Family Heirlooms
August 3 2023
Summer finally hits L.A, a little late but the heat is not kidding.
I personally think by saying “OMG, it’s too hot” x 10 times a day with fully blasted AC to my face have grown back the memory of sitting inside my pink room at my childhood house in Saigon, Vietnam when the outside is about 80+ degree and nope, I will never forget about the humidity.
When my parents purchased the place in the early 90s, they had reconstructed the whole house according to my mom’s sketch. My mom is a colorful and color-coordinated person (when I say my mom is colorful, think neon), she had envisioned specific colors and stylings for each room. My room was pink with a giant 3-story glass closet full with dolls, teddy bears, Barbies and a glass panel overlooking the wooden stairway to the rooftop. I remembered everything was pink, from the wall, the bed, the bathroom, the bathroom sink, the bathtub and I loved it.
…until MTV happened in the 2000s and a whole new world just crashed into my big head. I learnt about Rock n Roll, Alternative Rock, Pop Rock…all type of rocks that finally fueled my courage to ask my mom: “I want to paint my room black”. The look she had on her face (well, let’s say I would never forget) and she said: “No, have you gone mad?”. I was a teenager and obviously I was going through phases. I simply thought she would not want to spend the money to re-do one room, especially to black.
Now that I thought about it, it’s the emotion and the memories that she was afraid to erase. She saw a 16 year process of me growing up in that room; it’s tough to make it go away. This makes me realize that emotional values do not need to be just a single joyful moment, it includes sadness, surprise, anger, a mixed of feelings and events. Emotional values are a person’s journey of multiple chapters - they don’t need to be shown with words, but feelings.
When my mom asked me why I want to start BẠC with her, I explained it was all because of the family necklace which she designed and kinda had to force everyone to wear it (LOL) and that, I have understood the meanings and her intentions after wearing it for 20+ years. It is simple with our initials (P,L,D) inside small circles; she did not choose circle for a random reason. Circle is a special shape; it can be molded or bended but it takes a certain force to break. With the circle, there is no begin or the end. By putting our initials inside the circles, it is showing Family Bonding, Strength and Protection.
Then there is my dad’s bracelet that she repurposed and resized to fit my wrist (she gifted this to him when my brother was 1 year old and he recently passed it on to me). Same concept, with added Vietnamese Zodiac signs next to our initials. As I investigate it, the placement of the signs are not thoughtless but rather very meticulously planned . My mom is a mouse, my dad is a rooster, I am a dragon and my brother is a goat. The mouse and the rooster stay at both ends while the dragon and the goat are in the middle. This is a protection symbol that all parents will and always will keep their children safe.
I have a lot of quiet moments just staring at these pieces and many others which I saw on my parents or when I secretly crawled into my mom's closet to try on her silver. They are the connection between generations, the bridge between the Past and the Present. Growing up, it has been a family tradition to have custom jewelry made and wear them as daily accessories. We don’t, or rarely take them off. They have become our second skin that personally I feel naked if I don’t have them on. Like a natural reflex, it has been a habit of the checking if all the silvers are worn before going out of the house. By receiving specific jewelry from the elders, they are passing down a full collection of memories and it is wearing a part of them on you. It’s wonderful.
