To register to attend please email shannon.cheal (at) deakin.edu.au or phone 03 9244 6417

View Autumn Gem Screenings in a larger map

We will continually update this map as the film makes its way to more and more places around the globe!

Thanks to Ivan at XBureau, the developers of the app, for catching this!

We’re pleased to announce the immediately availability of the Autumn Gem Preview application for the iPad!

Using selected video clips, archival materials, and interactive features, Autumn Gem Preview introduces you to this fascinating figure through an extensive trailer of the film.

On the home screen are three Chinese characters: Woman, Sword and Country. Tapping on each character will take you to a different section of Qiu Jin’s life.

Learn about the oppressive conditions imposed upon women during Qiu Jin’s time and her struggle to break free of them. Follow her path from childhood as a privileged daughter of an official’s family, to a young woman forced into the traditional roles of marriage and motherhood, to her rejection of those roles and her transformation into a radical women’s rights advocate.

See how she became involved in a rebellious plot to overthrow the last dynasty in China. Use your fingers to control Qiu Jin as she trains in martial arts to prepare herself for battle.

Tap to buy the Autumn Gem DVD and learn more about Qiu Jin on the official Autumn Gem web site.

Autumn Gem Preview provides a unique experience that introduces you to the compelling story of modern China’s first feminist.

You can download it from the iTunes App Store today.

Note: Due to the size of the application, we recommend you download it using a WiFi connection or via iTunes.

On Sunday, the Chi Am Circle club sponsored a screening of Autumn Gem at the Saratoga Public Library. Ninety people were in attendance for the screening, including Qiu Jin’s Great Grandnephew, Charles Fan, whom we first met at the Willow Glen screening back in March. Now that we’re back from our Spring 2010 Tour, we have time to start planning our next steps with the film: more screenings, interviews, a study guide for the Institutional version of the DVD and the iPad application.

As with the Wellesley College screening, we ran the entire Keynote presentation and video from our iPad. In addition, we demoed the Autumn Gem iPad app at the end of the screening. We hope to have it uploaded to the App Store in the next couple of weeks for those million people who bought an iPad in the first month of the product’s availability!

Special thanks go out to Edric (one of our Qing soldiers from the film), who loaned us his projector. Thanks also go out to the Chi Am Circle club for organizing the screening and providing the refreshments.

Autumn Gem for the iPad wins the Future of Publishing Award at the inaugural iPadDevCamp!

Autumn Gem for the iPad introduces the incredible story of Modern China’s first feminist, Qiu Jin. Drawing on the innovative and interactive features of the iPad, users can learn about Qiu Jin’s efforts in the Women’s Movement in China and her role in overthrowing the Qing government.

Many thanks to Ivan Torres and Dominic Tham from XBureau in Orange County for their work in developing the application. In true BarCamp tradition, we met randomly on Friday night, hit it off, and developed a complete working and award-winning prototype in two days! With the award — which was sponsored by Promote-A-Book — comes a free iPad, which we’ll be giving to them. We couldn’t have done it without them! Richly deserved, guys!

Here’s a screenshot of the upcoming application, which we will be getting onto iTunes App Store soon!

The Spring 2010 Autumn Gem Tour featured 13 screenings in 18 days. Our final stop before returning to the Bay Area was at State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island. Saying goodbye to my relatives in New Jersey, we took an early morning train to New York’s Penn Station. We didn’t head immediately to Long Island, as I had to make a quick jaunt over to the All Things Digital “East Coast Office” in Midtown. The differences between the two cities of Boston and New York were readily apparent as we walked between the towering skyscrapers. Boston had more of an old-time colonial and working class feel to it, whereas New York had a more hustle and bustle, white-collar feel. I can understand how intense a rivalry can develop between these two cities (esp. in sports); the variations here are more apparent than those between Northern California and Southern California cities.

We spent just an hour inside the News Corp. building before leaving to return back to Penn Station for our Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) train ride. I didn’t realize the News Corp. building had a subway stop in the basement — convenient! I’m very fortunate that I’m able to work remotely while on tour. We couldn’t have produced Autumn Gem without having the flexibility to work virtually anywhere, be it in China, Las Vegas or the East Coast. My motto is “Have Internet, will travel!”

The last time that I took the LIRR was during Vienna Teng’s East Coast tour way back in 2003. My, how time flies! Vienna recently announced that she’s embarking on a new chapter in her life by getting her MBA at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Another thing that we’re blessed to have are friends who are off blazing their own trail in their professions and interests. If there’s just one student that we’ve inspired to make their own films or work on their own projects, our trip will have been a success. Of course, we would like to have inspired more than just one, but you get the point! We hope to have a screening one day at UMich so we can go and visit her — instead of the other way around!

Thanks to my friend Randy’s guidance, we rented a car from the Enterprise store not too far from his parents’ house, where we would be staying that night. From there, we drove 45 minutes to Stony Brook University. The first thing that we both noticed was that Long Island really is long! Next, the scenery seemed to gradually change from suburbia to farmland! Third, you have to go on so many different highways, parkways, turnpikes and roads to get from Bellmore to Stony Brook. Thank goodness that we had a GPS to guide us there!

The screening was held at the Charles B. Wang Center on campus. For those unfamiliar with their tech history, Charles Wang is the founder of Computer Associates, the well-known computer software corporation. He lives in Stony Brook and donated a generous sum of of over $40 million to fund the construction of the building, which is “dedicated to presenting the public with a multifaceted, intellectually sound, and humane understanding of Asian and Asian American cultures, and their relationship to other cultures.” And what a lovely building this was! I really liked the high ceilings, the floor-to-ceiling windows that let in so much light and the multiple levels that made the building seem endless. The theater was equally stunning, easily the most beautiful venue on this tour.

We had about 150 in attendance, comprised primarily of three classes of students. Unfortunately, many of them had to leave right before the end of the film, as they had another class to catch (there’s only 10 minutes between sessions). Next time, we’ll be more aware of this and shorten our introductory presentation accordingly.

One comment from the audience was regarding the choice of an elite female athlete to portray Qiu Jin. In a way, Li Jing embodies the legacy of Qiu Jin’s efforts to emancipate women physically, to transform the frail, bound-footed women of the past into strong, healthy, capable bodies. For the women of Qiu Jin’s time, the very act of engaging in exercise was revolutionary. We hoped to capture this spirit through the beauty of women performing wushu.

The screening was organized primarily by Professor Sunita Mukhi and Iona Man-Cheong. Big thanks to them and their assistants for bringing us a large audience to conclude our tour. We also met Gary Mar, professor from the Philosophy Department, who was instrumental in bringing the donation of the Wang Center to Stony Brook. Professor Mar has also produced documentary films himself, and was able to direct us to some excellent resources to help us expand the reach of our film.

We had dinner at the Jasmine Restaurant in the Wang Center. With selections ranging from Indian to Chinese to Thai to Japanese, I chose Indian for my dinner. We hit many of the world’s cuisines on this tour: Afghan, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, American, Italian, Vietnamese, New England Seafood and more.

And so ends our first big tour of 2010! We will be having a couple of screenings in the San Francisco Bay Area over the next several weeks. We will also be planning another Fall tour, too. We would like to go back to the East Coast, but we’d also like to visit the Pacific-Northwest and Texas (yes, Texas is like it’s own geographical locale!). If you and your organization are interested in having a screening of Autumn Gem, please contact us!

Finally, I wrote these last several blog entries while on the plane heading back to the Bay Area. And, I used my iPad instead of my laptop! Signing off for now!

The previous day’s double feature, coupled with the lengthy and hectic travel to get to New Jersey, left us pretty tired. But, we were now on the home stretch and nothing would get in the way of our completing this tour! Fortunately, the next screening at Brookdale Community College was extremely well organized. Linda Wang and her students in the Brookdale Asia Society were very proactive in getting the word out to students and the outside community. We also got great publicity from the World Journal and from my uncle’s friends and colleagues. As a result of their efforts, we saw a large crowd of about 120-130 people at the screening. Asia Society even brought a popcorn maker, which brought an authentic movie viewing experience to the evening!

The night kicked off with an overview of Chinese history during the time of Qiu Jin by Michelle, a member of Brookdale Asia Society. This helped set the stage for our film, which was shown on dual projector screens in the room.

The majority of the audience was older Chinese Americans like at our GBCCA screening. When I asked how many of them knew about Qiu Jin growing up, all but a few raised their hands. Even still, they learned some new things after watching the film, such as her extensive work in the Chinese women’s movement.

One audience member asked why Chinese parents didn’t mention Qiu Jin to their American-born children. A woman offered up her own experience of telling her kids about more recent historical events, such as the atrocities that occurred in Nanking during World War II. She felt that it was the responsibility of Chinese parents to pass down the stories of their culture to the next generation, and said she would contribute by showing Autumn Gem to her kids.

On that note, many in the audience also purchased our DVDs. Thank you! We hit an all-time one day sales record that night!