Proud Stigma

Abstract

This performance-based autoethnographic work is inspired by the epiphanic moment in the author’s life. By depicting a woman struggling between families’ expectations to her and her own dream, the author demonstrates the complicated nature of the structure–agency interaction and sympathizes with those obedient daughters who inherit the family traditions with understanding but simultaneously are confined by the past. The haunting ghost of the woman’s family is her late grandfather who was executed as a political criminal. Always trying to please others and compensate the loss and sorrow in the family, she finally failed in intimate relationships and expelled herself to an exotic culture, where she felt settled since she carries no labels or past there. The moment of reconciliation did not solve physical problems, but helped her reexamine the painful family memory and move on with courage and agency.