story

How hard hearted can I be in Editing Bound Feet Blues?

/ Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment
I Finished the script of Bound Feet Blued a couple of weeks ago. Now be hard task of editing it begins.
 
 
 
I laid out all 25 pages of the script on the dining table so that I could see the flow of the story in one glance. Also, having it spread out in front of me means that I could see how each section relates to other sections.
 
 
 
Assuming three minutes per page, the script was running to about 75 minutes – which is the outside running time. My aim is to try and
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It’s the small things that make up some of the best stories [Bound Feet Blues]

/ Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

We often think that stories need to be grand and on an epic scale to be compelling. We think that great stories involve heroic, larger than life characters. And so, we come to believe that our own stories mean very little because they happen on such a small scale compared to people who have been through war, disaster, terrible illnesses and events that seem “Worthy” of recognitiion.

I am of course not disrespecting the trauma and suffering of people who have been through those harsh and terrible experiences. Those stories are meaningful and need to be told.

Storytelling round a campfire

Storytelling round a campfire

But other stories have their place too. Stories on a smaller, less epic Continue reading →

How do you write about your life without upsetting the people you love? [Bound Feet Blues]

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As an author of memoir or true stories that is the big dilemma: how do you tell stories about your life without upsetting the people you love who may be an integral part of those stories –  especially because they are an integral part of your life?

I’ve mulled over this long and hard as I’ve been working on Bound Feet Blues, which tells stories from my life – and which inevitabley involve those people who are an important part of my life.

My blog post on my main blog StoryGuru explores this dilemma in more depth: see  True Stories Told Live: Innocent Bystanders May Be Written Into This Story [Bound Feet Blues]

“One of the challenges about true stories told live – ie telling stories from your own life – is that they involve other people. And while these people may have signed up to your life as a friend or enemy or lover or relative or colleague, they may not have signed up to be in your story, whether that story is a written memoir or an oral story told live to others. So, how do you tell stories or write books about your life without upsetting those who appear in them because they happen to be around during the incident you are talking about?…

[READ MORE]

 

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Photo: thanks to flattop341 on flickr.com (CCL)

Bound Feet Blues: Inside the mind of a woman crippled by bound feet in ancient China

/ Yang-May Ooi / Leave a comment

What was it like to be a woman crippled by bound feet? This question has always haunted me ever since I was a child when I  learnt about the bound feet women in China.

I have been researching this question for my story performance Bound Feet Blues.

You can read my essay about the practice of footbinding and how it affected generations of women emotionally and pyschologically over at my main blog StoryGuru.co.uk: see “Bound Feet Blues: What was it like to be a woman crippled by bound feet in ancient China?”

“For a thousand years, women crippled their daughters to create perfect dainty little bound feet which were beloved by men and became the currency for a good marriage. What was it like to be one of those women? Why did they carry on such a cruel practice? 

…. [READ MORE]”

 

 

Photo: flyer for Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes – from the author’s personal archive

 

 

Solo Performance: Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes (work in progress)

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In Chinese tradition, women with tiny bound feet were desirable as wives and lovers, their delicate feet seen as objects of both status and sexual fetish. In her first full length storytelling piece Bound Feet Blues – A Life Told in Shoes, Chinese-Malaysian story performer Yang-May Ooi explores themes of female desirability, identity and empowerment in this personal story told through the shoes in her life.

The image of Chinese women with bound feet has haunted me since I was a child. I think of these women who have been crippled for life ever since they were 4 years old, unable to walk, with broken stumps for feet beneath the delicately embroidered silk shoes. Just so they can appear to have little, dainty feet and seem to be elegant and graceful – and therefore desirable and marriageable.

Small Feet

I’ve always had small, delicate feet. My shoe size is 3.5 and it’s a real problem trying to Continue reading →

Follow my Mood Board for Bound Feet Blues on Pinterest

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Images can help the creative process. Artists, writers and other creatives use Mood Boards to help them in their work.  Discover how Author and Story Performer Yang-May Ooi has been using Pinterest to collect pictures in a Mood Board for her current project, Bound Feet Blues.

For Bound Feet Blues, I’ve found it helpful to collect images of bound feet and the Chinese cheong sahm (long dress) as well as other images – no matter how tangently – that relate to the various themes I’m exploring:

# Chinese Continue reading →