Who am I? Think again | Hetain Patel

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)