Experiment. Screen. Sensation. // Post 6

The second activity of Week 2 is to shoot a set of 8 videos responding to ‘word’. This activity reminded me of a survey I did a few days ago about Vietnamese youths’ attitudes towards English loanwords use in Vietnamese. Hence, I immediately associated ‘word’ with ‘language’.

Although I have no problem with young people using English loanwords, given the fact that they use them correctly, I gave some thought to the reasons behind this phenomenon. I noticed that people could replace long Vietnamese words or phrases with plainer English words a lot of the time. With my experience of using English and Vietnamese every day, I believe English in many ways is more direct and universalized. Some could say Vietnamese is excessive, but I personally think the language is sophisticated. So for this activity, I wanted to make a video that manifests my notion.

The video is made of new clips and old footage. Due to quarantine, I utilized old clips to have more diverse settings, thus making the video more enjoyable. In the video, it sounds like I spoke 8 different dialogues, yet all of them are translated to I love you. I featured my parents in the first few clips. I don’t remember if they ever said the word yêu, which means love, to their kids. They tend to use thương, which could also translate to love, but the word carries more meanings and emotions comparing to yêu. Vietnamese people are not used to expressing their feelings directly, which is why there are other words in place of yêu (love). Vietnamese also has more personal pronouns, but all of the ones mentioned in the video could translate to and you. We have many personal pronouns because we do not see every relationship as equal. Each personal pronoun reflects different levels of respect, closeness, social position, meaning, etc.

Through the video, I aimed to explain why I believe Vietnamese is absolutely complicated but beautiful at the same time. It has made me once again realized I love both Vietnamese and English for such contrasting reasons. In terms of editing technique, this is the first time I have made a video without any background noise or music. I was partly inspired by A Song of Air, directed by Merilee Bennett, and La Jetée, directed by Chris Marker. There are scenes in both films where the only audio is the voice narration. I think this technique makes the audience really focus on the dialogues.

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