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The power of vulnerability to inspire others – Yang-May Ooi talks about performing Bound Feet Blues

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Yang-May Ooi talks about allowing herself to be vulnerable on stage in performing Bound Feet Blues and how vulnerability can inspire others to connect with their heart and  humanity.  You can read the full interview by writer/ journalist Anna Sayburn Lane on her blog, Bloomsbury Bluestocking.

Click on the image below to go to Anna’s blog to read the full article…

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Bloomsbury Bluestocking is a blog about writing and literature by Anna Sayburn Lane.  Anna is a novelist, short story writer and storyteller, inspired by the history and contemporary life of London. She is editing her first novel,Unlawful Things, and contemplating novel number two. She has published short stories in a number of magazines.

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You can buy tickets for Bound Feet Blues via bit.ly/bfbtickets

DETAILS

Tristan Bates Theatre
1A Tower St, Covent Garden WC2H 9NP

Tue 24 Nov – Sat 12 Dec, Tue – Sat at 7.30pm.
Tickets £16 / £12 concessions.
Q&As post-show, 27 Nov & 4 Dec.

For National Coming Out Day, read a FREE extract from Yang-May Ooi’s coming out story as told in her memoir Bound Feet Blues, the book

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To celebrate National Coming Out Day tomorrow, Sunday 11 Oct, writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi shares an extract from her memoir Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes, the book that is inspired by her solo theatre piece of the same name. Bound Feet Blues is as much about Yang-May’s journey to discovering her sexual identity as it is the story of the women in her family. 

Here is the extract from the chapter entitled “Biker Boots” from the book, Bound Feet Blues:

Coming out is a rite of passage.

In the world of debutantes and high society, it is an ancient tradition going back generations. When a young woman comes of age, she is invited to a coming out ball to introduce her to society – and  in the aristocratic classes in Britain, to present her to the monarch. It is her “debut” into the world as an adult – or, rather, as a fertile virgin of a marriagable age. This custom continues to this day among the elite not just in Britain but also, surprisingly, in the ideally classless societies of Australia and the United States.

The coming out ball is the moment when high society gathers to view the future of their dynasties. Debutantes customarily wear white ball gowns, sometimes with long white Cinderella gloves and sometimes with tiaras or both.  If you Google images of  “debutante ball coming out”, you will see that the styles of the ball dresses have changed little since Victorian times and often the young women are indistinguishable from each other in their demure, beautiful uniforms. The eligible young bachelors gather round them in white tie and tails and suddenly, we are back in the world of Jane Austen and Downton Abbey and fairy tale princesses.

For a young woman in that society, to come out is to emerge from Continue reading →

Be the first to read an extract from Bound Feet Blues, the book

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Writer/ Performer Yang-May Ooi shares an extract from her new book, Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes. The manuscript has just been submitted to publisher Urbane Publications and will be available in bookshops and online in early November. 

I was very pleased at the weekend to be able to put the finishing touches to the manuscript of Bound Feet Blues, the book and to dispatch it to Matthew Smith, my publisher at Urbane Publications.

As I celebrated with some bubbly with my partner, I reflected on how taking of my shoes and going barefoot transformed the stage version of Bound Feet Blues from a long form style of storytelling into a dramatic performance.

 

I write about that moment in the book so what better way to share my reflections here than with an extract…

I began to go through the scenes of Bound Feet Blues. The sexy walking in the opening moments became sexier. In the scene when I am eight, I suddenly took off half running, half skipping round the dining room – my whole body expressed the gangly movements of a little girl. As the bound foot mother, I stood with Continue reading →

Bound Feet Blues, the book, to be published by a handsome man at Urbane Publications

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In February, I signed with Urbane Publications to bring out the book of Bound Feet Blues: The Stories behind the Story. Here is the historic moment – I am with Matthew Smith of Urbane, signing the contract on the 5th floor balcony of the Royal Festival Hall.

 

One of my female friends asked me, “Who is that handsome man you are with?”

Hmm. Regular readers of this blog will know that I grapple with the issue of women being objectified for their beauty and in particular, in ancient China for their tiny bound feet. So as a feminist and a humanist, I am in a quandary. Does that comment objectify Matthew?

Another female friend commented on Facebook about me in this photo: “looking f***ing hot”. Was she objectifying me?

I would say that neither comment is an objectification. I am all for appreciating someone’s looks, whether they are male or female – so long as Continue reading →

Walking Wild, Walking Free

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One of the themes of my show Bound Feet Blues is the power of being able to walk on your own two feet.  This theme is a very personal one for me as I love being able to stride about. In my daily life, I value being able to choose where I go and taking in the busy urban landscape of London at a walking pace. I also love long walks in the countryside and in particular, walking on long distance trails.

With my partner and our friends, over the last three years, I have walked almost 300 miles along some of Britain’s most beautiful long distance paths.

So, as you can imagine, I am an avid fan of Cheryl Strayed‘s hiking memoir Wild – about her 1,000 mile transformational hike along the Pacific Crest Trail in America. And last weekend, we headed off to the movies to see the film version starring Reese Witherspoon. See the trailer below.

 

The movie is a terrific adaptation of the book, bringing out the internal journey as much as the external journey. The story is as much about a an intense mother-daughter relationship as it is about Cheryl’s discovery of who she is through the solo challenge of the long distance  hike – in fact, the two themes are inextricably linked. This thread means a lot to me as Bound Feet Blues is also about intense mother-daughter relationships  – and self-discovery is portrayed through two life transforming hikes!

Here’s what the New York Times Review said of Wild:  Continue reading →

Yang-May Ooi on BBC London Live

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I went in to the BBC London Live studios on 16 Oct to chat with the delightful Jo Good about my novels The Flame Tree and Mindgame and also Bound Feet Blues.

In case you missed it, here is the interview again. It runs for about 20 mins. Click on the image below and an audio player will open up.

 

Or, you can click on this link – https://app.box.com/s/n5kxj3szaric1d03r8qi

 

Continue reading →