your hanbok, my áo dài

Culture

Local Wolves
Feb, 17 2026

Lunar New Year has always been my favorite holiday — a time to celebrate my roots, my culture, and the traditions that shaped me. But this year, I find myself observing the holiday differently.

Being able to share the love and magic of Tết with my life partner has opened a quiet awareness: I’m witnessing, in real time, how our identities and our cultures are blending. Not as a grand transformation, but as a gentle, ongoing becoming.

This project is my meditation on that observation.

your hanbok, my áo dài visualizes the fusion of Vietnamese (Múa Quạt) and Korean (Buchaechum) fan dances as a living metaphor for cultural exchange—inspired by my relationship with my Korean partner and the fluidity of identity when love transcends borders.

The imagery mirrors the Asia-native bleeding heart flower: two distinct petals (representing both Vietnamese and Korean cultures) that swell apart before merging into a single, suspended drop. Through slow-shutter photography and choreographed sequences, the dancers’ motions mimic the flower’s growth—ebbing, flowing, and ultimately converging. The theatrical hair and makeup (bold blooms, exaggerated blush) further abstract this dialogue, where tradition and reinterpretation coexist.

By juxtaposing the sharp flicks of Múa Quạt with Buchaechum’s fluid arcs, the work questions how heritage transforms when carried between hands, hearts, and histories. It is a dance of roots and rupture, tenderness and tension—a visual poem where two cultures bloom, bleed, and begin again.