So we were sitting there, he in the chair across from me, confident and personable, and I fidgeting in my seat trying to figure out a roundabout way to tell him that, you know, not that I was staring at you or anything but I saw you doing this thing in the gym this one time and I was really intrigued as to what it was. "Wushu?" he asks, spreading his fingers on the tabletop in anticipation of an answer he must have given hundreds of times before. "Wushu is basically a Chinese form of martial arts ... it's just literally Chinese for martial arts. Wu means martial or war, and shu means art."
As it turns out, this fiercely graceful form of combat has taken Huang all over the globe. Beginning his stint as a Wushu competitor while in Knoxville, Tennessee, Huang eventually rose to the highest echelons of Wushu as it is practiced in the United States and joined the U.S. team, which competes at the amateur level (coming to Amherst and finding no Wushu club here, Huang took the initiative to start one, joking that it was partly out of the desire to "have some competition with the Taekwondo guys"). Taking a year off in between high school and college, Huang was able to join the team at its various competitions around the globe-traveling to Buenos Aires, to Toronto, all over the U.S., and to the world competition in Rome. Huang is conscious of and confident in his abilities while being at peace with his limitations and appropriately humble in the face of a larger context.
"In terms of level of competition for an American athlete, I've pretty much done as high as the Americans have gone. But still, the level of Wushu in America compared to the level of Wushu in Asia and especially China, you know, it's just a different game," said Huang. "I mean, some of the things that they're doing in China now a couple years ago I couldn't even imagine ... and right now what's happening is really phenomenal."
Elementary, my dear Watson
When you first meet Huang, it's easy to be intimidated. He's composed, mature and disarmingly well-kempt for an undergrad. Spend some more time with him, however, and you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that he has a keen sense of humor and a vice-like grip on irony-a man who understands that you can't take the world too seriously all the time. Watching Huang reminisce about "growing up" with the sport is amusing, to say the least. His eyes light up and he chuckles, bemused, as he describes his team/roommates: "Well, one of them was this charming alcoholic-but he was great with children. And the other one, he wasn't very good [at Wushu] but he was entirely devoted to it. Like this one time he had wanted to improve his night-vision and had heard that Beta-karotine helped with your eyesight, so he ate all of these carrots until his skin turned orange!"
So while in limbo between something great and something greater, Huang lived with a charming alcoholic and a crazily devoted, albeit slightly orange guy, training and teaching in Hermitage, Penn. "It was this little depressed, steel-mining kind of place ... it's near Youngstown, Ohio, which was featured in a Bruce Springsteen song if that tells you anything. And there's really nothing to do there except practice Wushu and teach Wushu," Huang said.
Huang plans to continue his affair with Wushu after Amherst as the art will take him to Asia and Europe, courtesy of the Watson Fellowship. Watson fellows are given a certain sum of money ("It's taxed, by the way," said Huang with a grimace) and basically kicked out of the country for 12 months, being sent on a "Wanderjahr" during which they must follow the proposal that they have submitted to the fellowship committee. "I think you're given a lot of freedom," said Huang, "you're not really attached to any particular academic institution; you're free to move around; you can go as far as the money will take you. I think as a fellowship it's really about cross-cultural connections and comparisons ... it's basically a year of wandering."
From basement to big screen
Huang's project, which combines his experience with Wushu with his love for filmmaking, will be to make a documentary film on the practice of Wushu. "I'm [going to look at Wushu] as it is practiced by competitors and athletes in China and other Asian countries along with some others ... I'm not really sure yet ... probably Russia, some Western European countries. I guess it's a look at the diaspora of Wushu. I mean, obviously, when I look at the Chinese-these are going to be the best people in the world, but I'm also going to be looking at people in Western Europe who are even more amateur than those in the U.S. ... these are people who love Wushu and make it a part of their lives ... who love this incredibly hard sport that often times doesn't love them back."
Hearing Huang speak of his passion for filmmaking is just as exhilarating. He's professional, yes, but you can't escape the sensation that somewhere not far beneath the surface lies the dreamer, the wide-eyed adolescent who spent hours hunched over two VCRs and other ancient VHS equipment in his basement with his cousin and partner-in-crime at his side. Huang's sense of adventure and unflagging will to make things happen for himself are what great directors, not to mention great films, are made of. Indeed, Huang seems to be something right out of the Westerns or high-octane Kung-Fu dramas he draws influence from-and relying on a mix of luck, pluck, intellect and his almost mercurial ability to adapt to unlikely situations and environments (you have to be resourceful, after all, when you're growing up in the 'periphery' that is Knoxville, Tenn.)-he seems calmly sentient of the progress that's sure to come.
Huang has come a long way since his humble basement beginnings and home movies hashed out "on a lark"-he's directed three major films during his time at Amherst, including "The Photographer," a witty, attentive character drama that he submitted to the English department as his senior honors thesis.
Yet another testament to his admirably independent spirit, Huang has pretty much struck out on his own here in the Amherst "film scene," something he believes is growing and has the potential to grow further in some amount of time, though he gives credit to the English department for supporting his ideas.
"Honestly I've only taken one film studies class at Amherst, I've taken a video production class at UMass and I took a screenwriting special topics at UMass but otherwise beyond those I'm pretty much self-taught," he said. "I think that the department in terms of theses are very open ... if you want to make a movie and they feel like you have some technical background and a good idea they're definitely willing to give you money."
Shooting his films using either a friend's digital camera or Media Center equipment, Huang edited all of his work in the Media Center, a place whose audience belies the equipment on hand. There are a few analog editing bays, an editing suite, and computers that are all equipped with video editing software. Here, amidst the stressed-out typists and language lab students situated 'in that place downstairs in Frost,' Huang toiled away building a solid directorial resumé, with three short films shot on the Amherst campus and starring Amherst students (and the occasional Tom Gerety cameo). There was "ACH!," an hour-long crime/action drama Huang codirected with Adam Nagorski '02 and Phil W. Tucker '03E as part of his Asian Cultural House project; "The Barbecue," an existential tragicomedy codirected by Brad Tytel '02; and "The Photographer."
Huang expressed the greatest thanks to both the willingness of his peers to participate in his projects and the general sense of camaraderie present throughout all of his projects. "The people at Amherst have been all too willing to help out with my projects," says Huang, a quality which he didn't find so readily apparent amidst the typical "theater and dance crowd."
Huang's stars and collaborators were quick to sing his praises as well. Matt Van Etten '02, one of the stars of "The Photographer," said of Huang: "Throughout the production process ... Sherng-Lee consistently showed himself to be direct, focused and determined. He had a set idea of what he wanted from the beginning, but he was flexible throughout the process in adapting his ideas and listening to the suggestions of his actors. Because of his preparedness and obvious skill, I never had any reservations about giving my time to him for the purpose of this project. As anybody can testify after seeing the final product of the process, there's no doubt the man knows what he's doing."
Indeed you do, Mr. Huang.