TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO:

 

I've brought multiple items.The first one being a cheongsam from my grandmother's aunt. Cheongsam is the Cantonese word for basically a long dress that has a certain collar and clasp on the side. This one is a very old almost like more than 80-year-old dress that comes in two parts. It has a silk, I guess like slip underneath and a lace top part. And the other piece being a pair of pants that my mother gave me. 

 

I was, I think just last year doing more work like artwork and personal like introspective work around, like getting to know my family history better. And I had just wondered if my grandmother had anything that could fit me in her closet. And so she gave me so much stuff. She used to wear, I guess, like a lot of fancy clothing and this dress was one of them. And I had noticed I remembered seeing this picture in my living room, my mom and my dad have this picture of them early on with her wearing this at a ball or something.

 

This dress, I suppose is meant to be worn for very fancy occasions. And when I first tried it on, I was very surprised that it fit me. It's like extremely well-fitted like it can only fit like a certain size of person. And this collar is like pretty tight. And I think when I wear the full length of it without these pants on, it's quite a restrictive dress. And I think a lot about how I once read this quote about how cheongsams are supposed to be, are supposed to keep women like under control in some ways by preventing them from like any erratic movements or running or like any like real physical activity. So, I've thought a lot about like, the like potentially oppressive, like origins of this kind of like traditional garment. 

 

I've always had a fear of wearing this wrong, that like when I do hike it up so that it doesn't actually impede any of my movement, I wonder if I'm doing something culturally wrong. But I think through like wearing this and kind of like adapting how I wear it, I've learned that like a) the garment itself is not perfect and that the way it's made comes from imperfect intentions as well and that it's kind of acted as a larger metaphor for a lot of like my other insecurities about I guess doing culture wrong in my family since I was like born here, and so was my father, I think I've gotten a lot of like knowledge, second or third hand.

 

I was born in Montreal. My mother's family - and my grandmother's also my mother's mother - they both came after the fall of Saigon in 1975, after the Vietnam War. My grandmother had moved to Vietnam after the Communist Revolution. So, she was only six-years-old. And lived most of her adult life, most of her life, I guess, in Vietnam. My mother was born there and then they both moved after the war.

 

My grandma's a really nice person. She's like, eternally optimistic. I've only seen her like sad once in my life. I came out to her like a month ago and she was so chill about it. I like really don't understand. I like told her I had a girlfriend and she still asks like a very stereotypical question, but she says it in the cutest way possible. She asked me 'Which one of you is the one who protects the other?' I thought that was really sweet. 

 

So, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be like queer, and like genderqueer and wearing something so hyper feminine and to be wearing it so called ‘wrong’, and how does that impact this clothing's like legacy.

 

I also really enjoy how this smells like my grandmother's closet. She still lives in Montreal and I miss her a lot. Smells like wood. Smells like dust, dust balls.

 

I wear it over a pair of pants that my mother has also given me. So, I think about a lot how I guess like I'm taking multiple things from different generations and kind of adapting them together. Even if I didn't have these pants like cinching it, these are exactly the right fit for like every measurement on me. And it's nice to have like this very tangible example of how you're related to someone.