GralInt-TED Talks-Hetain Patel: Who am I? Think again

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Hetain Patel: Who am I? Think again


Filmed Jun 2013 • Posted Oct 2013 • TEDGlobal 2013



How do we decide who we are? Hetain Patel's surprising performance plays with identity, language and accent -- and challenges you to think deeper than surface appearances. A delightful meditation on self, with performer Yuyu Rau, and inspired by Bruce Lee.

In his compelling stage works, Hetain Patel uses powerful imagery and storytelling to examine questions of identity.

Yuyu Rau's dance skills span a wide range, from ballet to contemporary to Chinese classical







































Transcript:



Hetain Patel: (In Chinese)

Yuyu Rau: Hi, I'm Hetain. I'm an artist. And this is Yuyu, who is a dancer I have been working with. I have asked her to translate for me.

HP: (In Chinese)

YR: If I may, I would like to tell you a little bit about myself and my artwork.

HP: (In Chinese)

YR: I was born and raised near Manchester, in England, but I'm not going to say it in English to you, because I'm trying to avoid any assumptions that might be made from my northern accent.

(Laughter)

HP: (In Chinese)

YR: The only problem with masking it with Chinese Mandarin is I can only speak this paragraph, which I have learned by heart when I was visiting in China. (Laughter) So all I can do is keep repeating it in different tones and hope you won't notice.

(Laughter)

HP: (In Chinese)

(Laughter)

YR: Needless to say, I would like to apologize to any Mandarin speakers in the audience.

As a child, I would hate being made to wear the Indian kurta pajama, because I didn't think it was very cool. It felt a bit girly to me, like a dress, and it had this baggy trouser part you had to tie really tight to avoid the embarrassment of them falling down. My dad never wore it, so I didn't see why I had to. Also, it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, that people assume I represent something genuinely Indian when I wear it, because that's not how I feel.

HP: (In Chinese)

YR: Actually, the only way I feel comfortable wearing it is by pretending they are the robes of a kung fu warrior like Li Mu Bai from that film, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

(Music)

Okay. So my artwork is about identity and language, challenging common assumptions based on how we look like or where we come from, gender, race, class. What makes us who we are anyway?

HP: (In Chinese)

YR: I used to read Spider-Man comics, watch kung fu movies, take philosophy lessons from Bruce Lee. He would say things like --

HP: Empty your mind. (Laughter) Be formless, shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup. It becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. Put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. (Applause)

YR: This year, I am 32 years old, the same age Bruce Lee was when he died. I have been wondering recently, if he were alive today, what advice he would give me about making this TED Talk.

HP: Don't imitate my voice. It offends me.

(Laughter)

YR: Good advice, but I still think that we learn who we are by copying others. Who here hasn't imitated their childhood hero in the playground, or mum or father? I have.

HP: A few years ago, in order to make this video for my artwork, I shaved off all my hair so that I could grow it back as my father had it when he first emigrated from India to the U.K. in the 1960s. He had a side parting and a neat mustache.

At first, it was going very well. I even started to get discounts in Indian shops.

(Laughter)

But then very quickly, I started to underestimate my mustache growing ability, and it got way too big. It didn't look Indian anymore. Instead, people from across the road, they would shout things like --

HP and YR: Arriba! Arriba! Ándale! Ándale!

(Laughter)

HP: Actually, I don't know why I am even talking like this. My dad doesn't even have an Indian accent anymore. He talks like this now.

So it's not just my father that I've imitated. A few years ago I went to China for a few months, and I couldn't speak Chinese, and this frustrated me, so I wrote about this and had it translated into Chinese, and then I learned this by heart, like music, I guess.

YR: This phrase is now etched into my mind clearer than the pin number to my bank card, so I can pretend I speak Chinese fluently. When I had learned this phrase, I had an artist over there hear me out to see how accurate it sounded.

I spoke the phrase, and then he laughed and told me, "Oh yeah, that's great, only it kind of sounds like a woman."

I said, "What?"

He said, "Yeah, you learned from a woman?"

I said, "Yes. So?"

He then explained the tonal differences between male and female voices are very different and distinct, and that I had learned it very well, but in a woman's voice.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

HP: Okay. So this imitation business does come with risk. It doesn't always go as you plan it, even with a talented translator. But I am going to stick with it, because contrary to what we might usually assume, imitating somebody can reveal something unique. So every time I fail to become more like my father, I become more like myself. Every time I fail to become Bruce Lee, I become more authentically me.

This is my art. I strive for authenticity, even if it comes in a shape that we might not usually expect. It's only recently that I've started to understand that I didn't learn to sit like this through being Indian. I learned this from Spider-Man.

(Laughter)

Thank you.

(Applause)