The Making History Crowdfunding Campaign is going LIVE on October 26th!
Thanks for visiting! On October 26th, I'll be launching a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo.com called Making History: The Story of Su Beng. But you'll have to wait until the 26th to see the pitch video.
In the meantime... Have a laugh and check out this BLOOPER reel from the making of the pitch video.
(Originally posted October 22, 2013, reposted November 8, 2013)
Here's a sneak peak of what I say in my pitch:
Most of my friends know two things about me-that I’m writing a book and that I’m Taiwanese. I believe in the power of personal stories to inform and educate. That’s why I’ve been working on the biography of Su Beng, lifelong Taiwan independence activist, historian and author of this three volume, 2,000 page book, Taiwan’s 400 Years of History. This book took about 18 years to write, and has influenced generations of Taiwanese activists and still continues do to so. Su Beng is a controversial, complex character, much like Malcolm X or Nelson Mandela. Through it all, the one thing that he has always been fighting for could be summed up simply as, the fight for social justice for the people of Taiwan.
Well, I’ve decided that it’s time to complete this project and I’m giving myself three months to do it. I haven’t been back in Taiwan for over five years so I’ve decided to quit my job, and to take a self-imposed sabbatical to spend it in Taiwan to complete my research. Yes, it’s actually happening and I’m going through with it but I’ll need your help and support to push me to the finish line.
This project is not just about telling the largely unknown story of Su Beng’s life, but in the bigger scheme of things it’s also about the story of Taiwan, the people of Taiwan. It’s about their struggle under a dictatorship that imposed one of the longest periods of martial law in world history.
This project is about injustice and the very basic human need for freedom and for our voices to be heard. That is the story of Taiwan. That was the story of my parents. My father was a professor at the University of Alaska and a US green card holder when he married my mother in Taiwan. But she was not permitted to leave Taiwan with him by the government. They were separated for nearly a year with my father in Alaska and my mother in Taiwan. What kind of a government would deny people this basic right to come and go as they pleased? This was the question in my child’s mind that was the root of all my curiosity. It’s led me to my years of work in the Taiwanese American community which in turn motivated me to embark on this project to shed some light on the situation in Taiwan.