Trac Minh Vu, a junior theater and fine arts major, works on his experimental video, Nha Ba Nguoi (The House of Three); an image of his grandfather appears on-screen. Adriana Rovers/University Photography
By Jill Goetz
In Vietnam there is a saying: A house with male relatives from three generations -- grandfather, father and son -- is a lucky house.
Trac Minh Vu, a Vietnamese-American from Beaverton, Ore., in a dual-degree program in theater and fine arts at Cornell, has witnessed such a fortuitous reunion within his own family. Not in reality, but in video.
Vu has created an experimental video, Nha Ba Nguoi (The House of Three), which contains footage from a trip he made to Vietnam with his mother during winter break. The 18-day journey marked the first time he had been in the country since emigrating to America as an infant with his parents in 1975. The highlight was meeting his 87-year-old grandfather.
Vu's father, Vu Huy Tu (who, unlike his son, follows the Vietnamese practice of using his surname first), could not accompany his wife and son on this excursion. But by combining images from the trip with those from an earlier one his father had taken, Vu has brought himself, his father and his grandfather together in an illusory "house of three."
He recently screened the video at Cornell's Undergraduate Research Forum, an annual showcase that is sponsored by the university's
In a family photograph taken during Vu's visit to Ho Chi Minh City during winter break, Vu, center, stands behind his grandfather; his mother is to his right holding a child.