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Dance is a proven effective way to communicate.
In this Ted Talk, John Bohannon, a scientist, proposes that dance is a very effective way to communicate ideas, especially the complicated ideas of science. He started the “Dance Your PhD” project in which PhD students choreograph and perform dances that explain their research. His point is that movement and visuals can easily explain complex ideas and thoughts. All humans are able to relate to movement and come to understandings through interpreting body language. Unlike words and jumbles of images found in powerpoints, dance is a very different, active stimulus; it demands attention. Dance isn’t performed in a specific language. It is a universal language. It taps into something that is natural, expression through movement. If I could, I would rather perform my own Ted Talk through dance rather than through speech. I feel that I communicate better through dance.
I think my inquiry is going really well.
I really enjoyed my resources, especially the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. This novel definitely connected to my inquiry, but moreso connected to my personal life experience. As I said in previous posts, I deeply relate to the struggle of names and languages and meaning of identity. I think it is deeply important for one to understand themselves and their origins to be the best that they can be and be a good member of society. It is in understanding ourselves and how we communicate with others that we are able to make progress in the world. A struggle that I have been having with my inquiry is that I can not seem to find many answer to the second part of my question: How can we transcend the language barrier?. I have my own personal story, dancing in a foreign country and learning through visuals and art. I also have my parent’s stories, coming to a new country without knowing the language. But the novels I have read have mostly covered the significance of language and just skimmed the top of this question of transcendence. I am in contact with Connor Shaw’s aunt, Catherine Dulin, who is working on her PhD in researching Dance as a Language, so I am very excited to hear back from here In my presentation, I plan to really emphasize my own experience with language. And branching off of my own experience, I will talk about how I connect with my research. I may also talk about some people that I have interviewed and have casually talked to about my inquiry. I will definitely address what I believe is the significance of the language barrier, but I am not yet quite sure how I will answer my second question. We will see... Gogol changes his from Gogol to Nikhil. This reminds me of the time that my brother almost decided to officially change his name from the Vietnamese Duchoang to his English name, Daniel. Just like Sonia in the novel, it was hard for me to even think of accepting this change. I grew up with Daniel, but I always knew that his name was Duchoang. He would always be Duchoang Daniel Pham to me. My brother kept his name, but this experience really makes me think about how language plays a role in how we grow up. Language seeds itself in the core of our identity from infancy. It becomes a part of us that we cannot completely get rid of.
As an attempt to keep the Bengali culture alive in their next generation, Ashoke and Ashima sent Gogol to Bengali language and culture lessons. “For when Ashima and Ashoke close their eyes it never fails to unsettle them, that their children sound just like Americans, expertly conversing in a language that still at times confounds them, in accents they are accustomed not to trust”(65). In history, when a language is lost, the culture is lost. No one speaks Latin, so there is no Ancient Roman culture currently practiced. I don’t speak Vietnamese, so I cannot practice or understand a good amount of Vietnamese traditions without my parents’ help.
I attended similar lessons as Gogol’s with a similar amount of disinterest. Unfortunately, I gave up. Although I can understand a little bit of Vietnamese, I can never reply other than “Yes”, “No”, and “Thank You”. When I see Vietnamese family, I know to use the respectful Vietnamese titles, just as Gogol and Sonia did on their trips to Calcutta; “[They] must remember to say, not aunt this and uncle that but terms far more specific: mashi and pishi, mama and maima, kaku and jethu, to signify whether they are related on their mother’s or their father;s side, by marriage or by blood”(81).This is the extent of my Vietnamese communication. This is the extent to which I understand the complexities of the Vietnamese language folded into the Vietnamese culture. When I hear Vietnamese, the sound is familiar; the sound reminds me of my childhood listening to my parents argue in secret and the chatter of family reunions at my grandparents’ house. But my brain is unable to translate those familiar syllables and accents into comprehensible words. So, I have never been able to converse with my grandparents, one of my biggest regrets in life. My parents are liaisons of my grandparents’ and my stories. I have a second hand understanding of their journeys from Vietnam and their lives in America. They have a second hand understanding of my small accomplishments in my youth. But, so much can be lost in translation. The Namesake truly captures how important the name is to culture and identity.
When Gogul Ganguli enters kindergarten, his parents decide they want to keep their Bengali tradition and give Gogol a good name: Nikhil. The young Gogol is terrified by the prospect of being having to take on a different name, “He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn’t know. Who doesn’t know him”(57). When Ashoke tries to explain this tradition to Gogol’s American kindergarten teacher, she does not understand the confusing Bengali transition. Disregarding the Ganguli’s wishes, the kindergarten allows Gogol to go by the name Gogol. “Inside the classroom it’s a small universe of nicknames -- Andrew is Andy, Alexandra Sandy, William Billy, Elizabeth Lizzy”(60). His parents give up. Gogol Ganguli is stuck with his pet name as his real name, a name that is neither Bengali nor American. Gogol’s name places him in a third dimension, somewhere between his home and his cultural heritage. Learning from their struggles with Gogol, the Ganguli’s find a compromise when their second child is born. They name their daughter one name, a good name: Sonali. As a compromise, they call her by the nickname of Sonia. “Sonia makes her a citizen of the world. It’s a Russian link to her brother, it’s European, South American”(62). My own name bears a similar weight as the Ganguli childrens'. On the first day of school or when there is a substitute teacher taking roll, there is always a pause before calling out my name; before they can attempt to mispronounce “Thaouyen”, I automatically interject “Present. You can call me Emily.” But, like the Ganguli’s, my parents did not totally give up on connecting me to my Vietnamese language. Knowing that I would go by my American name, they decided Emily was a good middle name because “Em” is a way to refer to a younger sibling in Vietnamese. So, when my brother addressed me as “Em”, he would be calling me by my American nickname name and my Vietnamese title. It is not a perfect connection to Vietnam, but it is still a connection. That little bit of the language keeps me tied to Vietnam. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri is about the Ganguli Family - an Indian family that moved to Boston, Massachusetts. The Namesake illustrates the Ganguli’s struggles with adapting to a new culture and leaving their old culture behind as they raise a new born son. One of the biggest difficulties in for the Ganguli Family is the problem of their son’s name - Gogol Ganguli. The Namesake captures how important language is in cultural identity and in understanding of humanity.
Initially, in the preface of the novel, there is a quote from “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol (the namesake of the son): “The reader should realize himself that it could not have happened otherwise, and that to give him any other name was quite out of the question.” This quote foreshadows the importance that the name and the language from which the name comes will play a pivotal role in the novel. When the son of Ashima and Ashoke Ganguli is born, he is nameless. In the Bengali culture, one’s name has a significant importance and meaning: “[Pet names] are the names by which they are known in their respective families, the names by which they are adored and scolded and missed and loved. Every pet name is paired with a good name, a bhalonam, for identification in the outside world… Good names tend to represent dignified and enlightened qualities… Pet names have no such aspirations. Pet names are never recorded officially, only uttered and remembered”(26). The parents had planned to have Ashima’s grandmother name their son, but the letter holding the name was lost. When the hospital pressured the Ganguli’s to choose a name for the child’s birth certificate, they decided to put his pet name, Gogol, after Ashoke’s favorite author. Seeing the name Gogol on the birth certificate astounds the Ashoke and Ashima because a pet name should not be on official document, for the rest of the world to see. Gogol’s lack of the Bengali good name already sets him apart from his Bengali cultural heritage. I identify with Gogol’s struggle in my own name. Legally, I am Thaouyen Emily Pham. “Thaouyen” is my “good name”; it is the name on documents and the name that is tied to my Vietnamese heritage. “Emily” is my “pet name”; it is the American name that my family and friends know me by. For me, even though I have a “good name”, I never go by it or introduce myself as it. In this way I am distanced from my Vietnamese culture. |
AuthorThaouyen Emily Pham Archives
December 2016
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