My grandmother was sick and I was told that we could not tell her, and that my cousin was gonna have this wedding as an excuse for us to all go and see her. And I think that I was just so frustrated by the situation.

In China there is a holiday around the death of your ancestors where everyone goes to the cemetery. It's a celebratory thing. It's very colorful.

My grandma, Nai Nai, has had the clothes she wants to be buried prepared since she was like 60. I guess there is an openness to discussing. It's part of life. It's part of the every day.

Whereas in America we are so fearful of mortality, we don't want to talk about it, we don't think about it, and in many ways we treat elderly people as invisible because they are a constant reminder of our own mortality. We put them away and put them in retirement homes so we don't want to deal with that.

And that meant so much to me to have my parents' support. I don't think I could have continued to push through with the first feature and the many shorts that I did without their support.

Americans always talk about family love being unconditional, and I realized that I didn't feel that way.