Toc Storee utilizes the story-telling format to create
a multilevel narrative that explores the relations between speech,
language, and desire. Addressing the issues of sexuality, subjectivity,
tradition, and identity in Asian gay contexts.
Trinh T. Minh-ha wrote in Woman, Native, Other:" Each
story is at once a fragment and a whole; a whole within a whole."
This idea of commonality and difference is the premise in which
Toc Storee operates. In the video, stories from Chinese and
Japanese history as well as from the contemporary experiences of
three individuals of the same cultural descent, and texts by authors
including James Baldwin and Trinh T. Minh-ha are juxtaposed with
each other to create an open sense of resonance and tradition. Here,
connections are tenuous, yet poetic at the same time - there are
no direct or linear connections between these stories from our past
and our present self-identification as Asian gay men. Yet the footage
from New York Gay Pride 1991 showing the lesbian and gay Asian contingent,
and footage depicting two Asian men in an erotic encounter that
are used to 'illustrate' these stories nevertheless establishes
a sense of continuity that is as elusive as our identities, but
no less empowering.
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