SỐNG SAI by The Flob 

i have already spotlighted one of the flob's songs but i would be remiss to not write about this one as well (perhaps, i should have made an artist spotlight post instead, but in the spirit of this song, no regrets!).

"SỐNG SAI," or "wrong way of living," is a song about rejecting social standards and embracing the life you want to live. in the true ethos of pop punk, this song questions the role of authority in the making of a societal norm. the song is tongue and cheek, playful yet, as the lyrics will soon reveal, the song is also hypercritical of normality, an all encompassing "right way of living," and restriction to social standards.

the song starts, "Sáng nay bước ra đường sao trong lòng thấy lạ, Tóc tai chẳng vuốt keo xem trong gương như tổ quạ," or "This morning I woke up and felt weird, my hair is messy and when I look in the mirror it is like a crow's nest." these lines evoke a hyperawareness of self, a self-consciousness of how one presents themselves. it evokes the all too relatable sense of wanting to fit in and "present well" to the world. but what i love is the line right before the chorus: "Miễn sao con thấy vui thì cuộc đời thấy nhẹ," or "as long as you are happy then life will feel light." it is this liberation from feeling restricted by society that is so rich. i want to live freely, i want to express freely, i want to present freely. the chorus is repetitive, repeating the title of the song: Mặc kệ họ bảo mình sống sai, sống sai, Vì cuộc đời mình chẳng của ai, của ai, Mặc kệ họ bảo mình sống sai, sống sai, Nên quan tâm chi nhiều nè?," or "Who cares if they say I am living wrong because my life is not anyone's but mine. Who cares if they say I am living wrong, why do I have to care?" when i listen to this song, i am reminded of my own free will. it is difficult navigating this busy expansive world, where you at times feel drowned out by so many people. the world is unforgiving and the world is unsafe. the world will judge and the world will hate. but the life i wish to live, does not harm anyone, it is a life i was given to use and i will use it freely.

i end this post with a question: what will you do with your life?

afterword

i hope this post encourages you check out The Flob. if not, i hope this post offers you some insight into the diverse musical landscape in viet nam. 

as always, thank you for reading. i greatly appreciate your time and attention. 

with warmth,

phim

p.s all these songs can be found under the “phim’s playlist” tab on the homepage. the link will redirect you to a youtube playlist :)

CHUNG CƯ by THEMÈO 

would it surprise anyone that my after a while of not posting my comeback post would be another vietnamese pop punk song?

a high-spirited, vital, and zealous song, "CHUNG CƯ," or "apartment" uses the apartment complex as a microscopic stage to meditate on the ongoing loss of community and interrelatedness in our prevailing late stage capitalist world. pop punk is the perfect genre to do so with its resistance of oppressive institutions. if there is anything to get my spirits up, let it be this song's energetic and dynamic electric guitar riff.

the song starts "Sáng sớm bên kia nhà, Chỉ thấy có ông mặt trời, Xung quanh là bao căn nhà, Hàng trăm dân cư mà chẳng quen biết ai," or "In the morning, in the apartment next to me, all I see is the sunrise. There are over a hundred tenants but no one knows each other." these lines bring to the center the declining sense of community and familiarity in our immediate communities. why have we have lost the connection in the people directly around us, in a physical sense? i relate a lot to this song in the context of my own life as (1) i live in an apartment complex and (2) for as long as i've lived in this complex, i really have not had a conversation with anyone. i will admit this is partially my fault but when i visited viet nam last summer, i was able to witness how much of a role neighbors play in people's daily life. in viet nam it is normal to go over to your neighbors and casually ask for a meal when you're too lazy to cook. people rely and lean on each other. they gossip, they talk shit, they talk with each other. they laugh, they cry, they mourn and grieve together. they are a community together.

then comes the chorus: "Một mình trong chung cư, Ta lãng quên bao chuyện ngồi hàn huyên bên nhau từ bao giờ, Người ở trong chung cư, Chẳng thấy ai nói lời chào thăm nhau đã hơn vài năm nay," or "Alone in this apartment complex, we have forgotten how to talk to one another, oh person living in this apartment complex, we have never asked about each other." as bright as this song is, it really does the work of mourning what we have lost to late stage capitalism. that is we have lost interpersonal connections with the people around us. what this song does beautifully is offer us a simple solution to the waning sense of connection: asking someone how are you? as cheesy and corny as this sounds, what the song is urging us to do is to start trying to connect with others the best way we can and that is to talk and converse with our neighbors and the people around us.

i end this post with this question: what else have we lost to late stage capitalism?

afterword

i hope this post encourages you check out THEMÈO. if not, i hope this post offers you some insight into the diverse musical landscape in viet nam. 

as always, thank you for reading. i greatly appreciate your time and attention. 

with warmth,

phim

p.s all these songs can be found under the “phim’s playlist” tab on the homepage. the link will redirect you to a youtube playlist :)

EM OII by The Flob

i have to navigate how to talk about this song without (1) oversharing and (2) trauma-dumping. this song struck me like lighting and every time i listen to it electricity pulsates through my body simultaneously stinging and invigorating me. EM OII captures the essence of the need to run away from the pain and suffering of the physical world. this song desperately begs for a breath of fresh air, an exhale of relief, the weightlessness of contentment.

while written about an ex, i argue this song ventures far beyond the confines of a jaded break up song. misanthropical and derisive, the lyrics do not look toward a distant future where time supposedly heals all wounds but rather a quick escape for when everything is too unbearable. i love the lines "Xóa hết, vứt hết, dẹp hết, bỏ hết mọi thứ bám hơi em. Anh biết, em biết, anh biết là ta chẳng qua được tuần này," or erase all, throw away all, put aside all, discard all that holds you down. i know, you know, i know that we will not make is passed this week." when something is so debilitating, mentally and physically, you just want to strip yourself of your physical body and release your soul to sweet weightlessness. he continues, Chạy đi, chạy đi, chạy đi, chạy đi, chạy đến cuối trời. Chạy cho thật xa để em quên mất đường về nhà, or "run run run run run to the end of the earth. run until you forget your way home." you really have to listen to the song and the rasp in his voice during this litany of the phrase the repetition of the same phrase. by doing so he mimics the way it can feel as if life is drowning you, suffocating you, everything toppling down at once not giving you room to breath so much so you want to run and keep running until you've forgotten your way home.

i wonder if i could run far far away, where would i run to.

afterword

i hope this post encourages you check out this song. if not, i hope this post offers you some insight into the diverse musical landscape in viet nam. 

as always, thank you for reading. i greatly appreciate your time and attention. 

with warmth,

phim

artist spotlight | Ngọt

Ngọt is a four-member pop rock from viet nam formed in 2013. they continue to push the boundaries of viet nam's musical landscape with their unique sound and music. their songs are rich in nostalgia that cause listeners (me) to melancholically yearn for a distant past; like a sweet dream you abruptly wake up from, forgetting exactly what happened but remembering the feelings that did happen. Ngọt captures this exact feeling well in their music.

Mấy Khi (2022)

this is the song that got me into Ngọt. Mấy Khi, or "once in a while," (note: this phrase is difficult to translate so i am giving you the gist of what it means) is a song that celebrates the feeling of liberation and freedom, unrestricted by the stresses from life. in the true ethos of punk music, this song resists and opposes oppressive institutions. the group disparages the value of money, by first indicting the debilitating stress of not ever having enough money and the stress of debt in this late-capitalist world and second, mourning the little time we have with the people we love in life.

"mình không mấy khi gần nhau lâu" (i won't directly translate this line into english as i believe doing so would be negligent of the beauty of this line) this line essentially asks "when is the next time we will be together?" i love that this song both grapples with the suffering under a capitalist world yet also illuminates viable ways of living: to love, to cherish, to be free. and thus, my love for this group began.

LẦN CUỐI (2019)

i would be deeply remiss, even disrespectful, to not honor this song with its own section. if i had a dollar for every time i listened to this song and dropped to my knees, eyes wet, clutching my heart ululating the second chorus, i would have enough money to rent out the largest music stadium in asia for a private concert. i can only dream of experiencing this song reverberate across a stadium both lacerating the walls and healing it with its painfully sweet lyrics. LẦN CUỐI, or "LAST TIME," is a requiem for a freshly ended relationship; two people resigned to a failed relationship scratched with unforgettable pain yet sutured together by moments of deep love and care. lần cuối is not only a song but a painting.

my knees go weak when the soft lines "cay đắng nhưng không đau," or "bitter but it does not hurt" echo in my ear. translation does not capture the resignation, the moment of reluctant acceptance of letting go, of release. it is about holding memories of love and pain close to our hearts to simultaneously remember and to let go.

this song embodies the genuine spirit of "i am sorry."

afterword

i hope this post encourages you check out Ngọt. if not, i hope this post offers you some insight into the diverse musical landscape in viet nam.

as always, thank you for reading. i greatly appreciate your time and attention. 

with warmth,

phim

p.s all these songs can be found under the "phim's playlist" tab on the homepage. the link will redirect you to a youtube playlist :)

“anh có tin về chuyến du hành vượt thời gian không? | song lang by leon lê

tw // assault, suicide, blood.

*this post contains spoilers*

introduction

set in 1980’s sai gon song lang is a sobering and nostalgic film depicting the richness and tragedy of cải lương and the unlikely bond between dũng, a merciless debt collector, and linh phụng, a young cải lương singer.

i've watched my fair share of asian queer films and this is definitely one that is rich in both aesthetics and thematics. it is timeless yet attentive to time. by this i mean, this film is meticulous on its references to time and history in viet nam. it makes gestures to viet nam's french colonial period, the american war in viet nam, and also a look into a post-socialist viet nam.

i love the film's subtlety. it relies not on hypersexual scenes and shirtless men but rather the subtle nuances of intimacy and the depths of what it means to connect with someone. moments like bonding through music and games, eating noodles in the middle of the night during a power outage to sharing each other's past on the roof of dũng's apartment. or most evocative, when linh phụng sings the song written by dũng's father all while being accompanied by dũng's melodic guitar. this palpable intimacy is further illustrated in their costuming. dũng, for the first half of the movie, is dressed in muted and dull clothing while linh phụng is dressed in striking colors. as the two grow closer dũng is dressed in colors outside of his original color palette. this trade-off and negotiation between the two is what makes their bond so deep.

however, as much as i admire the bond between the two men, the substance of this film is found in its undertones. this is a film that triangualtes the legacy of capitalism in a post-socialist viet nam with queer identities and queer expression in viet nam.

dũng's death and the inevitable collapse of capitalism.

dũng's tragic death is a quintessential part in the cải lương tradition but also a poignant gesture to karl marx's idea on the inevitable collapse of capitalism. put simply, marx believed that capitalism will eventually end up destroying itself. dũng, a ruthless, unforgiving debt collector who single handedly destroyed families, embodies the nature and ideology of (western) capitalism. take for the example the scene when dũng breaks into a family's home and is greeted by two young girls. stoic and impassive as he is, he sits down and entertains the two children. their parents, who arrive home soon after, immediately recognize dũng and in a fearful panic send them to a different room. in the following scene, dũng brutally assaults the father in front of his wife and children, his fists wet in blood and sweat. he makes brief eye contact with the two children yet continues to brutalize their father in front of them. the deafening sound of the girls pleading for their father reverberates in the audience's ears. it is a heartbreaking scene. we later find out that the man's wife committed suicide and took her two children with her. dũng, evidently, unfazed by this because as advised by the loan shark "it is a part of borrowing money." in the spirit of poetic justice, dũng, with his guitar strapped to his back, anxious legs teasing the entrance of the theatre company, is stabbed by the man who he assaulted. dũng, just like the future of capitalism, was forced to face the consequences of his actions. because capitalism is violent by nature, its death must also be violent.

afterword

i hope this post encourages you experience this rich film. if not, i hope this post offers you new insight into the vietnamese cinematic landscape.

as always, thank you for reading. i greatly appreciate your time and attention.

with warmth,

phim

08/24/23 | introductions

hello everyone, my name is phim. welcome to my blog! i hope this blog finds you in love and warmth, thank you for crossing paths with me.

i believe that great creative works deserve to be shared and i use this blog as a space to do so.

*all opinions are my own and i take full responsibility for them*

what you can expect from this blog:

reviews of music, films, tv shows, art, and literature.

recommendations/reading lists for specific topics (i.e viet films to watch, queerness in asia)

with warmth,

phim