To write about a struggle amidst the struggling: one must hope that the muddling will end someday.

If I didn't self-censor, I would be in jail, and then I wouldn't be effective at all.

Overall there may be less censorship in America than in China, but censorship and self-censorship are not only from political pressure, but also pressures from other places in a society.

It is a Chinese tradition that everyone has to be in everyone else's life.

To write about a struggle amidst the struggling: one must hope that the muddling will end someday.

In China, your freedom is always limited, but this limitation applies to almost everyone. If someone does injustice to you, though, you have to find a way to avenge yourself - even by illegal measures. In a sense, injustice is more personal. This idea has always been in Chinese history. I think we read about freedom of speech, or lack of freedom of speech, in China so often. But I don't think people here in America think about how justice, or the idea of justice, is so important in a Chinese setting. It's probably more important than freedom of speech in the Chinese mindset at this moment.

In film, you have to present everything on the screen so it's the opposite of what I usually do with storytelling. It forced me to think about how people walk, where they sit at that moment. With Princess of Nebraska, it was just fun to watch because the movie was so far from the story. It was very much a different story.