A short summary of MY project

I'm raising £6000 to fund my second year in the best drama school in the UK!

Who aM I?

I'm a full-time MFA student on the Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media course at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. I write for stage, radio, television, and film. I'm also researching game and comic book writing with my course mates.

MY story

I have the good fortune to lead a, not exactly extraordinary, but quite unusual and surprising life.

As a Taiwanese girl born in Belgium, who later moved back to Taiwan in her early teens, I am no stranger to being the odd one out. Growing up, I was “la chinoise”, “the girl from abroad” or simply “a girl” when I entered a “language elite class” in a boys’ high school. With labels come distance and exclusion, and while in my case it was never cruel or even intentional, it still doesn’t change the feeling of estrangement I have had all my life. The feeling pushed me into the safe embrace of writing. I have spent most of my childhood and student years reading and writing, and started working in theatre productions in university. I am trying, as a writer, to connect to the world. And maybe a little arrogantly, connect the worlds I know.

• I write about everything I'm interested in. I'm currently working on a two plays based on Chinese customs and mythology. Retelling well-known stories from a female perspective. I'm also writing a monologue play based on my own experience about my fears for failure as a daughter/writer/woman. For my school projects, I'm writing a film script based on Taiwanese Indigenous legends and the subculture of tattoo in the Ximen District, Taipei.

• I am part of a Taiwan-based theatre group called Long Distance Collectives . We have members in different cities. We collaborate and develop new writing across time zones, and perform the works in Taiwan.
• I'm keeping a blog (although the progress to go through all the shows I've seen is painstakingly slow) to share the plays I've seen or been involved with in London with my friends and group members.
• I help digitize and translate thousands of traditional Chinese opera works with the Chinese Traditional Opera Archive in NCU. I work on translation of new writing from writers all over the world in the World Sinophone Drama Competition for Young Playwrights.

I want to tell stories, and I want to be good at it. I want to work in different media and experiment with all forms of storytelling. With my personal cultural background and professional experience, I have much in my hands just waiting to be molded and told. I know I still have a lot to learn.

In terms of theatre and filmmaking, a year in London made me feel like a child going to school for the first time, realizing that home is so small and there’s a bigger world out there. After the initial shock of a peek at a brand new world, I am more than ready to go back to school.

What will you spend the funding on?

All of the money will go into my tuition fee for a second year in Central .

Rewards

I don't have much to offer other than my writing. I'll be dedicating my works to you or take up writing commissions for short plays.

Find ME here

You can take a look at the works of the theatre group I'm part of on the Long Distance Collective Facebook Page , our first production before the group was formed at Taipei Fringe Festival 2015, and my blog Drama Is My Business where I share news and reviews of plays I've seen in London. (I'm sorry that all of the websites are mainly in Mandarin.)

Help ME succeed!

You don't need to give money to help me succeed! Please share this project with anyone you think would support me – on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, by email, telephone, in a chat over the fence or on your blog. In fact, share it with everyone you know as I think it's a great idea, and the more people who know about it, the more likely I am to make this work out brilliantly. And I know I said you don't need to give money to help us, but I'd love it if you did! Please sponsor me and help make this happen.