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NIGHTINGALE NGUYEN

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NIGHTINGALE NGUYEN

Vietnamese-Canadian Actor, Podcast Host of “Talking With Our Mouths Full,” Co-founder of non-profit organization “Bridging the Gap in Motion”

Item: "áo dài"

From: Aunt; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Photo taken: H&M at Eaton Centre & Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto

“Something more precious can be seen in a piece of cloth over money.”

WEAR WE CAME FROM - Nightingale Nguyen
00:00 / 04:59
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Music: Hill and Dale and The Rain by Chad Crouch

 

Audio edited and transcribed by Izzy Docto.

Photos by Stephanie Xu.

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Wear We Came From exhibition was held on September 5th to 20th at Crimson Teas (415 Spadina Ave).

TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO:

 

So the garment I have featured is called áo dài. And that's just translated literally into long shirt or long dress. And it's just a Vietnamese cultural dress that you can see like certain school students wear it for school as part of their uniform, or like if there are tons of different variations where you wear it for weddings, it's just something that represents the Vietnamese culture.

 

So in Toronto, back in like the 1990s, there wasn't a lot of access to a lot of Vietnamese traditional clothing or just a lot of cultural things back then. And so my mom wanted us to have something special for New Year's, because New Year's was just something very, very special that we celebrate at home with a lot of homemade sweets and foods and what not. And so she got my aunt, from Vietnam to to send one over, I believe she made it, I'm not really sure my mom always says that she made it, but I can never be totally sure with my mom [laughs]. My mom got our sizes, my sister and I and then they came in. And then on the bottom of the box was a larger one made for my mom. And so when I got older, and my mom said that, she doesn't really wear it so often. But she hopes that like I can wear it more often whenever I can, and that maybe my sister can share. So it's kind of like a very big like, sister-sister kind of bond within the garment that I have. When I received it, I honestly thought it was worth a million dollars because of all the sparkles and all the attention to details, especially because you don't really see a lot of dragons and phoenixes, especially on a lot of clothing back then from what I saw. And also like, I was living in a really, really small and kind of like semi rundown apartment. And so this was probably the most luxurious thing ever. So this was treated like a bar of gold, essentially, to me. I feel that I feel really connected to home simply because of my parents and all the stories that are basically woven into the dress.

 

My parents escaped Vietnam during the Vietnam war. They left on a little raft, as they called it, and they migrated to different parts of Asia until the Philippines was able to accept the last of the boat people. So they stayed in the Philippines for awhile. They were in the re-education camps for awhile, and they got sponsored, finally, to come to Canada, and they were trying to bring as much of their families as possible to come over and live in Canada, my grandmother included.

 

We all landed in Toronto, eventually, and then I was born. My late grandma, she, she was very very traditional, she knew all of the old Vietnamese traditional stories and what not. And she said that, even though, like she’s getting old, she recognizes me right away because I have something called the phoenix eyes. And it’s an eye shape that is supposed to be very very prosperous and it’s supposed to represent a lot of good things. So when I saw the phoenixes on my áo dài, it was just like, wow, it’s all coming together, and I hope to live very long and happy life from what my grandmother has blessed me with. 

 

Sometimes, like, I used to work in an office, and we would have those office Christmas parties and what not, and you know, I could have worn like a casual Western garment, but instead I felt a little bold and decided to wear my áo dài that day. And a lot of people were staring and they just didn’t know how to react to it. And I feel like, it was a part of them was like, they were curious, impressed, it was like a mix of emotions, also maybe semi-uncomfortable because they just didn’t know how to react to the dress. But at the same time for me, I was just wearing it proud, and I feel that the more you make someone uncomfortable, something different would just become something normal.

 

I feel like the dress helped me become more bolder, and I feel that, more confident too, and also the dress just reminds me of just being humble, because coming from small beginnings, from living in a small apartment to living in a bungalow now. So it just shows that like you know, just a lot of patience and just living humble, like something more precious can be seen in like a piece of cloth over like money.

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