Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed and to VOD today, Tuesday, May 24: MY LIFE IN CHINA
Kenneth Eng’s personal look at his father’s American Dream debuted at the San Diego Asian Film Festival in 2014. Other festival appearances have included Florida, St Louis, Bahamas, and Asian/Asian American fests in Dallas, Boston, and Seattle, as well as several community screenings. Concurrent with its television broadcast, tied to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, the film also becomes available on iTunes.
Eng’s father left China in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution. Eventually making his way to the United States, he was unable to find opportunities commensurate with his education, and instead felt forced into service jobs. Now older, still struggling financially, and also forced into the role of caretaker for his mentally ill wife, Eng’s father feels like a failure and wonders what his life might have been like had he stayed in China after all. With his native country seeing unparalleled economic prosperity, he sets out on an exploratory visit that might augur a permanent return. While the roughly-made if earnest film that results from this premise unfortunately too often feels like a tourist video, it does succeed in bringing a real vulnerability to the elder Eng as he contemplates a lifetime of regrets.
what (not) to doc 