Yau Ching

b. 1966, Hong Kong

Video/filmmaker, writer, educator, activist

An active, enthusiastic, articulate female voice, Yau Ching’s self-chosen task is to express the plight of the queer subject in the post-colonial, multi-cultural landscape of Hong Kong and the Chinese diaspora. Raised in Hong Kong, where she is a noted published author, Yau started working in video collaboratively, then made Inscape (Neijing, 1989).

From 1990 to 1999, she was studying, teaching and producing work in the United States and Great Britain. During that time, she worked with the Gay Men Health Crisis Center and Dyke TV in New York, made several videotapes and short films dealing with the issues of immigration, displacement and identity—Flow (Liu, 1993) and Diasporama: Dead Air (Ling Qi Lu Zao Zhi Er Zai Tong, 1997)—and wrote a PhD dissertation on the work of legendary Hong Kong female filmmaker Tang Shu Shuen.

Back in Hong Kong, she started teaching at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, published three books, including a collection of poetry, The Impossible Home (Bukeneng di jia, 2001), and resumed making queer media work, such as the short video Suet Sin’s Sisters (Bai Xuexian de meimei, 1999), about the ‘invisible’ queer female tradition in Hong Kong. In 2002, she completed her first feature film, Ho Yuk—Let’s Love Hong Kong (Hao Yu), shot in DV, guerilla-style (without permit) in real locations and self-described as ‘the first movie made in Hong Kong by a woman about women in love with each other’ (production notes).

Further reading

Yau, C (ed.) (2002). Ho Yuk—Let’s Love Hong Kong—Script and Critical Essays (Hao Yu—Ju Ben Ji Ping Luen Ji). Hong Kong: Youth Literary Bookstore.

BÉRÉNICE REYNAUD