Dreams I Hid in My Safe Room
Illustration & Zine
Childhood Stories
2023
This project is a description of everyone's safe room built from past memories and reflections. I chose five main scenes in my childhood to depict the nostalgia feeling.
The Purple Garden and Silkworms
There was a crooked-necked tree in our little garden where we used to live in.
It always have purple flowers with white and yellow stamens in the summer.
I could see its green leaves and purple flowers right outside my window.
Granddad put a stick under the tree to give it support.In science class in primary schools, I raised many baby silkworms.
Some of them stopped breathing before they grew.
I buried them under the tree and set up a tombstone with white paper. Other children in the yard laughed when they saw it.
I was embarrassed and sad, and the next day I secretly removed the headstone.
At least the silkworm babies could rest in peace.
The Summer Pool
I used to go swimming in the neighbourhood pool with my grandpa every summer.
Plastic slippers, fallen leaves on the surface of the pool water.Koushuiji* and grilled sausages that become more delicious after swimming.
The water was warm where there was sunlight, and still stingingly cool in the shade.
The smell of chlorine seeped into my hair and skin.
*Koushuiji: A Chinese cheap snack, spicy and salt, made by toufu.
Mingfen
We will bring lots of delicious food to grandma's grave when it comes to the Spring Festival.
We lay a plastic bag on her tombstone and then kneel down. At the end, we eat snacks and chat.
My grandma, Ming Fen.
It seemed that she was the only one who gave me all her love, but never wanted to take anything from me.
But it all stayed forever on an afternoon seventeen years ago.
It seemed that she was the only one who gave me all her love, but never wanted to take anything from me.
But it all stayed forever on an afternoon seventeen years ago.
Dear grandma, I sent you a hydrogen balloon one night.
I wrote everything I wanted to say to you on it.
Have you received it?
I wrote everything I wanted to say to you on it.
Have you received it?
You and I
The first time I met her, she was crying over a picture of her mother. We later became good friends.
In those days, a simple sticker was an expensive thing for me. She realised that I wanted that sticker and quietly bought it for me.
We used to roam around in each other's QQ. I still keep those childish texts till now.
Until one day, she transferred to another school without saying a word and completely disappeared from my life.
I still don't know why she didn't tell me. Maybe a lot of things just don't need to have answers, right?
In fact, I have many other friends like that.What they left behind then became a part of my life.
The Banyan Tree
This was the first traditional Chinese landscape painting I ever painted, it was framed and given to a friend of my mum's.
Several years later, he told me that it's still hanging on the wall of his house. (I wish it still is now)
Several years later, he told me that it's still hanging on the wall of his house. (I wish it still is now)
That was the first time I realized that my painting was cherished, as if that meant I was cherished as well.
With the banyan tree, the house and the water in this painting, the scene feels like Grandpa's hometown,
a place he may never go back to and I've never been to yet.
a place he may never go back to and I've never been to yet.