Having to move reluctantly, I had to throw away stuffs which tells a lot of my "previous life".
Bought these blank masks a few years ago to play with my son. I would ask him to tell me what to draw on the faces and did it in front of him. It was great fun with lots of laughters. Other times, I would draw something inspired by Damien Hirst or other classic paintings, or simply drew something out of the blue. Search Google for "
Chinese Opera Masks" to see how colorful they can be!
I remember a time in my secondary school years when my parents forbade me to be a photographer, artist, musician or painter. My Dad's home was filled with great Chinese paintings and he talked a lot about these painters. Under the radar, I had to secretly borrow a camera to take pictures, signed up for a Chinese painting class from a well known master and bought these pigments and brushes, etc. Why this conflicting practice from my parents? My Dad loves Chinese paintings and he made a living buying and selling them. He spent a lot of time studying painters' life and how they evolved, authenticating them, putting them to auctions in
Christie's and
Sotheby's. In his words "
great painters lives terrible lives and only after they are dead do people take advantage of their talents". Painstakingly sad and most of the time truthful. I must show you some of my previous Chinese paintings later on. These dishes and pigments are really important to me even though I haven't touched them for over 15 years. They are the past but the image is forever.
My little brother brought a sand block for sculpture and he only crafted the word JULY on it, it was also like 15 years ago. After reading an English novel with a tag line "It's like touching fantasy" I took this sand block and crafted something out of it. It was then placed in my
Macquarium for a long time. Wow, it was over 10 years ago since I made the
Color Classic Forever web site and "blogged" about my creation and mis-fortunes. New York Times even told my little story:
Exerpt of the New York Times article printed on August 24, 2000
Patrick Ng, an Internet executive in Hong Kong, has taken his obsession to more lyrical heights. A vice president at PacificDotCom, Mr. Ng has documented his self-diagnosed case of "CCFS" (Color Classic Fixation Syndrome) on his amusing Web site, Color Classic Forever (grus.hkstar.com /patrickn/colorclassic). The story began in October 1998, when Mr. Ng saw a photo of the Color Classic. He alerted a newsgroup to his quest for one and visited several shops until he found a dirty nonworking model.
After giving it a scrub, Mr. Ng rhapsodized in a diary entry on his site: "I now see the uncompromising beauty and elegance of CC even more obviously, it simply shines. As this mystic discovery continues, my super-ego seems to warn me the danger of the game, the emotional attachment to a physical object."
On New Year's Eve, while others were partying, Mr. Ng was otherwise occupied, as a later diary entry showed: "I embraced the dusted classic during the countdown. The rest of that night, perhaps I should say the rest of the millennium, I gradually slipped away and fell into a deep trance, everything went blurred except a single point of vision, I naturally put that point on the shining Color Classic."
He then decided that he wanted the machine to carry his child, "to give her life," he wrote. As it turned out, Mr. Ng's "child" is his Siamese fighting fish, Faust, who now swims in an aquarium installed in the Color Classic's chassis.
Cured of his obsession, Mr. Ng now keeps his Macquarium in his office, which overlooks Hong Kong. "I receive e-mails from all over the world asking about Faust," he said. "He's doing fine."
It was important to me and part of them still is. Notes from my Psychology/physiology/research method classes and my Philosophy classes. I particularly had a tough time in Philosophy classes being the only Chinese student there, unable to verbalize my thoughts and participate in discussions, I often got below average marks. I enjoyed the late night studies particularly, there is a point when you give up trying to get pass and start to study for the real meaning of life. Super fun! Unforgettable!
I couldn't throw away my blackboard though. I love the rawness, the sound of chalk on board reminds me of school life, the perfect circle my secondary school math teacher drew..... it is the essence of learning to me. Simple tools to pass along knowledge.
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