Nadia Cheung

creative portfolio & blog

  • What’s it all about, Chinese Astrology?

    Confused why each year belongs to a different animal? Look no further for an explanation. Here’s a brief introduction to the Chinese Zodiac. Find your sign and who you’re compatible with now!

    Rat

    Jan. 28, 1960 – Feb. 14, 1961
    Feb. 15, 1972 – Feb. 2, 1973
    Feb. 2, 1984 – Feb. 19, 1985
    Feb. 19, 1996 – Feb. 6, 1997
    Feb. 6, 2008 – Jan. 25, 2009
    Jan. 25, 2020 – Feb. 11, 2021

    Cunning creatures. Rat people are adaptable, smart and outgoing. Rats don’t like confrontation and are known to be quite timid and picky so they are quite hard to get to know. Rats are best drawn to people born in the year of the Dragon, Monkey and Rabbit. Rats are not so great with Horse and Rooster.

    Famous people born Year of the Rat:
    Grace Jones, Marlon Brando, Antonio Banderas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Eminem, Busta Rhymes.

    Ox

    Feb. 15, 1961 – Feb. 4, 1962
    Feb. 3, 1973 – Jan. 22, 1974
    Feb. 20, 1985 – Feb. 8, 1986
    Feb. 7, 1997 – Jan. 27, 1998
    Jan. 26, 2009 – Feb. 13, 2010
    Feb. 11, 2021 – Jan.31, 2022

    Ox people are hardworking, patient, and determined people. They are quiet workaholics with a talent for leadership. Because of their tendency for thinking before doing, they can be stubborn, silent and distant. It’s a good idea to keep an Ox around for advice during the Year of the Fire Monkey as they are dependable and provide great insight. Most compatible with Snake, Rooster and Monkey, and least compatible are Goat, Dragon, and Horse.

    Famous people born Year of the Ox:
    Lana Del Rey, Kristen Wiig, Barack Obama, Charlie Chaplin, Meryl Streep, Paul Newman.

    Tiger

    Feb. 5, 1962 – Jan. 24, 1963
    Jan. 23, 1974 – Feb. 10, 1975
    Feb. 9, 1986 – Jan. 28, 1987
    Jan. 28, 1998 – Feb. 15, 1999
    Feb. 14, 2010 – Feb. 2, 2011
    Feb. 1, 2022 –Jan. 21, 2023

    Bold, brave and energetic, Tigers love a challenge and a fight. They are independent, open and confident people who like an adventure. They can be stubborn, irritable and impetuous—especially when people stand in their way. Though they are likeable to most others, they are best with Horse, Dog and Pig. Monkey, Snake, Ox and other Tiger people are least compatible with this sign.

    Famous people born Year of the Tiger:
    Marilyn Monroe, Lady Gaga, Eartha Kitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Hefner, Drake.

    Dragon

    Feb. 13, 1964 – Feb. 1, 1965
    Jan. 31, 1976 – Feb. 17, 1977
    Feb. 17, 1988 – Feb. 5, 1989
    Feb. 5, 2000 – Jan. 23, 2001
    Jan. 23, 2012 – Feb. 9, 2013
    Feb. 10, 2024 – Jan. 25, 2025

    Dragons know how to make a decision and stick with it. They’re ambitious and inspiring to others but like Rabbit, there is a tendency of being unrealistic which results in fiery and intolerant behaviour. There is also the tendency of being stingy, Dragon people do not like to spend money. They do not get along with Dog, Sheep and Ox but are great with Rat, Monkey and Snake.

    Famous people born Year of the Dragon:
    Grimes, Bruce Lee, Andy Warhol, Rihanna, Russell Crowe, Reese Witherspoon.

    Snake

    Feb. 2, 1965 – Jan. 20, 1966
    Feb. 18, 1977 – Feb. 6, 1978
    Feb. 6, 1989 – Jan. 26, 1990
    Jan. 24, 2001 – Feb. 11, 2002
    Feb. 10, 2013 – Jan. 30, 2014
    Jan. 29, 2025 – Feb. 16, 2026

    Charming, sensitive and intuitive. Snake people are intelligent and have a knack for wisdom. They don’t have a lot of friends and it may be hard to get to know them because they are secretive and often keep their feelings locked up inside. Best friends for Snake are fellow Ox and Rooster. Avoid Pig.

    Famous people born Year of the Snake:
    Grace Kelly, Mohammed Ali, Courtney Love, Jeremy Kyle, Audrey Hepburn, Bob Dylan.

    Horse

    Jan. 21, 1966 – Feb. 8, 1967
    Feb. 7, 1978 – Jan. 27, 1979
    Jan. 27, 1990 – Feb. 14, 1991
    Feb. 12, 2002 – Jan. 31, 2003
    Jan. 31, 2014 – Feb. 18, 2015
    Feb. 17, 2026 – Feb. 5, 2027

    Friendly and popular, Horse people have the gift of the gab. They are active people with high energy and a unique sense of humour. They may have the tendency to be self-centred and quite insecure, often seeking reassurance from others. Best friends are Tiger, Dog and Sheep. Avoid Rat at all costs.

    Famous people born Year of the Horse:
    Jimi Hendrix, Jennifer Lawrence, Mike Tyson, Salma Hayek, John Legend, James Franco.

    Sheep

    Feb. 9, 1967 – Jan. 29, 1968
    Jan. 28, 1979 – Feb. 15, 1980
    Feb. 15, 1991 – Feb. 3, 1992
    Feb. 1, 2003 – Jan. 21, 2004
    Feb. 19, 2015 – Feb. 7, 2016
    Feb. 6, 2027 – Jan. 25, 2028

    Calm, thoughtful and romantic. Sheep people are often lone and creative thinkers. Sheep people are the best to ask for when it comes to emotional advice because of their frankness and honesty. They get along best with Rabbit, Pig, Horse and Monkey. Avoid Ox, Dragon, Snake and Dog.

    Famous people born Year of the Sheep:
    Kurt Cobain, Azealia Banks, Tyler the Creator, Mick Jagger, Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman.

    Monkey

    Jan. 30, 1968 – Feb. 16, 1969
    Feb. 16, 1980 – Feb. 4, 1981
    Feb. 4, 1992 – Jan. 22, 1993
    Jan. 22, 2004 – Feb. 8, 2005
    Feb. 8,2016 – Jan. 27, 2017
    Jan. 26, 2028 – Feb. 12, 2029

    Monkey people like to entertain, socialise and have great wit, but they also have a tendency to get bored easily. When the year is of your correlating zodiac, it is found that luck won’t be as great as other years, so it is common to wear red for good luck. Best friends include Rat and Dragon. Conflicts with Dog and Rooster, but avoid Tiger.

    Famous people born Year of the Monkey:
    Drew Barrymore, Miley Cyrus, Elizabeth Taylor, Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Macaulay Culkin.

    Rooster

    Feb. 17, 1969 – Feb.5, 1970
    Feb. 5, 1981 – Jan.24, 1982
    Jan. 23, 1993 – Feb.9, 1994
    Feb. 9, 2005 – Jan. 28, 2006
    Jan. 28, 2017 – Feb. 15, 2018
    Feb. 13, 2029 – Feb. 2, 2030

    Perfectionists at heart, Roosters are critical and can be considered nit-picky because they are so observant. Quite vain, they like to brag and love attention. Talkative, outspoken and quite humorous, Roosters are capable people who are warm-hearted and just want to be loved. Best friends are Ox and Snake. Avoid Rabbit.

    Famous people born Year of the Rooster:
    Justin Timberlake, Debbie Harry, Alan Rickman, Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears, David Lynch.

    Dog

    Feb. 6, 1970 – Jan. 26, 1971
    Jan. 25, 1982 – Feb. 12, 1983
    Feb. 10, 1994 – Jan. 30, 1995
    Jan. 29, 2006 – Feb. 17, 2007
    Feb. 16 ,2018 – Feb. 4, 2019
    Feb. 3, 2030 – Jan. 22, 2031

    Loyal, sincere and responsible. Dog individuals are sensitive and emotional, with the tendency to be pessimistic and anxious because they worry a lot. They are, however, good friends to have because they are so loyal and loving to the ones they care about. Good allies for Dog are Tiger, Horse and Rabbit. Bad ones: Dragon.

    Famous people born Year of the Dog:
    Madonna, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Cher, Prince, Nicki Minaj.

    Pig

    Feb. 8, 1959 – Jan. 27, 1960
    Jan. 27, 1971 – Feb. 24, 1972
    Feb. 13, 1983 – Feb. 1, 1984
    Jan. 31, 1995 – Feb. 18, 1996
    Feb. 18, 2007 – Feb. 6, 2008
    Feb. 5, 2019 – Jan. 24, 2020
    Jan. 23, 2031 – Feb. 10, 2032

    Honest, reliable and trustworthy. Pigs also have a tendency to be naïve and too trusting to a fault. Pigs know how to have a good time and enjoy the good things in life and that often makes them appear self-indulgent and lazy. But they’re not! Best with Sheep, Rabbit and Tiger. Not great at all with Snake.

    Famous people born Year of the Pig:
    Snoop Dogg, Rick James, Winona Ryder, 50 Cent, Amy Winehouse, Jean Harlow.

    Like Western astrology, not all signs will cater to you precisely. Other aspects to look at are the element of the year you were born, the hour (your ascendant), day and month (generally found to be your Western astrology counterpart).

  • Jane Fonda’s iconic role in Barbarella and its impact

    Jane Fonda stars as Barbarella, the highly sexual heroine of a distant future. Adapting Jean Claude Forest’s erotic sci-fi comics from the early 1960s, Barbarella is sent to outer space by the President of Planet Earth to find and stop Doctor Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea) from unleashing his secret weapon, the Positronic Ray, and potentially starting a war. On her journey, Barbarella encounters a number of strange and wacky characters that either want to kill her, or have sex with her—and eventually, nearly dies of pleasure.

    Not surprisingly, before the film went into production, a lot of actresses turned down the role. Amongst them were Raquel Welch, Brigitte Bardot, and Sophia Loren, all asked to play Barbarella. Even Jane Fonda didn’t want to take the part but married to the director at the time, Roger Vadim, she was somehow convinced. Fonda’s Barbarella is aloof, cheerful, and determined, and for a central female role, she even managed to get a Laurel Award nomination for Top Female Comedy Performance.

    The script is pretty simple and at times, absurd at best, managing to bag a few laughs. Not a great deal happens in this film but it is an easy watch—enjoyable too, especially if you’re the nostalgic type. Vadim seemed to be more concerned with how the film would look, putting a psychedelic spin on the tropes of erotica and sci-fi similar to those of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. And it goes with these two genres quite literally with its constant reminders of whacked-out space weapons and sex methods—did I mention the Positronic Ray is actually a sexual torture machine?

    The film didn’t do very well when it was first released in 1968, but a couple of years down the line it had quite the cult following and still resonates in pop culture today. The iconic space-age costumes, designed by Paco Rabanne, were particularly influential in ‘60s fashion and even inspired Jean Paul Gaultier’s costumes 30 years later in The Fifth Element. Duran Duran also got their band name from this film, too.

    Though the special effects aren’t really impressive (looking cheap, tacky, and almost laughable), I don’t think there’s any film out there that’s like it. And if there is, it was probably influenced in some sort of way by Barbarella. Coming from a time where attitudes towards sex and relationships started to change for both genders and different sexualities, paralleling with the sexual revolution that took place for the next few decades up to where we are now in the 21st century, I think Barbarella does best as a cult film without being read into too much. But it certainly does well look-wise.

    The original article can be found here.

  • Trains

    I’m on a train from London Euston to Coventry. It’s a one-hour journey. I’m sitting on this train thinking about how quick this journey is compared to what I’ve been accustomed to during my travels in India over the past few months.

    Thinking about trains, I remember taking a 12-hour long train from Mumbai’s main station to a commuter town in the middle of Goa. It was a long, grueling first-time ride but the journey was very beautiful. Going from an enormous fast-developing city full of slums to the luscious green jungle. I did wish we went on more train rides like that. What was most enjoyable was the food and drinks coming up and down the train. It didn’t cost much. We got breakfast, lunch and dinner on that one train. Several cups of chai and coffee too, from what I remember. My favourite was when a wala* was calling out “chicken lollipop garam garam” repeatedly. Later in the night after we got to our fancy beach hut, I asked one of the servers there what “garam garam” meant. The translation: hot hot.

    This train ride to Coventry isn’t as long as that one train ride I took. The scenery, however, is more or less the same. Green farms, cows, sheep, some horses and the occasional two to five seconds of going through a tunnel. Because England is actually quite a small country, I don’t think you get much of variety of scenery unless you search for it. There is a clear difference between London and all the other major and minor places in England. I’m not so sure if you could say the same about the UK as a whole because it is four countries together as a collective and you could really irk a man from Scotland and a man from Wales if you call them both British. I guess it’s like a few musicians forming a band together out of convenience to be stronger. Maybe that’s a crap example.

    *wala is a kind of vendor. Random fact: It’s amongst the 7 most common yet misunderstood words in Hindi.

  • Conversations in Jane B. par Agnès V.

    Academic essay exploring the themes in Agnès Varda’s 1988 documentary on the film icon, Jane Birkin.

    Jane B. par Agnés V. can be thought of as an avant-garde film that makes use of the initial form of a documentary by framing the film around the observed subject, Jane Birkin. This film has an acute awareness of the camera throughout that ensures the film a consistent self-reflexive style. One could compare this method to a woman looking at herself in a mirror and seeing her own reflection as expected. Though this film is primarily about Birkin, Agnés Varda’s presence as the filmmaker/creator throughout also structured the film as more of a flowing conversation between Birkin and Varda, than a coherent narrative with a beginning, middle and end. By presenting Birkin and Varda as themselves, using their own real identities in their own respective roles as the actress and film’s director, the film’s duration explores these two individuals in a collaborative process that examines female representation and the ideas that both women have about films. This also allowed both women to approach the film simplistically, taking advantage of the audience’s own familiarity with these two women without having to fabricate fictional characters which would divert the film’s exploration of identity.

    As a quirky collaboration, one could say that this film is an example of Franco-British relations in cinema. Until actresses like Birkin, Charlotte Rampling and Kristen Scott Thomas had appeared in French movies, British culture and British women were not known to have any particular desirability or appeal to French audiences. What was it that made these British actresses with visibly middle-class backgrounds have such a prominence and popularity in French films? Yes, they can speak French. But one can argue that it was all due to how the Swingin’ ’60s made British youth culture exciting. With the craze over The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, subculture groups the Mods and Rockers… and Twiggy too. This shaped how the French, and the world, viewed the British culture to be. Those who emerged from this moment of new positive spin on Britishness were products of this.

    Varda’s background in art history is emphasised at its best in this film. Every shot is beautiful and interesting. Varda flirts with surrealism and once again, the audience’s familiarity. Several scenes reference stereotypical roles which women play. Birkin’s exceptionally interesting characters she portrays and interacts with also do this. However, a fascinating character depicted in this film is Jane Birkin as herself as she recalls a story of her life in French. As we travel through this timeline of Birkin’s life within the longevity of the film, we reach her 40th birthday. This birthday has most significance. It marks another decade to a woman’s life. Another ten years of something more. These figures can stack up against someone and all of a sudden you are old. But in a positive light, 40 is not old. 40 is no different to the 39 yesterday. All these stereotyped female characters in discussion with the possible characters Birkin could have played or would never get the chance to. The interview scenes about Birkin and her life, her past loves, her children, and her childhood. These are all evaluations and analyses of Birkin’s life. Who is she? What does she look like? Where did she come from? What is so darn special about her? As I have already mentioned, the film’s self-reflexivity becomes the backbone of the entire film. Without the film’s awareness of the camera, the motives of this film would perhaps feel incomplete. As much of it is an experimental biopic of Birkin playing Birkin, this film celebrates Birkin whilst simultaneously contemplating life and ageing with no clear-cut answer.

    All in all,  Jane B. Par Agnès V. is an experiment of many topics of discussion blended into the world of language via visual art. Birkin is immortalised as an eccentric yet enchanting cult celebrity icon in a very indie film.