And now, a word from our sponsors...

If you didn’t know already, a short documentary that I made with a friend is currently up on Radio-Canada’s website, as part of their first “Digital Diversity” online competition, which asked young adults, 18-35, to think about immigration issues. There's some seriously awesome talent up on the site right now…and to even be chosen to be displayed amongst them is a great honour. I wanted to take a few moments here to talk about the background of the film conceptually, as many of you have seen it (I hope…and voted for us with your various emails?)…

It was really a crazy idea in the first place. I found out about the contest and thought that maybe we would have something to say about the topic – we were immigrants, after all. We went through quite a few head-scratching meetings talking about what could work – at first, we wanted to do interviews with people…and frankly, I don’t even remember what about. But then I thought – well…what hits home for us? What are our struggles? And ultimately, the subject matter of family came up.

In Chinese culture, “self” and “family” can be two of the same…Chinese identity is deeply rooted in family. The vision of the film was to show how family relationships have everything to do with how well people adjust to the “identity crisis” caused by immigration – when you’re learning from each other, being mutually supportive…that’s where growth happens and that’s how people adjust and embrace a different (but also not so different way of life).

Part of me is sad that we couldn’t have made a longer film – there was some more great footage, and again, I think it needs to be said that we couldn’t have made it without the bravery and openness of the featured family – to them, we owe all credit! It was really something just observing their conversations with one another – and it was personally encouraging to me to see the strength of their relationships with one another.

If you haven’t checked the film out already, here are the instructions once again:

1) Go to http://www.rcinet.ca/rci/en/concours.asp
2) Press "Launch the Site"
3) On the left column, under "Watch this week's finalists"(it's in red), you'll find our film (third from the end) as you roll over the different people with signs.
4) After viewing the film, please take the time to "rate the film" (that's the voting part!). When you press on "rate the film", you'll be asked to validate the address. This simply means checking your email and confirm to Digital Diversity that yours is not a spam address. Then, you'll be able to go back and actually rate the film!

Note to Hotmail users: The confirmation email will land in your Junk Mail. So please check that=)