Tor.com--The Ao Dai and I: A Personal Essay on Cultural Identity and Steampunk

[dmp]

Note: I wrote a bit here about Vietnamese steampunk, but when Tor.com asked me to write for their Steampunk Fortnight, I offered a more personal take on how my life has influenced my steampunk, and vice versa.



“You wear this so well! I can’t believe this fits you,” my mother exclaims. “I must’ve been really skinny.”

I’m ten years old and I don’t think to wonder whether she meant I was a fat kid (because all of her children have grown up “so big and tall” in America) or question why my mom was that thin when she married. I’m just admiring my outfit in the mirror. It didn’t fit as perfectly as she said; the dress panels of the ao dai nearly touched the floor, and the sleeves ran a bit past my wrists. But it was still the prettiest thing I had ever worn in my young life.

Read on Tor.com: A story in which the clothes make the steampunk as much as the steampunk makes the clothes.

Comments

[christmasinjuly]

you're on tor.com! that's so awesome *^* I feel like I know somebody famous- to think we used to piddle around writing Anific :3

-Amasa/Meiran/Tobiasrulz

[dmp]

Thanks!

I'm glad that you still linger here on my journal. You, Angela (Forlay), RB, and Rick are probably the only people who I can talk about my good ol' VIW days ^_~

[mercredigirl]

I love your posts all across the internets (I first discovered them via Jhameia). I think you're one of the people who first inspired me to try SEAsian SFF. So, um. Thanks! :D

(I realise you don't know me from Adam, but, yeah, felt like I had to say this~)

[dmp]

Aw, thank you! ^_^ I'm really glad that you've been inspired in such a way.

And I noticed that you're also on the intranationalities comm, so now I do know you!