Louis Media
In this podcast, Hana Bossert explores the cultural gap that separates her from her Vietnamese grandmother in order to restore dialogue between the two generations.
It wasn’t until after her grandmother Giselle died that podcast narrator Hana Bossert My Tonkinese, is truly aware of his distance from his family heritage. Two hermetic worlds that are still so close collide with the two generations that separate them. A story steeped in buried memories, set against the backdrop of the Indochina War, exile and integration at all costs.
Throughout her life, Giselle, the narrator’s grandmother, always insisted that she wanted to be buried next to her husband in the Saint-Pierre cemetery in Marseille. But to everyone’s surprise, as Giselle nears the end, she suddenly changes her mind and decides to be cremated at the Pagoda in Marseille. Faced with this unexpected choice, the family is left bewildered. Why such a desire to connect with her origins at the moment of death, when Giselle consciously went through this entire part of her life in silence?
Memory fragments
On the day of the funeral, Hanae, her mother and aunt attend the ceremony, not understanding the rituals or the language of the people around them. Indeed, the Vietnamese community present on that day does not recognize the family and vice versa, although everyone is gathered for one reason. It is this duality that drives Hanaa to reweave the thread that separates her from her grandmother, to better understand the story of this woman who fled Vietnam and lived through the horror of a wartime country without ever having experienced it. give a little hint.
Based on testimonies, reconstructed episodes and fictional episodes of life, Hanae leads the investigation. For the first time, the need to put words to the unsaid, the primacy of understanding the past over everything else, is felt. Therefore, knowledge of family history is a must. From Indochina and the living conditions of the colonized to the disillusionment of immigrants arriving in France, Hanae revisits her grandmother Giselle’s life, passive transmission, and the cultural legacy she leaves to the generations behind her.
“My Tonkinese » by Hanaë Bossert Louis Media Injustices podcast season 7 episodes four, available on all listening platforms.
Source: Le Figaro
