Free Talk
June 18, 2025, 7:00PM PDT
Zoom Link: https://cityu-edu.zoom.us/j/89659452233
These days, even dreams have gone up in price. One must spend wisely. A summer getaway feels too far, too costly; watching a few old films feels just right. No need to pack a thing—turn off the lights, start the reel, and you’re no longer where you were.
To Gen Z, these films are surely old. Ju Dou, from 1990—the Berlin Wall had just fallen, the Cold War was drawing to a close, and the world was warming itself for noise, for color, for life again. Farewell My Concubine and The Wedding Banquet—each in its own key—arrived in 1993. A year later, Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman laid a family’s tangled emotions across a dining table. And in 2000, as the century turned and the world held its breath, Wong Kar-wai gave us In the Mood for Love—a film where every collar, every glance was arranged to perfection, as if nervous about greeting a new era.
Yes, these films are old—and no, not really. Their characters speak in other tongues, live in other times. They have wept, ached, waited. The things they care about—feeling, duty, decorum—may seem dated, but really, how far are we from those very things?
Before you watch—or rewatch—these films this summer, come hear where these characters came from, which pasts they carry on their backs. When the lights go dark, we live alongside them in the same scene. And when the lights rise again—are we, too, still standing in the same shadow?
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Chien Tsai is a leading voice in the study of contemporary Chinese and Sinophone literature and cinema. As co-editor of Sinophone Studies: A Critical Reader, he helped shape a field that reimagines Chinese-language writing beyond national frames. Having taught at Harvard and UT-Austin, Dr. Tsai now directs the World Languages program at City University of Seattle, where he continues to foster cross-cultural understanding through research, teaching, and public engagement. He has been invited to speak at universities across the world. With a keen eye for both narrative and nuance, his scholarship draws out the cultural forces that enrich the global Sinophone experience.