He happened to know the president of Columbia Pictures Asia, Barbara Robinson, an American who had been hired years before as a language student in Taiwan to translate a film synopsis into English for a company set up by Chen, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and others.
而該公司的亞洲區總經理，正是當年台灣新電影萌芽初期，陳國富、侯孝賢等人組成「合作社電影」後，請來一位協助他們把故事大綱翻譯成英文、來台學中文的美國女孩芭芭拉羅賓森。