What did you inherit from your family?
Not the stuff. But the stories. Lessons. Those are heirlooms too. Eighty Thousand Steps spans over ninety years and crosses the globe to tell a story both universally resonant and deeply intimate, one that’s inspired by a family secret and guided by the wisdom of elders.
When she was young, Crystal loved when her “Pawpaw”—grandma, in Chinese—shared life lessons through a fable when they walked together. Pawpaw transformed from an elderly lady into a magical storyteller, and Crystal from a bullied immigrant kid into a noble hero. Now, Crystal realizes Pawpaw was hiding hardship behind adventure. Two storylines intertwine: Crystal’s journalistic investigation and Pawpaw’s fable world. Pawpaw teaches us that sometimes it’s not a war or a border separates us. Eighty Thousand Steps leads you to walk right across the borders in your life.
“Whether it’s climate change or earthquakes or war, normal people are caught in the middle. When I was finishing Eighty Thousand Steps I was sending it to my mother in Ukraine. The news can seem very removed from our reality. Eighty Thousand Steps is hopefully a reminder: of migrants, wherever they are—that they have their own story behind the statistics, behind the headlines.”
– Crystal Chan, Creator and Host