LIVING IN THE MAGIC:
SCAN MAGAZINE FALL 2023
Learning to Live in the World Disney and Nickelodeon Created
WRITTEN BY VRISHTI SAVALANI ILLUSTRATION BY FON LIMSONWONG I can recall many Sunday afternoons where my Dad would take me and my older sister to what we called “Hidden DVD Shop.” It was a small little closet hidden in the underground parking deck of an office building at the heart of the bustling
Guangzhou, China, where a middle-aged Chinese lady would sell DVDs of every movie and TV show you could possibly think of. The plastic cases would be lined inside cardboard boxes, and my sister and I would flip through the stacks like we were purists flicking through vinyl at a record shop. Despite the sharp edges of the plastic scraping my arms as I tiptoed to peer into the box, I would continue flicking over and over again, taking out one case at a time and adding it to the pile that built in my hands. When we’d get home, my sister and I would unbox our new presents and begin to organize them in our DVD cases — making sure the TV shows were in one case and the movies were in the other, all of them organized first in alphabetical order and then in chronological if it was a sequel or later season. After our hard work, we’d reward ourselves by picking out one of our new finds, sitting with a packet of microwave popcorn and indulge in our gateway to the land of the free — America. Before my first visit to America at 18 years old, I had pieced together a version of the country from what I had seen on Disney and Nickelodeon. Even though everything I’m experiencing now is far from that world I once saw, there’s something endearing
