Musings on: Hờn Anh Giận Em (Jealousy)

I love Vietnamese surf rock from the '70s, produced mostly in the South while atrocity after atrocity was being enacted on home soil. It's a peek into the lives of the Vietnamese middle class privileged enough to seek distraction from senseless violence, a perspective distinctly missing from international portrayals of the war. I (should) welcome any new perspectives on principle. When all your life you've seen yourself as either a faceless monster or a nameless victim, any new addition to the public consciousness is going to feel sort of refreshing. If that's a little too mushy gushy for you, feel free to ignore these last few sentences.

This song is of a genre spanning millennia in the Vietnamese canon throughout its regions, the "couple's feud" genre that incorporates razor-sharp wordplay and humorous quips interspersed through a sort of energetic instrumental. When performed live in the proper setting, I can imagine this got onlookers hooting and slapping each other on the backs with teasing looks. It's the sort of universal affair anyone can recognize. A man and a woman tearing each other to shreds in public!

Hung Cuong and Mai Le Huyen, who perform this surf-rock version carry forth this tradition fantastically well. Their joint discographies are chock-full of this type of verbal sparring match. "Jealousy" is one of their sweeter ones, tinged with a wife's longing that she must eternally be her husband's second priority behind his civil duty.

Here I've combined my desire to pay tribute to any random piece of media I like (I recently made a subtitled video of my favorite section of Salomé, 1975) with "ink practice" AKA this is really going to be the start of my great traditional ink mastery this time I promise (grimacing)! I'm trying to get geared up for comics. There are a lot of commitments you have to make in traditional art compared to digital art that don't make your strokes better per se, only more definitive. More assertive.

I do owe my entire life to correction fluid, though, as you can see. The path to mastery is so very, very long. It was fun nonetheless to fling myself at these first steps, and try to be a little more true to myself and what I enjoy.

Much light,

Casper