Gateway is the video production workshop that I have been teaching for the past two years at the University of Macau.  It is a graduation project for 4th year students majoring in English communication that  I inherited.  Generally speaking, each semester involves a theme.  I have consistently tried to theme the course in a way that straddles the border between narrative fiction and documentary or ethnographic approaches.  This semester, the contrast of styles is clear as one film, “One less lonely fish,” is a narrative short and the other, “This Stop, Macau,”  is a kind of ethnographic reflection on the lives of mainland Chinese students studying at UM. The connection is between these films is that both are original approaches to the theme of “Crossing Cultures.”

I was a bit reluctant to use the name, “crossing cultures,” as it sounds a bit too anthropology 101 to my ears; but I eventually came around to it as good starting point.  I like it both because I can relate to it from my own personal experience of living in Macao; and I like it as it forces some working definition of culture.  What is it?  How can we work with it or combine it?  How can you mark or define it’s boundaries?  These questions are not so easily answered.  The student films are not so much answers as invitations to the audiences to consider along with them how we see and experience a world that is largely cross cultural.

You can watch “This Stop, Macau” here and soon I also hope to have “One less lonely fish” available.  We are also working to make the previous semesters films available.  I would love to hear feedback from anyone whose managed to find their way to this site and takes the time to watch these videos.  I am proud of their hard work and as always finish off the semester eager for the next.