This is a video I found online early on that helped me create some of the ideas for my show. In particular, my idea for the multi-colored ribbons was inspired by Ms. Adichie's story when she talked about the "single story". I saw each story as a line in our personal narratives, and wanted to show visually that we are all made up of many stories, many lines, that, when put together, carry us through. My favorite section of her talk:
All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience, and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes. And the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. The make one story become the only story.
That's one of the main reasons that I wanted to make this play, really. For a foreigner, no matter if it is a Taiwanese in India, a Brazilian in Nigeria, or an American in Taiwan, so often the "local" populace will have very strong and clear ideas about who that foreigner is based on their nationality, language, or even something as basic as skin color. This is true for locals as well, but it is even stronger for foreigners. The stereotypes, as Adichie says, may be true; I certainly do love to eat hamburgers! But they don't tell the whole story of a person's identity. They make the individual become unrecognizable; the individual becomes a personality type instead of being a person. It was this idea, the idea of the roots and origins of identity, that I wanted to discuss with both "locals" and "foreigners" in Taiwan.
**這影片有中文字幕!!如果想看中文解釋及中文字幕,可以到「單一故事的危險性」的中文版－－對不起，不知道怎麼直接po上我們的部落格！
我2008年3月開始申請北藝大時就已經開始想如何創造這齣戲。2008年8月開學之後，慢慢發現一齣關於「外國人」戲的可能性。2009年當我開始收集一些與我題目有關鍵的資料時就發現這影片。那時候因為覺得很有趣所以常常在看TED影片，剛好Adichie的影片突然出現。吸引我看的是因為她說她自己是個storyteller。Storyteller這個詞在我生活中是一件很有影響力的事情。我爸爸的工作是報紙記者，所以他就是我認識第一個storyteller。我跟我爸爸感情非常要好，因此自然而然也變成一個storyteller。對我而言，說故事是一個學習機會，但這個機會不只是聽眾用有的，也是說故事的人的學習機會。當然，聽故事的人可以從故事內容了解別人的想法或做法，也可以更了解說故事的人的個性。但經過那麼多年的講故事經驗，我發現我都一直在學到新的事情，那些事情也會關於我講故事的對象也會關於我自己的行為及想法。
總之，我第一次看完了這影片之後就有一種「對！對！她描述當局外人，當個少數民族，當個外國人的狀況是在太好了！」的感覺，特別是她講到stereotype(刻板印象)的時候。我只前都會決的刻板印象是個部隊的概念，但其實Adichie就說「刻板印象所造成的問題不在於它們的不對，而在於它們不完成。刻板印象讓一個人的背景的其中一方面代表那個人的一切。」因為大社會可能對這些局外人的了解度不是很高，所以我們太常見到大社會用簡單的刻板印象(one story)去了解這些人而可惜沒有機會(或者沒有興趣？)去聽這些局外人的其他「故事」。我在這齣戲當中想表達的是，出了我「外國人」或「美國人」或「英文是母語的人」或「白人」的身分之外還有什麼其他的身分？還有什麼其他的story?
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