My mother told me that cinema-going was an expensive experience which she could enjoy once a year in grandfather’s business trip if she got lucky enough.
The first cinema that my mother set foot in was Cong Doan (a.k.a Labour Union) theater located on Ly Thai To street in Hanoi. As evident in its name, the theater’s main audience were those of low-income or middle-income backgrounds, including workers and government officers/employees. The building was not imposing enough to be named as “extravagant”. It had a rather crude internal decoration with many wooden chairs stacked next to one another and a humble-sized screen at the middle.
Inside Cong Doan cinema
Back in the days, cinema tickets were almost free. When Labor Union organised year-end parties or holiday celebration, officials were encouraged to bring their children along.
Despite low quality images at the best of the manual projector and unprocessed sound reverberating across the theater, memories of cinema-going of my mother were vividly painted with impressions of patriotic soldiers, fearless heroes and diligent working class who had brought about peace for Vietnam.
“The experience of cinema is, for the most part, memories of experiences of cinema”
Allen (2011)
Every time my mother goes to the cinema, it always reminds her of a hopeful period of Vietnam post-war, striving for prosperity and happiness.
Through my mother’s retrospect of her cinema-going experience, I find relevance to the theory of space-time path by Torsten Hagerstrand. According to his research, human spatial activity is rather controlled by three types of constraints – capability, coupling and authority – than governed by independent decisions of a spatially or temporally autonomous individual (Corbett, 2001).
In terms of capability constraints, which are “the limitations on human movement due to physical or biological factors”, given my mother’s age at that time, my grandparents would not allow a primary school kid to travel from Nam Dinh province to Hanoi by herself. Besides, since the movie ticket price is highly expensive, my mother and her family could not afford the experience without sponsored tickets by the Labor Federation.
On the other hand, authority constraints refer to laws, regulations and agreements that impacted on my mother’s probability of cinema going, which included her school schedule, the cinema’s opening hours, the free ticket from Labor Federation and the timing of my grandfather’s business trip.
Coupling constraints are a lack of fit between those two groups of limitations above. In other words, they requires the ability to facilitate the simultaneous gathering of necessary people and things in order to complete a purpose. My mother, though unaware of the theory, still managed to find her way. She usually tried to study hard and get good grades at school for a reward of accompanying my grandfather on his next business trip. However, even when she got an opportunity to visit Cong Doan cinema, she had to follow the ticket’s seat number instead of choosing where she wanted to sit.
My mother’s voice had ended on the other line, yet, an inexplicable feeling insists in me. I feel so privileged to live in a peaceful era and be able to enjoy all the social and economic benefits which my parents had been deprived of. This conservation has taught me the value of active listening, being there and also appreciating the honest sharing of another person that grants me a glance into their private space of thoughts and memories. I am blessed!
REFERENCES:
Corbett, J 2001, ‘Torsen Hagerstrand: Time Geography’, CSISS Classics, UC Santa Barbara: Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science, viewed 9 August 2019, <https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2t75b8sj>
Allen, R. C. (2011) ‘Reimagining the History of the Experience of Cinema in a Post-movie-Going Age’, Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture and Policy, (139), p. 80. Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsilc&AN=edsilc.055633347600871&site=eds-live (Accessed: 30 August 2019).
Helly Pham 