There are those who feel the need to search for their roots, and others who prefer to leave the past in silence. Between these two currents moves the gaze of Jennifer Chiu, a woman born in Calcutta to Hakka parents and raised in the quiet suburbs of British Columbia. Her story is that of a search that does not seek a final destination, but rather to understand the constant motion of a culture accustomed to migration —to reinvent itself with every generation and every new land. Like the Painted Lady butterfly, which travels thousands of miles without knowing the beginning or end of its journey, the Hakka move forward, guided by memory and instinct, yet without a definitive destination.
Chiu travels through the places where her people once planted temporary roots: the old tannery districts of India, scattered communities in China, and Hakka associations in Canada. At each stop, she encounters fragments of a broken mirror — elders who still speak a fading language, young people who no longer recognize their heritage, memories slipping away between photographs and family silences. What begins as a personal exploration turns into a universal reflection on the fragility of identity and the impossibility of stopping time. Through her journey, a powerful question arises: is it worth saving a culture when those who inherit it no longer feel it as their own? Today’s Hakka live between the nostalgia of the elders and the modernity of youth who choose assimilation. Chiu reveals this fracture with deep sensitivity, without judgment or sentimentality. What emerges is not a defense of cultural purity, but an honest portrait of adaptation as a form of survival. Identity, she seems to say, is not preserved by locking it away, but by allowing it to breathe — even if it changes shape with every generation.
Her camera observes calmly: a mother cleaning the kitchen in dim light, a father who avoids the lens, a community speaking about its future while the noises of the outside world drift through the windows. In those small scenes, the dilemma of belonging and loss, of remembering and forgetting, condenses. The film becomes a meditation on distance and the desire for connection — on how to remain part of something that is slowly disappearing. Ultimately, Chiu’s search is not archaeological, but emotional. She understands that roots are not found in a territory or a surname, but in the impulse to understand where one comes from, even if the answer is never complete. Like butterflies on an endless journey, the Hakka keep flying, carrying within them the memory of a home that is no longer a place, but a gesture, a language, a memory suspended in the air.
