TED talk--Who am I? Think again

1. Summary

It's a TED talk from Hetain Patel, who is an Indian born in England. Patel is an artist who didn't want to follow the traditional Indian cultures, dress, and the way of living although he looks like a local Indian. In this talk, he shares about the artwork he's been doing and the ideas about self-identity. At the beginning of the talk, he uses a really funny and humorous way to express his ideas to us, which is whether we can be identified by our gestures, hobbits and moves or not. He keep repeating the same paragraph in Chinese in different tones to pretend that he is speaking in Chinese and ask the girl beside him to translate into his English introduction. He then shares his own experiences to express that by imitating, we can reveal something unique inside ourselves.

2. What can listeners learn from this talk?

Very often, we identify someone only by his or her appearance, by the language the person speak, the accent, the race, and the gestures. However, we have to think deeper than surface appearance, to look inside the person. Also, we don't have to be identified by who we are or where we are from, we must be formless and shapeless like water, then we can learn who we really are by copying others.