Succour for the Spirit – Issue 10
Sunday Reading with vocalist, producer &
multi-disciplinary artist
陳雋然 / Chun Yin Rainbow Chan
Talking about 栗子炆雞 or braised chicken with chestnuts, music, the embarrassment that arises out of mistranslations or unfortunate mispronunciations, re-connecting with 圍頭 (Waitau/Weitou) culture, and more.
#SuccourfortheSpirit #SilentDialogueEvents
Did you catch Rainbow’s performance as part of #TogetherInArt at AGNSW?
Take 5 mins to listen before we get started. For more details, head here.
“Someone described my artistic practice as “omnivorous” recently because I work across many creative fields. I like imagining myself as a tiny dinosaur chomping away at everything. ”
In Conversation
with
陳雋然 / Chun Yin Rainbow Chan (RC) & correspondences’ Emma Thomson (ET)
Nature, food or art?
Food
All-time favourite meal
RC— My absolute favourite meal is something that my mum cooks for my birthday, 栗子炆雞 or braised chicken with chestnuts. It is a perfect marriage of sweet and savoury flavours. The chicken is stir fried in oyster sauce, soy and shaoxing wine until caramelised. Then you add the blanched chestnuts and let stew until the chestnuts almost melt away. The sauce becomes thick and robust while the chicken thighs remain tender. I love it served on a bed of steamed rice, garnished with shallots and coriander. The amount of effort required to deshell the chestnuts is huge, so I really savour every bite!
Meal you’re dreaming of having but have never had…
RC— I’m a huge dessert fan and would love to try any of these sweets. The knéfé looks divine.
ET—We agree! If any of you have watched Rainbow’s live cooking sessions on Instagram, you will know that she is an amazing baker (and cook in general). We found two recipes for knéfé (we thinking possibly also known as knafeh) from: 1) Embers Mezze Bar; and, 2) Viola Marie Bechara of Project Sweet Stuff (you’re going to want to check this out…). If you have a good recipe to share, email us via the link below and we (or maybe Rainbow) will give it a whirl. Please do set us straight on the correct name too!
What are you cooking tonight?
RC—I’m cooking 蘿蔔炆牛腩 or Cantonese style braised beef brisket with daikons. My parents ran a Chinese takeaway business for twenty years and this was one of my favourite dishes. The meal’s success really lies in its texture, which requires slow cooking. After hours of stewing, the beef just falls off the bone and the daikons lose their bitter edge and become infused with flavour. It’s my ultimate comfort food.
What are you listening to?
RC—I’m listening to Japanese folk singer from the 70s, Hako Yamasaki. She has an incredible melancholic voice that’s somehow both youthful and old. One perk of spending more time at home this year due to COVID-19 is being able to listen to my vinyl records from start to finish.
ET—Amazing, loving Hako Yamasaki’s sound. While we are talking music…who are you all-time favourite musicians?
RC—Björk, Yasuaski Shimizu, Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, FKA Twigs, Roy Orbison, Teresa Teng, Zhou Xuan. They can all make me cry.
ET—To listen in to some works by each of these musicians, head to our Soundcloud playlist below. Mobile readers —Press ‘Listen in browser’ to avoid being re-directed to Soundcloud.
Tell us about one of your creations
Broken Vessel of 1996. Commissioned by Liquid Architecture for Autotune Everything: Art and the Sonic – Cosmic – Politic (19 August 2016, The Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, Melbourne.)
Why did you choose this particular work?
RC—This work sums up my interests in music, (mis)translation and identity formation in a multi-disciplinary modality. It combines story-telling, pop music, Google Translate and the cathartic social ritual of karaoke. I've found that you don’t necessarily have to understand Cantonese, Mandarin or English to connect with this work. The embarrassment that arises out of mistranslations or unfortunate mispronunciations is universal.
What was the starting point?
RC—In Broken Vessel of 1996, Western pop songs are reimagined as Cantonese ‘bootleg’ versions. Since immigrating to Australia in 1996, English has fiercely supplanted Cantonese to become my dominant language. Probing into the impacts of assimilation, I thought the inconsistencies of translation apps seemed like an apt metaphor for my experiences. The lyrics are processed into Cantonese but remain faithful to the original melody. This, in turn, generates numerous tonal errors and renders the already-imperfect Chinese translations completely absurd.
What were you striving to explore?
RC—Broken Vessel is both deeply personal and humorous. I use the notion of failure to explore the challenges of being a diasporic person. A lot of my works have a Sisyphean undercurrent, setting up situations, spaces or encounters that are meant to collapse. This work uses hybridity and incoherence to challenge the binaries of real/fake, original/copy, authentic/inauthentic.
What are you working on now?
RC—I am currently learning women’s folk songs that are indigenous to the New Territories in Hong Kong, which is part of 圍頭 (Waitau/Weitou) culture. Weitou literally means “walled village” and its peoples were the first to settle Hong Kong in the Song Dynasty. My mum is Weitou but like many people of her generation, she did not pass the Weitou language onto her children. I have been trying to connect with my roots by learning women’s folk songs in the Weitou dialect, an oral tradition that is on the brink of disappearance.
What else can supporters do?
Pre-purchase our book for Silent Dialogue. Featuring twelve original pieces of writing by some of the country's finest writers alongside beautiful imagery from our participating visual artists, it is going to be special.
In the age of COVID-19 where public funding has been tight, our aim is to pre-sell 100 copies to help us with the production costs of the exhibition (virtual and the physical shows next April). Think fantastic sound equipment for Rainbow’s piece.
Follow Rainbow on social media to keep in touch with his news at: i (@chunyinrainbowchan); f (@chunyinrainbowchan);
t (@chunyinrainbow); s (Rainbow Chan); and, most importantly —-Bandcamp (@Rainbow Chan).
Share and like our SD news via social media via i: silent_dialogue & f: silentdialogueevents. It introduces us to new supporters!
Biography
Collaborating artist and soundscape creator 陳雋然 / Chun Yin Rainbow Chan is a vocalist, producer and multi-disciplinary artist who has built a reputation as one of the most innovative musicians in Australia. Both heartbreaking and tender at once, her idiosyncratic brand of pop holds a mirror up to diasporic experiences, and also deeply personal tales of love and loss. Chan has performed at renowned venues and festivals including Sydney Opera House, Vivid, MONA FOMA, Gallery of Modern Art, Melbourne Music Week, Iceland Airwaves, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and Tai Kwun (Hong Kong). Additionally, her multi-arts installations have been exhibited with Firstdraft Gallery, Liquid Architecture, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and I-Project Space, Beijing.
Image credit (banner): Photograph of Rainbow Chan by Hyun Lee.
