Guangdong, China —> Florida, United States
![Accessibility [Description: Light beige background with three photos. Large photo of Aubrey to the left. Smaller photo of Aubrey as a child with her adoptive mother. Smallest photo in the upper right corner with the logo to “Still:” a blue house labeled ‘dad’s house’ with text that says ‘a film by Aubrey Meiling.’” Large text says “Aubrey Meiling.” Smaller text at the bottom of the photo says “Guangdong, China to Florida, United States.”]](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/73d316_31a3cf3b7ceb4897bf34ae0fb3c7de47~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_980,h_980,al_c,q_90,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/73d316_31a3cf3b7ceb4897bf34ae0fb3c7de47~mv2.png)
Hello, my name is Aubrey Meiling, and I am a Chinese adoptee filmmaker from Florida. I was adopted from Guangdong, China when I was 10 months old and moved to Florida in the United States. Currently, I'm working on a short film titled "Still," which is about family and defining it as an adoptee. This July, the film was shot with a predominantly female crew and featured two first-time Asian adoptee actors. My team has launched a campaign to fund the film's completion.
When I was younger, the definition and maintenance of family were always important to me. I needed confirmation and justification that I had one. Growing up as a Chinese adoptee always brought the challenge of defining what family is, because physically I’ve never looked like the one I belong to. When my parents got divorced, I was only five years old and my sister was three. She’d only been in America for a year and when I asked her about our parents, she couldn’t remember them ever being together, but I could.
“Growing up as a Chinese adoptee always brought the challenge of defining what family is, because physically I’ve never looked like the one I belong to.”
Now, when I look back at that time in my life, minute details stand out to me that used to be hidden, like warm Florida nights at the top of my bunk bed, pushing my body as high up on the wall as I could manage to cool my body down with the cool air that dripped out of the small vent above. Through that same vent dribbled in the angry voices of my parents. I also remember sensing a change in my father. I thought he’d been replaced by someone new. But after their separation, there were still Forever Family Days (or Gotcha Days). These days I know my parents endured for us. We’d all go out to eat together to celebrate me or my sister, and I’d get to pretend that the divorce never happened, yet like in my memories, there were always truths that snuck in to remind me that it did.
These experiences inspired the plotline of "Still." In the film, eight-year-old Chinese adoptee Layla observes the fading relationship of her parents. As she experiences her parents' separation she tries to make sense of it and looks for reassurance that she and her brother will always have a family (no matter if her parents are together or not).
This story is a reflection of how I remember experiencing my parents' separation, but it also depicts questions I wished I'd asked to make the change easier to swallow and the hope easier to see. I wrote this film as a letter to my past self, to the girl who sat at Forever Family Day dinners, trying to ignore the truth and worrying that her family wasn’t real. For adoptees, the definition of family can be tested. With this film, I hope to help normalize interracial families and separated families.
Accessibility
[Description: Light beige background with three photos. Large photo of Aubrey to the left. Smaller photo of Aubrey as a child with her adoptive mother. Smallest photo in the upper right corner with the logo to “Still:” a blue house labeled ‘dad’s house’ with text that says ‘a film by Aubrey Meiling.’” Large text says “Aubrey Meiling.” Smaller text at the bottom of the photo says “Guangdong, China to Florida, United States.”]