Maia:
“ After my dear Agong, Tzen Chen, passed away in February, outliving my Lao Lao by nearly 25 years, my family and I rediscovered trunk loads of their Peking opera ephemera, from traditional Chinese costumes and makeup to even prop swords. In an effort to honor my grandparents, now guardian angels, and some of their most prized possessions, this photography project is a heartfelt ode to the very activity which led to their meet-cute and love story: Peking opera.
Hu Hung-yen Chen was a prominent Peking Opera dancer, singer, actress, and my Lao Lao—meaning grandmother in Mandarin. Trained at the nationally renowned Nanking Chinese Opera School, she rose to become a leading soloist with a traveling opera company and later the headmistress of a training school in Hong Kong during the 1950s. A highly skilled actress, acrobat, and mime, with masterful command of both the military and civil styles of Peking art drama, she built a career teaching and performing in university lecture halls, underground ballrooms, and publicly funded arts institutions across the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, and major cities throughout the United States before immigrating to the country in 1961.”
Maia comes from a Cuban-Chinese family that has been living in lower Manhattan. Her grandmother came to the US in 1961 performing Peking Opera.
They met when her mom was on a trip in Taiwan.
Her family has now moved into their new house in Queens since a few years ago.