LANGUAGES
I have a cousin who’s 10 years younger. The huge age gap first irritated me. Despite wishing for a younger sister for years, now that I finally have one, I couldn’t even communicate with her. Frustrated at her barely comprehensible Vietnamese words, which made no sense together, I resorted to physical re-enactments of our thoughts.
As I tried to act out what’s for dinner to her, I began to wonder about the development of languages. It amazes me how humans managed to collectively agree on the structures and usage of languages. Seeing its effects, I could see how languages can unite people regardless of physical distance, age or innate traits. Yet its complex can be alienating to some, which sparked my curiosity for simplistic ones like Toki Pona (yet still intriguingly enlightening) and instinct-based ones like sign language. The understanding also further reinforced my passion for dance, allowing me to view this form of art as a unique language, without the rigid structures and conditions.
MOVIEs critique
Movies deserve their worldwide popularity, for it is the most encompassing medium. It incorporates theater in its expressive acting, amplification of small details, and scripting structures and interpretations; music in its crucial soundtrack and BGM which elevate feelings to unprecedented levels; especially in addition to the artistry of the filming in its varied angles, color palettes, art styles and framings. Not to mention its ability to accurately depict a relatable storyline yet manages to convey broad ideologies or messages. In this sense, my experience with dancing has been heavily inspired by movies such as “Us”, “Inside out”, “The Grinch”,… I aspired to express the internal conflicts, whose physical conveyance in movies usually went unnoticed by the average audience, in the performance art of dance.
I am also a firm believer in learning from masterpieces of motion pictures. With the help of Cinema therapy, a Youtube channel where professional therapist and filmmaker analyzes in-depth the characters and relationships growths, along with pointing out clever filmmaking tricks to instigate subconscious feelings in viewers. This applies effectively to animations as well. I aim to challenge the notion that animations are just for kids, as in fact, it is a realm filled with greater creativity than real-life cinema, meaning a greater potential to express complex ideas in innovative ways.
CUISINE
The forbidden kitchen incited me to get my hands on cooking as soon as possible. My mom’s safety precaution meant knives, stoves and other “dangerous” kitchen tools were out of reach until I turned 13. I never let that stop me from practicing techniques using imaginary kitchenware and binging cooking series online, MasterChef, Bon Appétit, Joshua Weissman, Tasty were my Netflix shows.
As I joined a cooking class after neverending begging, we got to practice slicing. With little prior first-hand practice, I couldn’t shred the cucumber vertically and ended up with a deep cut on my index finger. Blood kept oozing out to the horror of my friend and the assistants, but I was too busy worrying how to convince my mother to let me continue to notice the pain. With a scar still clear on my finger 9 years later, maybe I should have taken a break then but I would not let some vegetable cut my endeavor with cooking short.
I switched to desserts and pastry to temporarily separate from the blades, slowly permeating the whole apartment with tantalizing smells of buttery vanilla cream puffs or sizzling burgers.
During my travels, indigenous cuisine always drew me in. I could never forget my first time holding a curved knife, chopping down bamboo for bamboo-tube rice and cooking it beside a huge campfire. The fire was definitely warm but not as comforting as the arduous journey up the unpathed hills to collect leaves and harvest raw materials.
hiking
Rather than going on beach trips faraway, the mountains of the northern vietnam province seemed to beckon me more. As a tiny child, I would rush up and down the countless stairs to wait for my family to catch up. I rarely got tired but on those occasions, I would always count 1,2,1,2 in my head as I took step after step up the hill, uninterrupted both physically and mentally. I felt invigorated by each climb. Perhaps it’s the breathtaking view of the sky and leafy roof, of the gradually smaller villages underneath, or the panorama view of the world from the peak, or the exploration of the temples, monuments of historical figures, rock textures and varied plants. Or perhaps it’s the combination of all these things.
Entering this new dimension of leafy smell and calming colors, I could almost understand the sages of the past took to the mountain for their hideout. My mind cleared, my heart lightened, a feeling of assurance spawned alongside a strive to keep continuing my journey.
true crime
As I turned off the lights and snuggled into my blankets, thoughts didn’t cease from rushing through my head. Like many people, I put on podcasts to settle in for the night. But the usual calming, meditating ones couldn’t soothe my very much awake brain. Well, to fight fire with fire, I tuned in to channels on women’s true crimes, specifically those recounting in detail the aggravating stories leading to the accumulating unlawful thoughts and ideations. Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without the graphic actions of committing the crime itself, along with the mind-scratching investigation process. To tie the bow on the deep-rooted, suppressed motivations and the gory process of these female criminals, the public’s reaction, both at that time and during more modern eras, was also incredibly engaging. It was a very specific aspect of the past less covered by the media, where biased prejudice prevailed and people were too anxious to validate their theories before taking action. There were also surprisingly positive receipts to some of the crimes, where a portion of the population sympathized, even idolized the outlaw, to the point of affecting the police’s power over the situation.
