Striking a Balance – Hingman Leung (BES 2008)

Establishing an equilibrium between informing the public while retaining audience engagement has been a lifelong mission for Conrad Grebel University College Music alum Hingman Leung. Through exploring the deceptively destructive practices of food waste management in her film No Doggy Bag Please, or consistently promoting racial and gender diversity in all her works, Hingman’s works have garnered an impressive following and successfully showcased the importance of achieving inter-cultural understanding. “I realized that if I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives, I had to make the information interesting and engaging,” she said. “When discussing issues of climate change, racism, or transphobia, my goal has always been about bringing people together so we can all live in a better place.” 

Hingman’s desire to combine her talent for storytelling with her interest in social justice work began during her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo. “I wanted to find a way to combine my interests in policy implementation and music,” she remarked. “I took one music class at Grebel and enjoyed it so much that I decided to do a joint honors degree in Environmental Studies and Music.” Being able to do a joint degree enrichened Hingman’s understanding of the world and gave her a variety of tools that she could use to engage with people. As a Music student, she connected with Music Professor Carol Ann Weaver and enrolled in Weaver’s Music 335 Travel Course to Durban, South Africa. On the trip, Hingman was able to remove herself from a Western frame-of-mind and analyze the cultural inaccuracies that had been inherently engrained within her. “I realized that I didn’t know anything,” she said. “That trip was eye opening to see that all the preconceptions I had previously were all wrong, which was mentally freeing, scary, and humbling. I learned each culture places different standards on their money, food, and beauty.” After graduating with a more open-minded perspective, Hingman applied to numerous environmental organizations for policy creation positions. She landed a job working for Environment Canada as a Project Officer in the Waste Management Department and worked for four years before moving to the International Affairs Division of Environment Canada. 

“I became obsessed with waste management,” said Hingman. “Whenever I travelled, I always looked at how garbage and recycling are collected. You can tell a lot about a city’s values from how they manage their waste.” Hingman travelled to places like Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, and China to help different government organizations reduce carbon emissions and implement practices of environmental sustainability. “Those experiences made me really interested in inter-cultural relations. I learned that people work very differently, depending on their cultural backgrounds, and if you’re not aware of that, it’s very easy to get into conflict.” After several years of international work, Hingman decided to pursue her master’s degree in Intercultural and International Communications at Royal Roads University, where she made another discovery: her love and talent for filmmaking.  

While working toward her master’s, Hingman’s thesis supervisor jokingly suggested that she make a documentary instead of writing a paper. Hingman, who had always wanted to make a film, began brainstorming ideas of ways she could engage her audience and still leave them with a thought-provoking message. After some consideration, she decided to use food as the common ground to connect with everyday people. “At that time, I was still working for Environment Canada where food waste was just starting to become a policy issue. I wanted to explore the disconnect between policy makers and the subjects of those policies.” The resulting film, No Doggy Bag Please, was a resounding success; Hingman was given the Public Ethnography Award in 2015 and was also invited to speak and present her film at the 2015 Waste in Asia Conference at the University of Leiden. Her love and talent for filmmaking and creative storytelling continued to grow, leading her to pursue working in the film industry full-time. However, when the pandemic put a halt to all her creative projects, Hingman was forced to deeply contemplate her future. 

"On one hand, I was being commended for my work, but it was frustrating because all my future projects were put on hold,” said Hingman, who was recently featured in an article by the CBC for promoting racial diversity in her films. While building her catalogue as a filmmaker, Hingman began to sense a divide between her creative and corporate lifestyles. “I felt like I was living a lie,” she said. “The pandemic required me to reflect about my priorities. I ended up seeking the help of a career coach, who suggested the idea of merging those two careers.” While it is still an ongoing process, Hingman is progressively working toward combining those two identities. “I am working on policy work to address racism, which is an underlying driving force behind all my films. Eventually, I hope to fully combine both sides of my work.” Recently, Hingman opened a studio space with her film partner called The Grove, where they are working toward building an inclusive community for emerging and underrepresented creatives in Ottawa.  

Hingman’s background learning music theory and composition at Grebel continues to give her a boost in forming visual and audio continuity in her films. “Knowing the discipline, rhythm, and feeling of music translates particularly well into film.” Growing up playing piano and viola, Hingman described her early years as a musician as being incredibly competitive and intense. By contrast, Hingman said that Grebel taught her how to establish a balance between technicality and feeling. “I learned how to feel the music, rather than just playing the notes on the page.” By regularly attending Grebel’s community-based concerts, Hingman was also able to open her perspective on how to find music without resorting to oftentimes discriminatory institutional concert halls. 

To Grebel students yearning to strike a balance between career aspirations and personal interests, Hingman suggests getting involved in school initiatives. “Extracurriculars make life interesting. While people do sometimes find their dream-job right out the gate, it’s important to strike a balance.” Her advice comes from first-hand experience; Hingman was a founder of a photography club at UWaterloo and was involved in advocating for a universal student bus pass, which she said served as a refreshing reprieve from everyday academics and grounded her in the community. “Wherever I go, that sense of community allows me to feel comfortable when times are tough. People often refer to the importance of networking, I stress community.”  

By Jiho Mercer

Hingman Leung is a strategist, problem solver, and storyteller. She has more than 14 years of strategic policy analysis and intercultural relationship expertise, and has produced multiple films that touch on a variety of themes, namely society's mistreatment of food-waste management, and promoting racial/gender diversity. Hingman graduated with a joint honours degree in Environmental Studies and Music and plays recreationally in a band.  

Hingman's story is part of Grebel's 60 Stories for 60 Years project. Check out our 60 Stories page for more articles in this series. If you would like to nominate a Grebel alumnus to share about their experiences at Grebel, please submit a nomination form.