Short Docs
CHINATOWN SYNDROME (24mins, 2023)
Director | Camera | Editor
ABOUT
Chinatown Syndrome compiles diverse and authentic portrayals of the Chinese diaspora within a narrative gallery. Through genuine dialogues, the film reveals the inherent absurdity of life in Chinatown.
Observing scenes from bustling barbershops to hidden corners of dilapidated malls, the film examines the contradiction between Chinatown’s public image and the realities experienced by its residents. In this urban enclave, which simultaneously confines and protects, Chinatown Syndrome emerges through intimate and nuanced glimpses into everyday lives.
Portraits | Documentary | Chinese Diaspora | Everyday Absurdity | Urban Observation
ABOUT
In early 2022, China hosted the Winter Olympics amidst strict bubbles created to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Returning briefly to her home country for a temporary assignment, a journalist finds herself confined within one of these highly controlled environments.
Within this isolated bubble, she encounters two fellow workers. As she becomes intertwined in their stories, she gradually discovers that the bubble itself is an unexpected force weaving together their seemingly unrelated lives.
HAPPY PRISONER (38mins, 2023)
Director | Camera | Editor
Portraits | Documentary | Chinese Diaspora | Everyday Absurdity | Urban Observation
Series Docs
Chinatown Squences | Series (2024)
Chinatown Sequences is a series of short documentary portraits filmed in New York’s Chinatown between 2023 and 2024.
Each sequence centers on one voice—a veteran, a nun, a tenant, an inheritor, a block watcher, and others—sharing their stories through interviews recorded in familiar spaces.
Instead of offering a singular narrative, these fragments are quiet, personal, and deliberately incomplete. Together, they reflect Chinatown not as a fixed place, but as a shifting cultural symbol shaped by memory, migration, and everyday resilience.
Built through interviews and paced through editing, the series invites viewers to pause and listen—to stories that might otherwise be lost in the noise of the city.
