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*Work In Progress*
Untitled
Visual Piece / 10 minutes
Shot/Recorded by: Yan Geng
Edited by: Yan Geng
With the miscellaneous footages of my hometown and conversations that I had with my dad and grandma, this personal visual piece tries to trace the memories of my grandpa who died in 1997.
I’ve recently returned to my hometown, Fu’an City in China for the first time since the pandemic. During my stay with my parents, I learned that 爷爷 Ye-Ye (grandpa) was adopted soon after his birth. Fragmented memories of him resurfaced. Ye-Ye died in 1997 when I was 6 years old. Frankly, I don’t have many vivid memories of us together, they are mostly scattered moments as well as what I have been told. He loved drinking and he’d often got in fights with 阿嬷 Ah-Ma (grandma). I was told that he was talented with words, he wrote and spoke with his particular way of precision. I was often annoyed and cried for Ah-Ma whenever Ye-Ye teased me with his spiky moustache. I didn’t understand at the time that it was his way of love. By tracing his memories, in a way, I’m trying to reconnect with the person that hadn’t been brought up in a long time, the person that loved me dearly.
Since I arrived in Australia in 2011, with me settled in a foreign country alone, there has been a disconnection between me and my family. Prior this trip, I felt like my hometown isn’t somewhere that I could just move back to as both the city and I have changed in a way that the two no longer recognise each other. Through the intimate conversations and tender moments that I shared with my family, I was able to retrieve some of that connection I’ve been longing for.