re seeing in theatre and film at the moment?

Nathan: Julia Croft's If There's No Dancing at the Revolution, Then I'm Not Coming. I saw it for the second time just to take some friends. But I didn't expect to love it even more on the rewatch. Victor Rodger's Ranterstantrum felt vital to me too. The stakes and tension felt very real. Very pertinent. And so so so angry. A necessary anger.

And I'm not seeing it till this Friday, but I'm incredibly excited for Alice Canton's OTHER [chinese].

Kelly: What advice would you give to first time playwrights?

Nathan: Read and see a lot of plays.

"To have conversations about sex, you need to be both vulnerable and open." Chye-Ling gets down to the nitty gritty with Tearaway

Tearaway Mag's Nidha Khan got the down-low on the discoveries, surprises and embarrassing moments director Chye-Ling Huang had whilst making Asian Men Talk About Sex.

Read is below or check it out on tearaway here

DIRECTOR CHYE-LING HUANG: BEING TRUTHFUL TO ASIAN STORIES

SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

By NIDHA KHAN

James, Han and Yoson share their experiences

Your task: Name at least 10 current mainstream Asian film or T.V. characters who aren’t the “nerdy best friend, silent kung-fu master, tech whiz in the office.”

Struggling?

It’s probably because there aren’t that many.

Now, given the growing online buzz around ‘representation’ and how it affects different ethnic communities, the next logical questions to ask are: How does this depiction of Asian men filter down into the everyday lives of young Asian men? And if sex, love, and dating are “universal human experiences, where is the real talk when it comes to Asian men?” These are the questions which director Chye-Ling Huang seeks to answer in her recent short film, Asian Men Talk About Sex, where eight Asian men speak candidly about love, sex, and dating in NZ.

Being able to represent Asian stories in really truthful ways and against stereotypes is a cause that Huang actively fights for through the theatre she co-founded in 2013 – and still runs – called Proudly Asian Theatre. But, this year, she decided to also venture into filmmaking as part of the Loading Docs initiative. In her film, she focuses solely on the experiences of Asian men since there aren’t any or enough of them in NZ media. There’s a need to create narratives which aren’t de-sexualising or emasculating, but just showcase a bunch of everyday, regular Asian guys, because that’s what they deserve.

James Roque is one of the 8 Asian men in the film.

It’s been a hard conversation to begin in NZ since we’re pretty stifled in our emotions. Huang’s found that people don’t tend to think about the current links between race, love, dating, and sex if they aren’t affected, and that men in particular don’t open up and talk to each other. Even when she’s spoken to her male Asian friends, they’ve never considered it. Mainly, it’s because they don’t want to. They’re forced to live with these stereotypes all the time and it’s not an area they enjoy delving into.

“It’s the classic NZ thing that we aren’t very open. It’s definitely a part of the NZ cultural soup that makes us feel shameful to talk about anything in the open. We don’t celebrate openness, we celebrate stoicism and a quiet confidence, like the All Blacks. Being vulnerable and open is not something NZ is very good at and of course, to have conversations about sex, you need to be both vulnerable and open.” – Chye Ling Huang

Han Huang, an immigrant from Malaysia, features in the doco

When she first began creating the film, the reaction from the people around her was “really mixed.” It took people a while to wrap their heads around it and they generally went through phases of shock, then surprise, and then curiosity. But, overall, it’s opened up a lot of dialogue for the people in her life. Even a month before the film’s release, people would approach her with various questions: Why are you making this? What’s the film really about? What are these concepts?

Being able to create these open conversations, spaces, and communities is what Huang’s found rewarding and enlightening. She feels that she’s gained a better understanding about the nuances of what it’s like to be an Asian guy in NZ, male sexuality in general, how different it is for men and women in terms of learning about sex, and the filmmaking process.

“There’s a lot of insidious things that happen that are really subtle, which I think is today’s brand of racism in NZ. The way that racism presents itself now is a lot of micro-aggressions… Some men would also say things like, “I would be swiping on Tinder and I would be like, she’s white, she’d be too pretty for me.” That level of internal racism towards yourself and your own culture was really interesting and something I wasn’t expecting.”  Chey-Ling Huang

The conversations around porn were also really interesting. Every person she interviewed talked about learning sex through porn and how damaging it was for them. Every single person brought it up, but Huang never instigated the discussion, it just came up organically. It’s definitely made her question whether she agrees with porn any more and how problematic it is that it’s become more socially acceptable for young men to watch it and that it’s a lot more damaging at a younger age than most people expect.

In terms of learning about filmmaking, she was able to find both commonalities and points of difference between the theatre. For example, the theatre is an “extremely visual medium” which she thought lent itself well behind the camera, you’re basically creating stories from images. But, in the theatre, you’re limited to time, space, and the physical world. If you want to create something different, you need to be really inventive with the way you use your body and create the energy in the room. In film, you can literally do anything. “You can have unicorns flying through the screen and then you’re suddenly underground. It’s quite limitless.”

Having gone through this experience, her advice for other newbies is that “if you’re thinking about getting into it, just do it, because it’s not as scary and hard as you think it is. Coming from a theatre background, I was ready to be overwhelmed by all the technical stuff and ready to be put in a lot of hard work to catch up in that area. But, if you have a team around you that kind of knows what they are doing or at least have some ideas, it becomes easy and do-able.”

Huang’s next move is to have her film garner as many views as possible across NZ and the rest of the world. She feels that the more successful the film is, the more it proves that POC (people of colour) stories should be up on our screens; that they’re worth putting money into. But she’s clear that it isn’t just up to filmmakers like her. You and the rest of the public can do something by raising your voices and supporting POC narratives by simply sharing, liking, and commenting on social media and “giving the higher powers the stats they need to justify putting money into POC stories.” We are long overdue for both interesting and diverse POC stories on a mainstream level, so let’s do this!

"...laughs, near tears and realizations happening all around the room." New Blood launch!

TVNZ launched their New Blood talent development web series last week, and The Han Chronicles is one of the exciting new shorts on offer. 

Made with TVNZ's development lab, Chye-Ling Huang (PAT co-founder) had the idea of sharing her Dad's unique immigration stories in a way that was fresh, fun and relatable.

With regards to the go-to immigrant story, Chye-Ling wanted to veer away from the norm. "My Dad's story is so similar to many other Chinese or Asian immigrant stories - the loneliness and hardship of coming to a new country alone was definitely a huge part of his journey. In Christchurch in the 70's many people had never seen an Asian guy in real life, but he was accepted by an amazing group of friends whom he shared lifelong bonds with."

With influences from director Calvin Sang, Huang's series are a mix between Comedy Central's 'Drunk History' with the 70's styling of 'Everybody hates Chris'. She said, "I wanted to focus on something different with this webseries - my Dad is a really positive, colourful character, so it made sense to highlight the wild and funny experiences he had."

Read about the launch below, and watch the two episode pilot here:

Watch both episodes on TVNZ on demand: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/the-han-chronicles

Youtube:

Episode 1 - Duck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3_Yh2uUWsM&t=6s
 

Episode 2 - Glenda: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3_Yh2uUWsM

 

TVNZ launches New Blood, gets experimental with short-form content

By Erin McKenzie

This week, TVNZ’s New Blood initiative went live, as more than 20 pieces of short-form content found a home on TVNZ.co.nz, YouTube and Facebook.

The pieces are a result of a collaboration of local talent—including producers, directors, writers, filmmakers, comedians, and actor—some of whom are new and emerging, and to celebrate they gathered over a few beers and pizza at Brother’s Brewery on Monday to watch previews of the content. There were laughs, near tears and realisations happening around the room—and that’s exactly what TVNZ was hoping for.

TVNZ’s digital commissioner, Amie Mills, says it wanted to create content that is different, provocative and champions diversity—through a range of voices, ethnicities, genders, sexuality, beliefs—as well as authenticity.

Han Huang stars in The Han Chronicles.

“New Blood is TVNZ’s way of reaching viewers who might not be engaging with our content like they used to," she says.

The newly launched titles include 30 days (a one-off sketch where an office worker has an existential crisis trying to remember the date by Simon Ward), The Han Chronicles (a two-part true story of an Asian man assimilating into life in New Zealand in the 1970s by Chye-Ling Huang ) and Girl Interrupted - The Masty  (a sketch series about women dealing with first-world problems by Jessica Joy Wood and Kura Forrester).

Covering so many topics, New Blood is also about experimenting with distribution methods and being specific and considerate about where content lives. While web series have been a popular result of the internet's many distribution platforms, that format can be constraining so the decision was made to widen the scope around how stories can be made. There's one-off comedy sketches, documentaries, two-part stories, stand-up specials and comedy web series.

“What makes this work exciting is that content formats are defined by the story being told, rather than having to stick to a particular format. We’re looking forward to seeing how our viewers react and engage with the work as it will inform what we create in the next phase of production,” says Mills.

An example of its willingness to enter new territory is, Re:, an alternative socially-driven news brand launched under the New Blood initiative. It’s been making a home for itself on social news feeds for nine weeks now, but at the launch event on Monday, Tasha Impey, who’s at the helm of Re:,introduced it and explained that its name, in a longer sense, means “relate, represent, responsibility, react, reach and respond to issues that affect young New Zealanders”.

Each week sees a new issue tackled and so far it's covered sexual health, drugs, suicide, immigration and education.

So far, those choices have proven popular, as Re:'s content has reached 8.6 million news feeds in its first eight weeks, as well as achieving 3.2 million social video views. Impey was also proud of the 1.8 million minutes that have been viewed, showing that people are watching the videos in their entirety, not just continuing to scroll after a few seconds.

The content is also averaging 120,000 engagements per week including likes, shares and comments.

While the Re: team is currently made up of TVNZ staff, it's building a contributor model that will open it up for emerging talent who have unique stories to tell.  

And there's plenty out there if the New Blood web series competition is anything to go by. It saw 150 submissions of pilot episodes for potential web series. Funded by NZ On Air, it asked for Kiwis to vote for their favourite pilot to be made into a full web-series.

It was Ashleigh Reid and Isla Macleod who won, with their Oddly Even series receiving 24 percent of the final vote. It will be available on tvnz.co.nz later this year.

New web series by Chye-Ling, Calvin and TVNZ!

The Han Chronicles is here!

TVNZ presents a 2 part web series pilot about a young Chinese immigrant arriving in Christchurch in the 70's, created by Chye-Ling Huang and directed by Calvin Sang. 

Created using her own Dad's true stories, we follow Han Huang on his journey of making friends, getting in trouble, falling in love and cooking a mean duck soup, all with a 70's twist!

"And that was our inception into New Zealand lore." - Han Huang

Jarrod Lee as Han Huang in The Han Chronicles.

Watch it now on TVNZ OnDemand! 

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/the-han-chronicles/episodes/s1-e1

Or on Youtube:
Episode one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3rOyQ3WrFY
Episode two: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3_Yh2uUWsM

Brian Choi and Genevieve Kent in The Han Chronicles.