I Remember
I remember my kindergarten uniform was a very bright yellow color.
I remember my hair wasn’t too long or too short.
I remember fighting with a boy in the first grade of kindergarten, and I beat him up and made him cry.
I remember my first electronic birthday present was a remote control racing car run over by a bicycle boy on the road, but it didn’t break.
I remember a Chinese ink painting of many horses galloping in a golden frame hanging in my room as a child. Written on the painting in calligraphy were the words “馬到成功,” literally meaning victory as soon as the war horse arrived, a metaphor for things going well and success right from the start. Adults often use this word to express their wishes to each other. Of course, I have always been confused about why they wanted to hang this in a little girl’s room. Although I have not disliked it, I would not like to turn it into my room. And this kind of painting is usually hung this kind of picture in the office, living room, or such places. It was a picture like this, but more slender than this. The words were also more extensive than this.
I remember being sent by my parents to learn traditional ink painting when I was a child. I learned how to paint the leaves of a lotus flower and how to paint a crab. I also learned how to write calligraphy. But those things were very dull for me at that age.
I remember that I stopped learning soon after. I enjoyed more colorful artwork in my early years than pure black and white.
I remember as a kid, every Spring Festival, we would ask people to write a couple of couplets on the front door, a pair of lines of poetry that adhere to specific rules. In my mother’s hometown, they would also put up a traditional window decoration called Chuanghua during the New Year. I remember my kindergarten teacher taught us how to cut the Chuanghua. I was always the most active one in the class, making crafts.
I remember that we kids would have our little lantern with a glowing red light every year at the Mid-Autumn Festival. Markets, shopping streets, and shopping malls are full of lantern toys; some fancier lanterns can even play children’s songs.
I remember learning to fold paper lanterns, paper cranes, and paper frogs in my kindergarten craft class, though I have forgotten them.
I remember the earliest animated film I ever saw was “A Deer of Nine Colors,” released in 1981. I still remember watching it at that time; there was a sacred, ethereal, but particularly confusing feeling. The confusion may be because, at that time, I could not understand its content. Many years later, I learned that “A Deer of Nine Colors” took the range of this animation from the Buddhist scripture story in the murals of the Dunhuang Mogao Caves - “The Deer King Benevolence,” which is about Buddhist karma. A large part of the reason I still love the style and colors of the various murals may be due to the influence of this animation.
I remember that some of the earliest animations I saw on TV that impressed me the most were “Nezha Conquers the Dragon King” from 1979 (I prefer the 2003 version), “Lotus Lantern” (1999), and “Havoc in Heaven” (1964). Each was my absolute favorite, and I loved everything about them. Looking back now, the artwork I still seek today is the look of these animation films at the time.
I remember that since I was a child, I loved to collect different kinds of notebooks, and I would draw all the things I imagined in my mind on the notebooks. At that time, I didn’t know what art was, and I just knew that I had a lot of strange and crazy ideas in my head, and I was trying to bring them out on paper.
I remember I have been exposed to many folk arts since I was a child, such as paper-cutting art, puppet shows, acrobatics, shadow pup pets, kites, dragon and lion dances, the art of clay sculpture, various kinds of weaving, and sugar-blowing. These folk arts, which were everywhere in my childhood, can hardly be seen in the streets nowadays. You can only see most of them in specific places.
I remember in the very early days, people mainly used the art of paper-cutting for folk beliefs in witchcraft prayers, such as to use of animal and plant patterns with mysterious powers like lions, tigers, chickens, cows, melon dolls, gourds to achieve their purposes in ceremonies to entertain the gods, give blessings and ward off evil spirits. As time evolved, the witchcraft function of paper-cutting gradually receded, replaced by its practical parts of decoration, narrative, and aesthetics, and became to be used in daily life in a variety of ritual activities such as weddings and funerals, birthday celebrations, festivals, and rituals, although still with a particular witchcraft meaning, more as a ritual object. But nowadays, young children have very little education on paper cutting.
I remember being sent to learn various arts in early childhood has become the consensus of almost all post-70s and post-80s parents. Almost every Chinese person has a period in their childhood where they were forced to learn “art.” Many of them are not even interested in the arts at all. It’s all about oil stick painting, piano, and dance. I have learned all of these. But there was one thing that set me apart from most kids, and that was
“I’ve always loved art.”