Paria’s Pearl

I don’t know where my family was from. I couldn’t locate myself in China, even when I visited Shanghai with a friend in 2018. Paria’s Pearl was/is my search for the body’s of water routes; from a small village on the banks of the Pearl River, merging with the Atlantic, through the Dragon’s Mouth spilling into the Gulf of Paria. These bodies of water hold memories that flood the streets of Port of Spain and perhaps that’s why the Dragon couldn’t dance or look at its own reflection. When I looked down at the cloudy waters, I saw my shadowy reflection. When the water was clear, there was only my shadow cast onto the seabed which nested a pearlescent glint. A promise of wealth that the dragon dove into the ocean for and when it came up for air — it was a shop on Charlotte Street. Paria’s Pearl is a fabulation of an alienated Chinese identity and it transforms through make-up, fashion, music, dance and performance into being, via Dragon mas. Witness the creation of my Trini-Chinese identity.