Tai nghe để nghe trọn vẹn · best with headphones — phim được vẽ trực tiếp trong trình duyệt, không phải tệp video.
Chương 4 · Chapter 4
My mother’s life
Nguyên văn chương 4 hồi ký của ông Trần Văn Sơn. Bản tiếng Anh dịch sát bên dưới mỗi đoạn. The full chapter as he wrote it, with an English translation under each paragraph.
Chương 5 · Tìm lại tuổi thơ →
Chapter 5: finding my childhood
← Chương 3 · Mục lục · all chapters
Người trong chuyện · The people
My mother’s family, the Ngô of Thanh Châu
Only what the chapter says. The tree grows as new chapters arrive. Portraits are drawn from family photos where we have them; the rest are imagined.
Dòng thời gian · Timeline
A life of quiet labour, 1920 onward, from chapter 4
Hiện vật · Artifacts
Real photographs and documents from the family — tap one to see it full size
These are the family's own photographs and papers, not illustrations. Location and camera data were removed before publishing.
Ký ức · Fragments
Small things never forgotten — tap one to see it in the film
Thực hiện · Making of
A film with no video file
This chapter's film is a small JavaScript program, like the chapters before it. Every frame is drawn live on a canvas from paper cut-outs, painted backdrops and two real family photographs taped into the film: the portraits of ông bà ngoại and the 1951 wedding photo. The sound effects, including a little lullaby for bà Đình, are synthesised in the browser. The two recorded tracks are the narration, in his own cloned voice for Vietnamese, and the score.
| Câu chuyện · Story | Hồi ký Trần Văn Sơn, chương 4 “Cuộc đời của mẹ” |
| Kịch bản, dàn dựng, hoạt hình · Script, direction, animation | Claude (Anthropic), hand-coded canvas engine |
| Minh hoạ cắt dán · Collage illustration | Google Gemini 3 Pro Image, from family photos where we have them |
| Giọng kể · Narration | Tiếng Việt: giọng thật của ông, tái tạo bằng AI (F5-TTS) từ bản ghi âm ông đọc hồi ký · Vietnamese: his own voice, recreated with F5-TTS from a recording of him reading his memoir. English: Google Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS, voice “Algenib”. |
| Nhạc · Score | Google Lyria 3 Pro, three cues: đàn bầu, đàn tranh, felt piano, bamboo flute, strings |
| Âm thanh · Sound design | Synthesised live in the browser (WebAudio) |
| Bản dịch · Translation | Claude, kept close to his wording |
Illustrations are an artistic re-imagining, not historical photographs. Names, dates and events come only from his memoir. Mẹ is drawn from her 1951 wedding photo, and ông bà ngoại from their real portraits; chị Văn, bà Đình and the children are imagined from the text until old photos turn up.