A day of reflection
Today, January 23, 2013 is an important day for me because on this day our family arrived in Canada and this year’s anniversary is more significant it reaches the 40th years mark.
I still remember the excitement of my first time being on a plane the long flight from to Hong Kong to Canada. During our long flight mother broke down because she has left her mother behind, perhaps she knew then we would never seen her again
For weeks I had been thinking about today. As I had done before I would paint a painting to commemorate this special occasion:
Two years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Beijing China to visit my friend Michael whom he was working there.. One day, after my visit the Forbidden City and I came across an unusual named “The Working People’s Cultural Palace” (It used to be the ancestral temple for emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties to offer sacrifices to their ancestors.).
I was all alone at this former imperial temple and standing in front of the lotus pond looking at the reflection of the marble bridge in the water. It took me back to my Chinese history class back in Hong Kong.
One day, instead of teaching the ancient history as he was purpose to, our teacher announces, “In 30 years Hong Kong will be return back to China!
It was 1967 and at the height of the Chinese Cultural Revolution although we were children but we had heard from our parents the stories of our relatives, what they had suffered during that time back in china As children born in Hong Kong under the British rule we thought we were different from the Chinese from the mainland. Knowing how our parents had to left their homes and families in China to start their lives all over again in Hong Kong and to think of one day we will back under the mainland China just stuck terror in me. I was thinking to myself, 30 years I would be so old and I Hope I won’t be in Hong Kong then.
However, forty years is a long time and many things had changed since then and my understanding of China changed as well. This year, is the first time my father no longer to be with us to mark the anniversary. The house we been living in the past 35 years is all quite, all my sisters, brother had moved out long ago and had their own families. I became closer to my mother. After my father passed away, we travel to China together for three weeks; we went to the Great Wall.
Our parents came from southern China so we were the only ones ever travel to the north and the capital city.
Looking back, the only one thing remain the same was my passion to make art. I don’t remember a single day gone by I did not spent some time to create art.
Today, I see how much Canada has change and how much China has changed and wonder where would be my future home would be?
alfredngdesign 