I wrote The Elephant and the Sea as a personal reflection of the county I knew growing up. In 1999, an epidemic called Japanese Enchiphilitis struckmy hometown of Ipoh and wiped out the pig farming industry. It also killed over a hundred people. Many families, including my own, stopped eating pork for more than 6 months even after the epidemic was gone. This outbreak was a precursor to the SARS and bird flu virus that is looming over the region now.The Elephant and the Sea to me is a film about emotional paralysis. Both Ah Ngau, thefisherman, and Yun Ding, the drifter, are everyday people on the peripheral of society. They hope for a way out of their rut through superstitious beliefs (like finding winning lottery numbers on a fish), though these superstitions may have been manufactured by their own opportunistic countrymen.Even as they stumble through life, they get little help from others. The government, while on the surface appears to be sympathetic to their plight,offer only superficial help, while the public uses a donation drive to unload their trash and unwanted belongings.To me, the film and its characters have an equilibrium that is constantly rocked. Just like the Ying and Yang of Buddhism, both Ding and Ah Ngau will pay for the consequences of their actions.The Elephant and the Sea is a small film with universal themes that are familiar to us. The people in the film, just like many in real life, are “stuck” at a juncture in their lives, not smart enough to know the answers to solve their predicaments, yet the inherent inertia that is life will spur them on. Good or bad, life will go on.