Report(7)-Tingting

SUMMARY&BOOK REVIEW

It's been a month since we finish the last semester, finally I got some time to summarize my own project and thinking process.  Through my practice-based research, I want to explore the display of cultural identity of Chinese diaspora in contemporary Thailand. Last semester I mainly engage with visual narratives in photography. By doing this I discover and develop my way of doing the inquiry.

Recently I have been reading the novel "Letters from Thailand", it is not a fiction ,because it offers me such a real image of what the story is. The details of the stories and the way of characters acting bring me close to the world where this particular group of migrants lived. I think I do share many identities with them, even though we grow up in a different environment and are not directly related. It is something I'd like to look into, that the positions people take and display themselves.

In the novel, this young man named Suang U,who actually escaped from China to Thailand to peruse a better life, he took his position as a decent and educated Chinese man who respects his culture and stick to it. While his wife and sister in law grow up in Thailand, they have their own position towards life and many other things. I am impressed by the way of writing, it flows smoothly and silently. I want to present it like how the novel did, a normal and daily way, like any other person's story. 

In the multicultural environment, there are two questions that I am thinking of:  "Where do you stand" and "How you changed your position". Is it possible to use my photographs to explore and illustrate my perspective in a aesthetic way?   

I am also reading about visual narratives, which could possibly provide me to explore the theme through photography. After reading "On Define Visual Narratives", I gain some general ideas about Visual and Narratives.