From their boats,
Mai Huyen Chi says she will come back to the Mekong Delta
again and again, just to listen to the stories of poor children living on
tiny river boats.
Last week,
she released “Down the stream,” her first short film in which a group of
children share their hopes and dreams.
The
children, between 6 and 12, have lived on boats since they were born, along a
river in Long Xuyen, the capital town of
Because
their parents do not have a permanent residential address, the children do
not have birth certificates and they cannot go to school.
They spend
their days selling lottery tickets on the streets while their mothers catch
fish from the river, where they also bathe and wash clothes.
Chi said she
and her friend Ta Nguyen Hiep, who did the filming, saw the group of eight
girls and one boy when they were playing near their boat houses one
afternoon.
They were
excited to see strangers and very polite. They talked about poverty and told
their stories with a rare strength and calmness, she said.
One girl in
the video wishes she could go to school, find a job and help her mother pay
all debts. She does not dream of college. For her high school is more than
enough.
The boy
named Bien, which means Sea in English, has a stammer. He hopes he can become
a singer, as he believes that with no education, he cannot do anything
else.
The children
all want to live on land because “it will be more fun” and because “the
river is dirty.”
Innocent as
they are, the children clearly have seen many things they should never be
exposed to.
Some say
they are not going to get married as they are afraid that their husbands will
hit them.
'A whole different world'
Chi, 31,
said the four-minute film is her video-editorial debut.
She and
Hiep, a freelance filmmaker, shot the footage during their three-day visit
last September, but she only had time to edit it after quitting her job
as a scriptwriter in March.
Chi first
came to the area in August 2013 to accompany a foreign photo journalist to
report the impacts of hydropower dams in the
She was
interested in the way of life here, which is only ten minutes of bike ride
from Long Xuyen downtown but is already a different, much poorer world.
A
group of boat children in Long Xuyen pose for Mai Huyen Chi when she visited
the town in September 2014.
She met a
man called Sau and his family.
“Uncle Sau
drives a motor boat and catch fish in the river. He’s an interesting
man.”
Chi said she
came back last September to visit him, and to be able to see the world from
the backyard of his house, which faces the river.
“It’s
strangely beautiful and it’s a whole different world.
“Grandfathers,
fathers and the kids have a bath there together every afternoon, and they
chat and they weave fishing nets.
“They would
sit around there and relax until the night comes.
“They don’t
have electricity yet, though they really long for it.”
Chi said
from Sau’s house, she could see “splendid” electric lights across the river.
But his side
of the river is still in darkness.
Joy in the
sadness
Hiep, who
has many film projects of his own, said the video was all Chi's idea.
At the
beginning he just followed to help her, but he was later mesmerized
by the beauty of a poor, sad river village.
"You see
the vast water from afar. People are just tiny dots lost in that sadness.
"But
when you come closer, you can see its charm and joy in each single thing. And
it's not really sad, because the children have to overcome the sadness to
live. They have to cheer up."
Hiep is
joining a project instructing local farmers to film their daily life to show
the world. Chi is writing a script for a sci-fi, thriller movie.
Chi plans to
come back to Long Xuyen soon to show the children her video and photos.
“So they can
have the photos all over their little boat houses and remember they were
actors once.”
Her short
film, which has gone viral, ends on a hopeful note: a little girl who
gets to go to school teaching her younger sister to read.
But their
small kerosene lamp was not bright enough in the dark velvet of the
night.
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Thứ Sáu, 5 tháng 6, 2015
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