"When I was 12, following my parents' divorce, I moved with my mum and sister from London to Australia, leaving behind my dad and a large extended family. It was destabilising and demoralising. Throughout high school I was bullied for my accent, clothes and looks. While Australian girls seemed like flowers thriving under the brutal sun, I felt like a sweaty, acne-prone gremlin who craved the dark and cold of home."
"Suffering in our own ways, we found release in watching the 1998 action comedy Rush Hour, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker as detectives trying to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Chinese diplomat. My friend had the film on VHS, and we put it on one night when I was sleeping over. This became a regular activity, and we would fling ourselves around her living room recreating fight scenes."
"Through my early teens, more films came out that connected kung fu to romance, coolness and fearlessness in my mind. Romeo Must Die; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; more Chan and Tucker hijinks in Rush Hour 2. In my imagination I became a mysterious kung fu master, defeating her adversaries without breaking a sweat. Way cooler than being a sad, homesick girl who let other people's opinions cut her so deeply."
At 12, following her parents' divorce, she moved with her mum and sister from London to Australia, leaving her dad and extended family behind. High school was destabilising; she was bullied for her accent, clothes and looks and felt homesick and isolated. She befriended a girl who had lost her mum, and they found release in watching Rush Hour on VHS, reenacting fight scenes and laughing together. These films linked kung fu with romance and fearlessness, fueling her desire to learn martial arts. At 15 she joined a Choy Li Fut school and trained avidly after school and on weekends into university.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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