User:10000BL/Project Proposalv3
TITLE
Nr. 39 with Rice
INTRODUCTION
For my graduation I want to continue with a project which I initiated last year. My project Nr. 39 with Rice is at first hand a respons to and outcome of an event that happened during an episode of Holland Got Talent in 2013. A second angle would be the sentence Nr. 39 with Rice itself. This holds a certain richness that I would like to explore.
In my project I want to present a scope of works ranging from photos, videos, interviews to installation based works.
Holland Got Talent - What happened
During an episode of Holland Got Talent in 2013 Chinese contestant Xiao Wang was asked by jury member Gordon, a Dutch singer and TV-personality, if he is going to perform the song 'Number 39 with Rice’. Gordon’s question is a reference to the extensive menus Chinese restaurants often have. The dishes on the Chinese menus can be difficult to pronounce by people not familiar with the Chinese language. To prevent miscommunications a customer often says the number of the dish when ordering food. On the contrary, to order food by its number says maybe something about the position the food takes in our society. When we consider Chinese food we see it as something easy and that it comes in high quantity for a low price.
The event from Holland Got Talent is an interesting case. It yielded debate about racism and the position of Chinese people on national and international level. It was covered by the established media (e.g. television and newspapers) and by popular media like Youtube. Last, (part of) the Chinese community responded with a website that promoted an allowance by offering 39% discount for the Nr. 39 dish in 39 restaurants all around the country.
Positioning
From the perspective that I’m born out of Chinese immigrants who came here with the hope to get a better life and who became restaurant owners the event is referring directly to me. I can be affected and have the feeling not being respected by people like Gordon. Yet with the knowledge that I’m raised by Dutch people the first 12 years of my life the event gets another perspective. From the outside look Chinese, but intellectually and culturally I feel more associated with Dutch society than the Chinese community.
POSSIBLE OUTCOMES
The sentence ‘Nr. 39 with Rice’ is I believe an interesting point of departure. The outcomes I propose deal literally with the number 39, highlight possibly the underlying (true) feelings of the Chinese community in the Netherlands and last show a personal relationship between me and my father, who is from origin a chef.
Outcomes according to the number 39
Photo series of number 39
For this work I visit different Chinese restaurants that serve a number 39-dish. I order the dish and take a photo of the dish from a helicopter perspective. Ideally the series will consist of 39 different photos of dishes.
To display the photos in an exhibition setting I either want to frame or plasticise them. In restaurants you often see plasticised menus and pictures of the food they serve.
Mukbang number 39
Mukbang is a type of performance in which someone eats large quantities of food, while interacting with their audience for apparent entertainment value. Mukbang originated in South Korea and its spreading gradually through different forms of media.
In my version of Mukbang the emphasis lies on the consumption of the food only. The interactive component of Mukbang is not part of my version. As far as I see now this branch of the project will be performed in the same restaurants I visit for the serie of the photos. The aim is not to have the same amount of videos as in the photo serie. Instead I aim for about 3 to 5 videos.
When exhibited I would like to have 5 equally sized televisions lined up in a row. Each television is broadcasting one of the videos. They are played simultaneously.
A cabinet of Nr. 39
This idea is in a premature state, but this work consists of plastic 3D-models (1:1) of the food I consumed in the restaurants. This idea is derived from plastic versions of food I see when I’m in Hong Kong, the city where my parents are born.
Hong Kong holds a culture of eating outside. To comply to this there are many small diners and restaurants all around. Next to the usual strategies of luring people into their eateries like neon signs and displays of the menu outside, it is also common in Hong Kong to see plastic models of the food they offer. These models are in real size and come in vibrant colours. They are usually placed in a cabinet at the entrance of the eatery.
My models are either a copy or an interpretation of the food I had. For the exhibition i would like to have a glass cabinet that show all the models together with a little card that displays the name of the dish, how much I liked it and the price i paid for it.
A cabinet of real Nr. 39
In response to the ‘plastic’ cabinet I want to give vistors of the exhibition the chance to experience of eating a Nr. 39. To do that I want to ask Chinese take-away restaurants to deliver the Nr. 39 to the address of the exhibition. When arrived the dish is placed on a table which need to be big enough to host a number of Nr. 39 at the same time. Visitors need to help themselves if they want to eat.
Outcomes according to the Chinese community
What kind of works and in which form is at this moment unclear, but in these work I want to look for the people directly involved and/or affected. The people that could be interesting for my project are restaurant owners, chefs and supporting staf.
Outcomes according to the collaboration with my father
As mentioned earlier my father use to be a chef. In his late adolescent he became responsible for his family and started his career as a chef. He ended up working as a chef in Spain and when he met my mother he moved to her in The Netherlands. The first few years he worked in the restaurant of his father in law, my grandpa. After a few years he and my mother started their own restaurant in The Hague. I possess fun and warm memories to that place. The restaurants main focus was on take-aways, but they did had a few tables for people to dine at. The menu was extensive and contained at least over 100 dishes.
My father is out of the business for more than 10 years now. For my graduation I want to ask him to go back to a restaurant and cook. The final work will ideally be a video in which my father is cooking a Nr. 39 from begin to end. The shots of the video will mainly be details of him cutting and preparing the food. The video ends when he place the food on a plate.
At this moment I’m not quite sure to which extend I want to show my dad other than his hands preparing food. I do want to give him a voice by letting him talk about the things he is doing. Him talking can be during the process of preparing the food or afterwards so that it becomes a voice-over. When my father speaks he will do that in Cantonese, his mother tongue, for the sole reason that he is not fluent in either Dutch or English. The video of my father will be subtitled in English.
Juxtaposed I will be filmed and interviewed as well. The place for the interview is the dining hall of the chosen restaurant. What the interview will be, is not sure yet, but it is likely that I will talk about my father and the things he is doing in the kitchen. My interview will be in Dutch. My video will as well be subtitled in English.
The video ends when A) the dish of my father is served to me or B) when I finish eating the dish of my father in the restaurant. My interview will be in Dutch. To present the work I’m either thinking of merging the two videos into one or have them separately as works on themselves. The last option will lead to a presentation where the two videos are played alongside each other.
Considerations
- This idea only stands when I have support and commitment from my father. As said before my parents don’t own a restaurant anymore, neither do any of my aunts and uncles. For me it is important that shooting takes place in a restaurant. I want to see and feel the atmosphere of the restaurant and how this affects both my father and me.
I don’t have any Chinese friends who’s parents have a restaurant. Yet maybe my parents can help me finding a restaurant that lets us in. He might have some former co-workers who can help out.
- The biggest challenge is to convince my father to participate. I don’t know how he feels to be on camera and second if he would like to go back to a restaurant to cook. Chinese people don’t want to be bother someone when there is no actual reason. In this light I find it plausible he only agrees to participate when the video is made at home.
- To make both videos a success I need a team with specific qualities. Since I’m not fluent in Cantonese I’m not able to interview my father to talk about his pursuits in the kitchen. Important is to find somebody who is fluent in Cantonese and Dutch.
- If I want to talk in my interview about the things my father is doing in the kitchen, I can’t do his interview prior to mine (if I want to be there when the interview is taken place with him anyways). A solution is to do first do my interview, followed by his. The end shot(s) of my video will be made after both interviews have taken place.
To tackle these issues I need to understand what I want and write clear possible scripts.
- What is very important is that the work with my father is (and stays) part of the broader project Nr. 39 with Rice. My history with my parents is turbulent and I can imagine that the work with my father can be a project on itself where I explore family ties and cultural differences. I don’t want to make a project which focuses on a parent-child relationship. I do want to include a certain ambivalence and uncertainty in the work. It is up to the audience to make assumptions and conclusions.