Hawak - Nước
Oakland, California
Released: 08-01-2021
Ben Truong - guitar
Jonathan Ruiz - bass and vocals
Joshua Mendoza - drums
Tomm Nguyen - guitar and vocals
Realign
An ocean's length that separates
Shores of past disintegrate
Treading tradition
To see
If a path clears
A light behind me disappears
Gasp of breath in the face of fear
Treading tradition
To see a path,
but I can't see past my hands
Drifting aimless with arms outstretched
Tangled vines take hold of my neck
Can I find a way to a place I can call home?
"In 1973, when the Americans withdrew from Vietnam, we were in the battlefield.
We already felt abandoned by our allies.
We already felt that we didn't have enough artillery to fight the war.
We didn't have enough supplies.
We didn't have the support of the American government anymore.
So, when we got captured and sent to prison, that validated our feeling about being betrayed."
In a personal perspective, it suggests the idea of looking to your origins for guidance. There is a sense of restlessness and an impression that it is only history repeating itself awaiting should one choose to engage in this direction. If one turns away from the path of predetermined futures or tradition and faces the unknown, the guiding light disappears. Making one's own way is described as "drifting aimless with arms outstretched", hoping it leads to somewhere one feels they belong.
In the perspective of immigration, the image conjured is one of embarking on a journey across an ocean to attempt at making a new home and the struggles it implies -think of the language barrier, the racism, the reception one gets upon landing, as so many "tangled vines". The question of the reason why the move was necessary, in the first place, comes to mind. Did one leave in fear or in hope of a better future?
the Hands We Remove
We see them stalking
resentful with lust in their eyes
Guilt from their act still on their hands
We intend to survive
Call them all by name
Then break every chain
Nothing is forever
Take care of each other
When our world collapses
We will die together
Call them by name
Burn every cloak so they can be seen
Call them by name
Look at their hands remember the stains
Call them by name
Conjure the past then bear the weight
Sever the wrists
The hands we remove hold the chains we are trying to break
Perhaps because of physical location and current news, an interpretation in the perspective of physical/sexual assault imposed itself. The reference to "lust", might have helped steering the brain in this direction. Under this perspective, at first glance, it looked like we had entered the era of denunciation with no statute of limitations. However, before making this argument (knee jerk reaction), one must keep in mind that this is not about the dealing of drugs or other aspects of organized crime where omerta applies and the culture of snitching is frowned upon. This is another type of crime which opposes one person that may be allowed to go on as if nothing had happened, with "guilt from their act still on their hands", to one who has barely been surviving, suffering in silence and shame from the trauma and backlash of the circumstances that were imposed upon them. The betrayal by people they knew or trusted. The victims add up and multiply by how many you get the sense this has happened to and how many years this has been going on for. It comes down to accountability and allowing victims to maybe find a way to make it as endurable to go on as possible. It takes resolve and no small amount of determination to break away from this bottomless pit in which they were thrown. Is there not a little guilt that comes with happiness when you know others are miserable? And how's your conscience, by the way?
Inward Vision
Existence is binding
Bound to this flesh
A collection of cultures
To add to this mess
Treading tradition
We sink into debt
We pay with our time
Our blood, and our sweat
In the dark of life
It leaves us blind
This is not the time
To close our eyes
Embrace your broken body
You did not choose to be born in this body as you did not choose where you were born. It is one thing if you look like just about everyone else, but it is another once you are perceived as different, as suggested through the reference to the "collection of cultures" and "flesh". One more parameter to this "mess". You are part of this world and the idea is implanted early on that nothing comes free. The culture also dictates you will have to work to get yours, which will take your "time", your "blood", and your "sweat". Contract debts and pay back as you go. Fatigue takes its toll highlighting the physical limitations. It is hard stay focused on the good that one has to seek in order to balance the positive with the negative.
Overthinking Anxiousness (a Spirit in the Room)
"- Do you think the people in the United States will accept Vietnamese refugees?
- Hum... In certain cases, I think... I think they will accept...
- In certain cases? Which cases?
- Those who have families there... and those who have worked for the Americans... and those who have been [...].
- What about the others who have never worked for Americans, who don't have families there. What happens to them?
- I think that the Americans will make a choice and receive them [...]"
Trapped in my thoughts I'm held
Hostage in body I dwell
Do you know the feeling
Of being divided by
Imaginary lines?
The theme of isolation resonating through, its source being of physical origins. The title suggests an admission that the anxiety could have been generated as the product of a cerebral overreaction. The author reflects on being part of a crowd or community divided by its members' perceptions and a lack of inclusion. Was communication attempted and shut down, for some reason? Has past experience taught connection as futile and taken away any desire to even try? A call in the dark. Is there anyone out there?
Burden Sharing
Endless pieces lost in ripples
Sinking steady taken in wars
The lives that we buried
The children we starve
The shores that we litter
With debt paid in
An image of war evoked through its casualties and its effects amplified through time, described as "ripples". The poverty, loss, starvation, and destruction left in its wake. The world's unsorted priorities placed in center stage, as killing is deemed more important than having people survive. It is not only society it destroys, but the entire planet. The world is taken hostage by wars. This is the shared burden.
Shattered Mirror
You just say her name
You just feel her pain
Tracing separate circles in time
Counting the points where we collide
Past and present
Torn reflection
Different paths
Same direction
It's an unforgiving reminder:
Nothing takes away
The price we pay
To own our pain.
We own our pain.
Pain as a more or less regular occurrence. As a memory that one does not keep in mind constantly. Time is imaged as moving in circles. A comparison between two people: the person holding the mirror and the reflection, the "past" and the "present". There is a sense of two different identifies with points in common, as the reflection is described as being "torn", the paths are "different", although directed at a similar trajectory. Perhaps linked through genealogy, as a "spitting image". Ruminations to be followed by the realization that you may put pain aside for some time but it is only momentary, as it comes back and one has to make do. Pain is carried over time and distance. Owning pain is taking it upon oneself to go on and accepting it as their baggage.
Nuoc
Drag yourself out, out from the past
Leave it in time, it will outlast
The void that you carry heavy on your back
Tracing fingers
Along reflections
Retracing in shame
You ask yourself
"mày là ai" (who are you?)
According to Google, the vietnamese word "nuoc" translates as "country".
Making your own way in life as an affirmation that one is more than simply family history and geography. It takes an effort, as one has to be "dragged" out "from the past". Identity is constantly redefined through moving on. It is not a sense that can be possessed, as the author is left to wonder once coming across their own reflection. A constant stranger to yourself, and therefore to others.
Unseen
Unseen
Isolated
Unclean
Unfamiliar
Unseen
Isolated and captive outcast
Presence I tried to have
Stand alone stand aside
Your norms are not mine
A confrontation of the author to the perception others have of them. Is it projection or what they were told. They feel "Isolated", "unclean", "unfamiliar" and "unseen". Such is the list of their feelings. Made to feel different after trying to fit in and making the choice to not take part. A rejection motivated by a refused acceptance of established norms.
Disinter
Thorn in my mind
Lost will, lost time
Grasping nothing
Weight keeps crushing
I close my eyes
Stranded in time
Open them after
I feel the pressure
Drop
Consistency in the face of pressure. Be it daily life or hardships. The negative can stick as the point of focus in the author's mind. It takes a conscious effort and an awareness to take a step back and close one's eyes. It may take time but perhaps it will come to pass. See if the pressure is lessened or do it all over again. The process is suggested as a remedy to decreasing energy and motivation.
Haiyan
"You were [..] for three days and it was certainly very difficult to know during that time we're they going to survive."
It's easy to feel alone in this world
Of pieces left behind and built on your parents' backs.
There's nothing you can do when you see it crumble
All around you.
We're here with you.
We'll stay with you.
We're still with you.
When your storm passes
We will light your way there.
When your path darkens
We will light your way there.
Uniqueness implies loneliness but there is only one "you". Your identity and your baggage constitute the tools you have to make sense of the effect of time on everything that surrounds you. However, because you are the only one living your life does not mean you are the only one alive and there are things you can turn to for motivation. "We're here with you. / We'll stay with you. / We're still with you" as an affirmation of support.
Identity is perhaps the strongest theme throughout the songs. It is a concept that can be taken for granted, as it is affirmed through every action in an self-implied way, and yet, simultaneously, it can escape one's grasp their entire life. It is dynamic, constantly redefined, even though regular maintenance is not necessarily mandatory. Hawak's piece challenges something that was implanted and assimilated from birth by exposing the audience paying attention to a different set of experiences. Ancestry, gender, culture, alienation, circumstances, biology, self-perception, inclusion, physical limitations, loneliness. So many parameters affecting the human experience. Tweak only one of them and the end result is a completely different person.
Related links
1. https://hawakca.bandcamp.com/album/n-c
2. https://theflyinglugawph.wordpress.com/2021/08/22/album-review-hawak-nuoc/
