Thursday, 20 June 2019
Thursday, 11 April 2019
On being Asian
Wednesday, 10 April 2019
Gone
Beyond the physical distance, the questions, with all the hope, prayers and uncertainties that are inevitable during such times, I'm glad I could have been of some moral support, to make make the day-by-day process a little less painful these last four months of your life. But the big Cancer Monster defeated you before you could return home... And I'm heartbroken.
Goodbye, farewell, wherever you are, my dear.
What a week.
Friday, 29 March 2019
On being Asian
Thursday, 28 March 2019
Conversation _ loop _ mother
Conversation _ loop _ mother _ there's joy in repetition _ Vietnam
Mother: (looking around the streets of Saigon) "It's amazing how things have changed. It's much bigger now"
Me: "Yes, changes are noticeable by the year in Saigon"
Mother: "Saigon?"
Me: "Yes, we are, you are in Saigon!"
Mother: "C'est pas possible! (That's impossible) When? But it doesn't look at all like Saigon..."
Me: "You arrived this morning. We are in Vietnam. Look! Chợ Bến Thành is over there (Ben Thanh market, a very famous spot)."
Mother: "... I don't recognise anything..."
Me: "See all the people, the signs and boards in Vietnamese"
Mother: "Ah.... I thought we were..."
Father: "... in Paris Chinatown!"
Mother: "Exactly!"
Me: (Thanks for your help, dad...)
Mother: "It has changed so much since the last time I was there, not long ago"
Me: "Your last time you were in Vietnam was nearly 20 years ago..."
Mother: "No... it was just a few years. Ask your dad"
Father: "The year 2000. 19 years ago"
Mother: "Oh... (looks at a woman with a cone hat). The Vietnamese community has really grown! They're everywhere now! Even the signs are in Vietnamese!"
Me: "Because we are in Saigon..."
Mother: "What? C'est pas possible!!! I don't believe you... Ask your dad!"
Father: "Saigon, Vietnam. Arrived this morning!"
Mother: "Really? C'est pas possible! I don't remember anything!
Me: "Ah... is that so...."
...
Mother: (contemplating the garden of my grandfather's house) "This garden is so lovely. All these flowers... so peaceful."
Me: "Yes, I love this house"
Mother: "It's nice to have our own house with a big garden. I remember when your dad was in Vietnam and I started looking for a new house..."
Me: "It's grandfather's house, in Huê, mom"
Mother: "Grandfather? Huê? C'est pas possible!"
Me: "Look at the house. Look at the furniture..."
Mother: "Oh... yes... Oh... yes. I remember... I love dad's house... and to go to the house you have to climb up the hill and pass a pagoda."
Me: "It's all flat around here. You're describing the way to your dad's house in Nam Giao (her childhood home)
Mother: "It's (my) father's house! Look!"
Me: "It's dad's father's house in Huê..."
Mother: "Huê? But it looks nothing like Huê!!!"
Me: "Look behind, it's grandfather's altar. And here, his furniture. And there is dad's room, when he was young"
Mother: (looking around, eyes drifting)We're in Huê... C'est pas possible! I don't remember anything..."
Me: "(ah...)"
...
(In a car, on our way to the family tombs)
Mother: "It's amazing how things have changed around here.."
Me: "Huê has not changed as much as Saigon."
Mother: "We can't be in Huê!"
Me: "Look at that sign board. It has Huê written all over it. And here's the Perfume River. "
Mother: "Chinatown has changed so much..."
Me: "This is Huê, mother. We are on a trip in Vietnam. We are spending one week in Huê and we are on our way to see our ancestors' tombs"
Mother: "We're in Vietnam??? Don't lie to me! When? How? C'est pas possible!
Me: "This is your school... look!"
Mother: "Oh yes. And if you go further, there's a street that goes up to our house in Nam Giao."
Me: (relieved) "Exactly! Aren't you glad to be back in Huê?"
Mother: "We're in Huê????? C'EST PAS POSSIBLE!"
I talked my mother on the phone two days ago. She seems to have got back to her routine in her house in Paris. Conversation was our usual conversation (how's work / where are you? / what film I'm working on / she wants to have a copy of it etc...) My father said that she was asking what the luggage in the entrance were for.
She doesn't remember our trip in Vietnam at all.
Monday, 25 March 2019
I find it fairly ironic that in Thưa mẹ con đi (Goodbye mother), the next (Vietnamese) long feature for which I will write the score, the grand mother of the main character has the Alzheimer's disease...
For now, I'm sick, physically and emotionally drained from that trip in Vietnam and coughing - those damn a.c. pushed to the maximum... But I know what musical colour I want to give to the film now. Minh's film is a dramedy, more on the lighter side, though, with some slapstick elements - coming from the grandmother character...I think a score made of minimalist Scandinavian pop elements might counterbalance the local Vietnamese countryside flavour of the film, and open bring out hidden - or undevelopped aspects of the characters. On verra...
I just talk to my father in the phone. My mother did not recognise her house when she came back in Paris.. If the flight back to France went without any issue, the first night at home was terrible: she thought people were coming to take her away. The next day, she asked my father what the suitcases were doing near the living-room...
Unfortunately, I didn't suspect, or didn't want to believe that such a trip would affect her dramatically. Being in Vietnam, visiting the tombs of her parents, going back to Huế and Đà Lạt must have had the effect of a cyclone in her forgetful mind. Deep down, she recognised and acknowledged what she saw and experienced, but the crash between that and the erected web of fractured memories must have been violent for her.
Hopefully she will regain some stability as familiarity sinks in again. Hopefully.
Thưa mẹ.