Braised (Thịt Kho)

As I matured, I grappled with the complexities of my relationship with my mother. While my peers seemed to share unbreakable bonds of friendship with their mothers, ours was a connection punctuated by conflicts and discord. Yet, after our every heated argument, a constant prevailed: her endless and quite offering of Vietnamese dishes- bún chả, bún bò Huế, cháo gà, xôi xéo, cháo thịt băm, etc. Food had always been there, linking me to my mother. It is her love language and a connection my mom and I could always have together; when she cooks the food I eat, she feels like I am more hers, and when I eat the food she cooks, I feel accepted by her. I spent my childhood and adolescence in 4 different countries, and Vietnamese food is the vessel through which my family has expressed love, and it's also the lifeline of our culture in a new land. Through Braised (Thịt Kho), I want to explore this complexities of love, communication, and survival within a Vietnamese-American family, using food as the thread that weaves together our emotions, our struggles, and our connections.

When I set out to make Braised (Thịt Kho), I wanted to write a Vietnamese story without it being centered around the war or with heavy trauma attached. I wanted to write about a Vietnamese family and a community that still carries the weight of that trauma but they also learn how to heal from it. I intended to capture these fragmented slices of the Nguyen's lives that make them human beings: how they speak in bursts, how they pick up conversations that occurred hours before, and how their most meaningful discourse happens in pieces, in broken ways. BRAISED, at its core is about the humanity of a father, a mother, and a daughter, and it’s about food and illness. We happen to be Vietnamese. I hope that it just brings some joy to the audience to see more stories coming out about very personal experiences and the very different experiences that we all have.