Farmhouses, Peasants, and Buffaloes, and the Variegated Palette of Life

I'm often asked why I don't narrow down to one or two topics on my platforms. As content creators, we are encouraged to stay in one "niche," as that is the age-old best practice of brand marketing. "Just cook and talk about food!" or "Why can't you just stick with gardening and that's it?" - the algorithm and its audience vexed.

But I am not a brand marketer, and I've clarified multiple times that I am neither a professional cook nor gardener. I am simply a philosophical and cultural storyteller who just happens to cook and garden, and my brain cannot constrict its meandering to a narrow, one-dimensional path.

That is why when I gaze at this 1940s serenely monochromatic piece (which I acquired from a French art reseller, who curated the painting from an estate sale in Nice, France) by the artist Nguyễn Thành, who was one of the protégés of the Thủ Dầu Một School of Art, my mind immediately wandered to connect the pieces of history, culture, philosophical teachings, and yes, even food and Nature, that somehow weave back to this antiquated oil-on-canvas painting in this complex, variegated palette of life.

I think about how Nguyễn Thành and his peers were clearly influenced by European post-impressionistic artists, and this influence was a direct result of the French colonizers' effort to modernize, or "improve," Vietnamese traditional art forms that they deemed "outdated." And thus, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Indochine academy was instituted to permanently imprint the European footprints on the landscape of Vietnamese art in the 20th century. Gone were the traditional paintings of religious emblems, patriotic folklore icons, and revered ancestors. Ushered in was a new age of artistic appreciation of Nature, daily life, and the alluring feminine frame.  

I think about how, considering the age and well-worn condition of the painting, that there is a decent chance it was acquired (and transported to France) by brute force of colonialism, the same cruel, oppressive force that was at the end of the bullet that killed my great-grandfather in 1947, right before the French troops commandeered his house and turned it into a headquarter, while his family was practically homeless.

I think about how, even after decades of living under the destructive force of war and colonialism, the Vietnamese people, my family included, always managed to rebuild from the ashes - guided by their Confucian principle of living for posterity.  My Dad, after all, sold "Bánh Mì" out of the back of his rickety bicycle to survive and sustain his family during those dark days after Saigon fell - the "Bánh Mì" that were permanently adopted into our culture from the French the same way Nguyễn Thành and his artist peers transmuted the byproduct of colonialism into surrealistic beauty.

So for me to merely focus on food, or gardening, or art, or any one "niche" that the social media conglomerates expect me to is simply impossible. Like an aimless wanderer, my mind will always traverse off the beaten path to find more answers. Because life is not a "niche." Life is a complex web of interconnected threads, a variegated palette of colors that ultimately form the masterpiece painting that is yet to be seen.