We forget that our parents were once children too, dreaming of castles and having nothing but ice cream for dinner. They would reveal themselves without inhibition. Then when they are grown, we mistake their silence for a resolve that comes with time and maturity. We don’t expect that silence to lead us to the parts of themselves that they are still searching for.
As rebellious 21-year-old Tiffany Hsiung embarks on a mission to piece together her mother, Ru Wen’s childhood, the events from generations past cascade into Tiffany’s own yearning to fully understand her mother. Ru Wen, was separated from her parents at the age of 5. 40 years later she’s still unable to connect the fragmented memories of her childhood. To her, survival meant burying her own curiosity to know why she had been abandoned by her birth family, a curiosity that grew into a silent longing over time. Masking her pain worked for most of her life, until Tiffany began to speak up.
Asking difficult questions may go against the traditional values of their family, but to Tiffany it was the voice her mother was missing. Determined to give her mother answers, and with only a couple names on a napkin, Tiffany boards a plane to Ru Wen’s birthplace, Taipei. What she discovers when she gets there begins to reverberate across her relationships with the women that have come before her.
Captured over the course of 14 years, across two continents ‘Sing Me a Lullaby’ unravels the complex tensions between love and sacrifice. Told through the intertwined journeys of daughters, and their mothers, this is a story about recovering familial history, healing inherited pain, and understanding that love comes in many forms.
As rebellious 21-year-old Tiffany Hsiung embarks on a mission to piece together her mother, Ru Wen’s childhood, the events from generations past cascade into Tiffany’s own yearning to fully understand her mother. Ru Wen, was separated from her parents at the age of 5. 40 years later she’s still unable to connect the fragmented memories of her childhood. To her, survival meant burying her own curiosity to know why she had been abandoned by her birth family, a curiosity that grew into a silent longing over time. Masking her pain worked for most of her life, until Tiffany began to speak up.
Asking difficult questions may go against the traditional values of their family, but to Tiffany it was the voice her mother was missing. Determined to give her mother answers, and with only a couple names on a napkin, Tiffany boards a plane to Ru Wen’s birthplace, Taipei. What she discovers when she gets there begins to reverberate across her relationships with the women that have come before her.
Captured over the course of 14 years, across two continents ‘Sing Me a Lullaby’ unravels the complex tensions between love and sacrifice. Told through the intertwined journeys of daughters, and their mothers, this is a story about recovering familial history, healing inherited pain, and understanding that love comes in many forms.