multicultural story-sharing

At an amazing post-festival drink party with the Emerging Writers Festival people, while discussing straightmenkissing.com and Melbourne storytelling projects, I had an idea that could feed into the Marco Polo Project. Why not create a platform where Chinese speakers (and maybe Japanese, Korean, and Spanish speakers too) could share their experience of Melbourne as a place where they lived as international students.

I spoke with a guy there who works at Melbourne Uni, and said ‘these international students, they come here, but they stay together, they don’t really meet the locals, they might as well stay home.” I said,” Not so: they do meet people they would never meet home. People from Beijing meet people from Shanghai, and Chongqing, and Tokyo. How would they meet them, at home? It’s like the Erasmus yer for Europeans, you meet other Europeans, often some from your home country; and it’s extremely formative – even if it’s not a proper encounter with the country you live in.

So, yes, why not provide a platform where these international students could tell the stories of their time in Melbourne – and, maybe, share it with locals (or we could translate them, and spy on them); like Americans tell of their time in Paris. Melbourne as a playground for cosmopolitasians – why not?

Emerging Writers Festival

I just had an amazing panel session on type-casting at the Melbourne Emerging Writers Festival with Anita Heiss, Ryan Paine and Karen Pickering. Empowering feminist vibe dominating the talk; smart people. It was good to reflect on being a gay writer – and as a result, I’m thinking, hey, how come I haven’t started a gay blog yet? I think I will!

new developments – new possibilities

I just had a nice lunch with Nghi, discussing the possibility of shooting two ‘bush horror’  movies later this year, or early next year. Guerilla low budget filming: two times 45 minutes, $5,000. But, well, maybe we can make it happen? I would be the director – he’s got a crime writer working on the script. And – guess what – one of the scripts has a gay character.

Marco Polo got online

At last! The Marco Polo Project is online. It is not looking great yet, there is much much to do on it. But there is something. Something that didn’t exist before. What was just an idea, a mad plan jotted down on a notebook in the middle of the night, in a Tianjin Hotel room five months ago, now has come to life. This is soooo exciting!

Honey Pot is going to Verona

Nghi had yet another random piece of news a few days ago: the director of the Verona Video Festival saw Honeypot on the self-service computers of the Clermont-Ferrand short film festivals, and decided he wanted it in his festival. So there we are, after India, we’re hitting Italy, yeah!

For someone who wants to write romantic comedies, having my first film showing in the capital of Bollywood, and the city of Romeo and Juliet bodes well for the future .

Marco Polo is rolling

We had our mid-term meeting for the Marco Polo project last Sunday, and the discussion went well. A few amendments to the constitution, but overall, everyone agreed. Now we’re making it. But wow, when was that moment in my life I took a right turn, and became the founder of an NGO? So random!

Honey Pot is going to Mumbai

As could be expected from a gay film-maker, I’d love to make a Bollywood-style musical. Something camp and fluffy, with orange saris and sparkly things. Well, step one is approaching: Honey Pot’s been selected to the Mumbai Queer Film Festival. Zoobie Doobie everyone!!

User Stories

Yesterday, I’ve been working on drafting ‘user stories’ for the information architecture part of the Marco Polo project. It’s an interesting process: in order to develop the architecture and navigation plan of your website, you imagine a fictional user – giving him or her a name, an age, a profession, as well as a motive for visiting your website; then, you describe, in all details, the interaction between that fictional user and your intended website.

It a a fabulous visualisation technique, and suddenly raises many questions you wouldn’t ask yourself otherwise: she wants to input text but is not logged in – what action triggers an error message? is she redirected to a registration page? She wants to register, is that instant, or does she receive an email with an activation link? Little details and decisions you need to make.

I was reminded of things I read about architects – how the art of architecture is about building daring shapes in space, inspired from dreams or animals. But their art is, also, that of the mason, build something that holds together; and something even more down-to-earth, a kind of simple commonsense, or knowledge of the human – make sure there is a pathway to each room. Build in windows, plumbing, ventilation. Think where your doors will be.

But for a fiction writer, this process is more than just about making a blueprint. Believe it or not, I grew attached to my characters. I started wondering, will their life be changed by this website? Will they, or will they not contact another user? Will something happen then? It was exhilarating, to imagine as fiction something I want to bring to the world. Dangerous also – probably – taking me far from the mundane drafting of a business plan or of a budget, into my own fantasy-world, where volunteers jump in, enthusiasms feed each other, yet everyone does, to a point, exactly as I tell them.

Developing the Marco Polo Project

Dan came with a nice surprise on Friday: he set up a demo website using googlesites to promote the Marco Polo Project. I had an intial feeling of – wooo, more work – but then very soon, I started thinking – how cool to have an attentive programmer friend, who takes initiatives. And it’s a good way to promote the idea. Check it out here.

Going multilingual

I’ve just created a renren profile – thank you Aaron. And feel all excited! Growing into the Chinese web. Tomorrow, I shall help Philip set up his, and publish his ‘Year with I-Ching’ to a Chinese audience.