Music & Family: Mother

It's awfully interesting how different other people's experiences in music can be, huh? Especially with people close to or related to you, specifically of the generation-older kind.

While I wouldn't say I have the closest or best relationship with my mother at all, I still consider her a part of my family. She's very talkative and loves sharing stories, too - so that's why I decided to interview her for this particular blog! Here's the video of said interview below:

Note that it's 23 whole minutes. My mother talked quite a bit as expected~ although she still sounded more shy and polite than she usually is. The answers and information she shared, though, was still overall interesting to me.

Now as a bit of background context: my mother is fully Vietnamese, and she goes by Thanh Tam Ho (although it's actually Hồ Thị Thanh Tâm in Vietnam instead, just with the accents included and order switched around). She was born in and grew up in Vietnam, where most everyday citizens are actually very poor and unadvanced in technology. It wasn't until she was 19 when she eventually immigrated to America with my biological father. She then settled in this little state of South Carolina, never moving into a different residence afterwards ever again (aside from our very few month-long stays at Vietnam during my childhood, if that even counts). 

So naturally, a large amount of her experience with music comes from both her homeplace in Vietnam and in this particular state of America. Specifically the rural, incorporated community of Boiling Springs. 

This entire interview is still entirely in English, though! My mother has fortunately managed to learn English throughout her years here, so she can converse entirely in English. She's still not completely fluent in English, however - so she may sometimes struggle to fully understand some things, or to string some of her sentences together with good grammar and/or pronunciation (mostly in text, though). That's why this video has some moments where she'd slightly misunderstand my questions, or just not completely understand/process the questions at first. Nevertheless, she's easy enough to understand. 

I also hope it's okay that this was recorded in portrait mode! My mother specifically preferred it to be in portrait mode. All in all, I hope any of this ends up becoming enjoyable to you. Thank you for taking a look at this and reading/watching any of this either way.