![]() Here I stand a chance of getting recognition for my hard work. Everyone would expect me to be married with children and to have a well-established, successful career. Jahaida: Have you ever felt the need to come back home to Taiwan for good? But still today, I struggle with self-confidence when expressing myself verbally, so I prefer to write. In the process of studying and working my English improved a lot. ![]() For editing jobs the night shift is the entry level and young undergrads are more prone to be considered for these positions. Hsuan-Yu: In filming and editing jobs I have never felt discriminated for being a woman, but competition is high and I am now trying to work under contract because of the financial security it can provide. Jahaida: Where do you stand in your career as a freelance woman filmmaker in New York City? It was tough, and it still is, but I am optimistic! I still freelance for this production company, but after I moved to New York I realized I had been in the wedding business for too long. The production company from Baltimore had gigs in New York, I decided to take the risk to relocate it has been worth the while. At that point, I was financially on my own. All I knew was living on freelance work was not very sustainable. My dream was to film and edit movies, advertisements, TV documentaries, etc. Meanwhile, I realized that the filming world can be hard, it works gig by gig and competition is very high. So I stayed in Baltimore for six years, mainly freelancing for them. I got my Master’s Degree after two years and was able to land an internship in Baltimore with a production company filming weddings. Hsuan-Yu: New York didn’t happen right away for me. What came after, how did you end up moving to New York City? I was lucky to find a job on campus, and I was also able to join another program at Maryland Institute College of Art where I finally focused on filming. I decided for a major in Publications Design. Hsuan-Yu: A few schools accepted me, and I chose the University of Baltimore. Jahaida: In the end, which school accepted you? But I didn’t limit myself to it and applied to several schools. I dreamt about joining the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, I so much wanted to be accepted there. What a gift! So after moving to New Hampshire with my father I started to look for schools in Boston. Working in my father’s business never crossed my mind, and my mother gave me the chance to explore what I really wanted. This would put me in a higher rank to get married, so it was ok.īut I was never inspired to pursue a career in business. I managed to get approval from them to study business because they thought that I could at least get a job in a bank. My first dream as a child was to draw comics, but in Asian countries your parents will only settle for medical school. She paid for my programs, expenses, and later on my tuition. My mother was the reason I was able to come to the US as a student. Hsuan-Yu: My parents divorced when I was a teenager. Jahaida: So at this point, did you think of pursuing a career in the restaurant business with your father and family, or were you going to keep trying to enroll in an arts school in New Hampshire? Three months of self-doubt and frustration later, I decided to go to New Hampshire where my father had moved from Taiwan to work with some distant relatives and friends to pursue their American Dream as Chinese restaurant owners. And after joining this program, I quickly realized that my English skills and scores would not be enough to fully succeed in a high level university. It took me a long time to find a program in a Michigan school with a suitable multimedia major that would accept me. I arrived on a student visa to pursue a Master’s after finishing my undergrad in business in Taiwan. Hsuan-Yu: I first came from Taiwan to Michigan in 2001. Jahaida: When did you come to New York City and why? It is a sometimes unforeseen turn of events and decisions that led her to New York City, a place that for the past seven years she has called her home. We are welcomed into the home of Kaoru Watanabe, a Japanese Taiko drummer, and Hsuan-Yu, with her flexible body, immediately starts to unload and set up tons of filming equipment, cameras, and microphones to get to work on her passion: filmmaking. We take the elevator to the apartment of one of her friends in the basement where, she explains, she is working on a film segment for BRIC, a Brooklyn-based art and media nonprofit. She opens the door with a warm, charismatic smile that seems to be a permanent feature of her face. On a cold April morning in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, I meet with Hsuan-Yu Pan. Interview conducted and written by Jahaida Hernandez Jesurum
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