So Long, Farewell

What fascinates you about it? I don't know, I've asked myself that question
many times! I feel like I understand it very well, it
feels very natural for me to tap into. I think a big
part of the reason is because I'm an immigrant, I'm
originally from Malaysia and I came to the States when I was
19. I remember going through a long time of needing to
see my family, missing my life before I came to the
States. I just remember those really intense feelings
of homesickness, and those kind of feelings have been
revisited in my life as of late, even though I do see
my family. Those really intense feelings of longing.
It's kind of a stretch to go from that to the feelings
you have when you lose someone in your life, but for me, I
could take that jump. I feel like it's almost what I went
through that year times 10.

Malaysia is very strict about what films they show;
what was it like to come to the U.S. and see such a wide
breadth of film after growing up there? Anything that gets shown in Malaysia has to go
through a very tight censorship board. It was, like,
really, really strict, and in some ways ideological
censorship that was happening. I was always exposed to film
through that perspective. I think when I came to the States,
I still hadn't become a complete person yet. It was a
process that took about a year and a half, two years,
before I came to terms with my sexuality, and this was
in conjunction with my discovery of watching films as they
were meant to be seen: uncensored. I think this time
in college where I was coming out and watching and
reading things I wanted to, it was like
self-liberation in a way. In fact, I think those things made
it easier for me to come out in some ways.