Its about time I articulate my thoughts for the Senior Project Proposal In writing.

I never gave much thought as to where I came from. Living in Canada for most of my life I was never attached to my cultural background, instead I mainly focus on who I am growing up here. As I search for ideas for my grad project I begin to ask myself questions like:

What do I want to say?
What comment can I make about the world around me?
What is my understanding of the world? (not much)

I'll start off with something simple like "who am I?" I think this has been used a hundred times and is a bit of a cliche topic but whatever... I have to start somewhere. I begin to draw upon my background for ideas and inspiration for stories I might want to share:

As a child the stories that my parents would share with me are their lived experiences in Vietnam. They would tell me stories of hardship and poverty growing up in their home country. Stories of life on the farm and hardship they would go through when they were my age. They would share the traumas that they went through during the Communist rule, the struggle, and the obstacle they had to face when they escaped their country in search for a better life. Often times I found these stories to be quite depressing as a child and wondered why they would tell me these things, nonetheless these stories would stick with me even if I did not give much thought to it. I understood these stories to be a reoccurring moral that my parents want me to carry throughout my life for example, "To appreciate what I have, and work hard to become something."

What does this mean to my gradproject? I've started researching into the history of the Vietnamese boat people because that's what my parents were. A lot of the information that I found were personal stories that other people shared having been apart of the history. The stories that I've read brought tears to me and they were more horrible and sad than what my parents told me.

Here is the site that I've visited: http://www.vietka.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xxBPZBeC5M


These stories touched me on a personal and emotional level even though my connection with this culture is faint and distant. It wasn't until recently that I looked back to what my parents told me, having to visualize these stories when I was a child and how I perceive these stories back then compared to now. For my grad project I would like to explore more into these personal stories. I'll start from the memories of my parents and also research into the history around it. My goal would be to construct a narrative and have a central protagonist inspired by these personal stories that function as morals. I aim to communicate a moral in my piece and explore a question as to why we tell our children stories similar to what my parents shared with me.