A tree falls down 樹"終於"倒了

It took me a long time to finish the video but finally it's here: A Tree Falls Down Chinese version and English version . My second story is about our favourite Goldstream Park where we visit often and especially in the Fall when we go to see the salmon run.

I feel a sense of urgency to get this story and video done because of the recent accident on the highway by the park. A feul truck crashed and spilled lots of oil and gas into the river, killing the fish and polluting the envrionment. The accident happened a day after the park staff released hundreds of young salmon into the river. Really bad timing...although there isn't any good timing anyway. Local newspaper showed pictures of dead fish, which really concerned me. We haven't been to the park after the accident but it was always on my mind as I was working on the video production of the story.

This time, Emilyn helped a lot more with the video production. It was really fun for us to spend almost two full days to design the paper cutouts, rehearse the "play" scene by scene, often involving improv and conflict resolution when we had very different artistic views. She also learned how to shoot the video. That was exciting for her. I was planning to narrate the story myself. I would have finished a lot faster for sure. But I decided to keep Emilyn involved and recorded the narration with her line by line. It was not easy but we did it. She also had the brilliant idea to sing the song for the opening and closing scenes. "Monsieur le chene" is about a tree, very fitting for the story, she said. 

About the story itself, Emilyn remembered that day well when a tree almost fell on top of her as we were by the river bank to get a closer look at the salmon in the river. She was only 3 yeas old. What scared her was the noise of the tree trunk breaking off and crashing to the ground, as well as her dad's sudden reaction to grab her and run. She cried a bit but later she recounted the story repeatedly to grandma, her friends and us, with the most enthusiasm a 3 years old can have.

Oh, I do hope we will see the salmon run this Fall. I did not mean to write this story to remember a past time. It's an ongoing story of our family's annual ritual to visit the salmon returning home. Emilyn is 6 now and her sister, Chantal, is turning 3 this year. We tell the story to each other a lot so Chantal thinks she is in the story and she is the one crying when the tree falls down. This has to be a story from kids to kids, year after year. It should never stop.