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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 →

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 →

Bound Feet Blues – The Book!

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I’ve made a start on the book version of Bound Feet Blues and I’m pleased to say I have the first 5,153 words.

The script of Bound Feet Blues is only 25 pages and runs to a one hour show. That meant that I had to edit down the stories and simplify it all in order to create a story that works as an oral story and a theatre piece. The book will tell “The Stories Behind The Story”, expanding on and deepening the stories that are in the show.

The book will be framed by the scratch night performance that I tried out at Conway Hall in March this year. This was my first attempt at presenting the piece to a live audience and was made up of 45 minutes of a rough draft of the incomplete material. The book will follow my journey as a writer and performer trying to develop the memoir that would eventually become Bound Feet Blues, the show, alongside the journey of the actual story within the show.

Why this structure?

Well, I tried for many years to write the stories of my family, my heritage and my own personal life as a conventional memoir and that did not work. Bound Feet Blues works because it is a live dramatised story performance. So I want to honour the oral storytelling out of which the show evolved by writing a book that is an UNconventional memoir and that has the feel of 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

 

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Bound Feet Blues Rehearsal Photos – with writer/ performer Yang-May Ooi and director Jessica Higgs

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These photos were taken at a rehearsal the week before the Bound Feet Blues showcase performance. They show me in various scenes from the show, and discussing the script with director Jessica Higgs.

The photos were taken by the brilliant Claudia Rocha

The iconic pose showing my left hand as a bound foot “The Golden Lotus”

 

Discussing the script with director Jessica Higgs

Two more photos below –  Continue reading →

Yang-May Ooi talking about thrillers and bound feet on Radio Verulam [audio]

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Here is my interview on Radio Verulam – click on the link below and a player will open up:

https://app.box.com/s/0n1njetp0eut0bv29dxg

  Yang-May Ooi on Radio Verulam

 

 

It’s about 15 mins long. Enjoy!

 

Continue reading →

What do bound feet have in common with a lesbian thriller?

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My solo show Bound Feet Blues asks the question: how do we as individuals, and as women, live authentic lives true to ourselves within a dominant culture that seeks to control our bodies and our spirit? Foot binding in ancient China broke a woman’s body physically – but also broke her spirit over the course of the many years it would take to create the perfect tiny foot. What dominant cultural traditions in our modern era play a similar controlling role in who and what we can be?

I’ve just received the proofs of the e-book of my second novel, Mindgame, the first and only lesbian Malaysian thriller. It is soon to be re-issued by Monsoon Books and I am now reading through the proofs – all 450+ pages of the book – to check it before publication. On re-reading the book, I see that this same theme that I explore in Bound Feet Blues also Continue reading →