Tusán
Director/ Cinematographer
Color / Digital / Documentary Short
30 Min
2024-Ongoing
Tusán is a essay film. By interviewing Peruvians with Chinese ancestry about their family history, in combination with ethnography, it tells the story of early Chinese laborers who were forced to leave home for distant places due to social reasons.
The original meaning of Tusán is “native”, and Peruvians refer to Peruvians with Chinese ancestry as “Tusán” based on the meaning of Cantonese and the pronunciation of this word. In traditional Chinese culture, this word means to be born, raised, or rooted locally. The dispersion caused by social unrest is indirectly changing the relationship between various people and land. For example, in the movie, the concept of China actually becomes a literary concept in the minds of these Tusanes at the moment their ancestors left the land of China. They have preserved their cultural customs through these concepts passed down from their ancestors, but they have never been to China, and the relationship between people and land is actually blurred at this moment. I accidentally came across a historical document from the 19th century about Chinese laborers in Peru, which drew my great interest in this period of history. Therefore, I decided to go to Peru for myself, start an investigation on this historical materials, and finally complete this essay film. I attempt to reconstruct and connect this special history that has been overlooked, and forgotten by people through the family memories of different Tusanes and revisiting the specific locations in historical photographs with the images. I also try to respond to the relationship between individual destiny and social destiny based on this specific history. The turmoil they have experienced still lingers and unfolds in today’s social history.
“Tusán”是一部散文電影。影片通過對擁有華裔血統的秘魯人進行走訪，以一段虛構的歷史故事為線索，結合民族誌方法，切入回一段特殊的歷史時期，講述了早期華工因社會原因被迫遠走他鄉的故事。
“Tusán”一詞的本義是“土生”，秘魯人根據粵語中“土生”一詞的含義和發音，用它來指代擁有華裔血統的秘魯人。在傳統中國文化中，“土生”意味着出生、成長或紮根於此。社會動盪造成的人口流離失所，間接地改變了不同人羣與土地之間的關係。例如，在影片中，當這些拥有华裔血统秘鲁人的祖先離開中國時，“中國”的概念實際上已經成為他們腦海中的一個文學概念。他們通過祖先傳承下來的這些概念保留了自身的文化習俗，但他們從未真正踏足中國，此時此刻，人與土地之間的關係實際上變得模糊不清。我偶然發現了一份關於19世紀秘魯華工的歷史文獻，這激發了我對這段歷史的濃厚興趣。因此，我決定親自前往秘魯，對這些歷史資料進行調查研究，並最終完成這部影像作品。我嘗試通過不同华工后裔秘鲁人（Tusanes）的家庭記憶，以及對歷史照片中特定地點的重訪，來重構並串聯起這段被人們忽視和遺忘的特殊歷史。同時，我也試圖基於這段歷史，探討個人命運與社會命運之間的關係。他們所經歷的動盪至今仍在影響着當今的社會歷史。