Memories of China • Artist Statement
Since the Sichuan earthquake happened, we were given so much to think about. In particular, what had caught my attention very strongly were the living conditions of children. For several years I made trips to many elementary schools in villages and cities of Sichuan, and studied their living situation and study environment.
I still remember visiting Kong Shan Village, Ping Ba Town of Tong Jiang County in Sichuan in 2007 with my graduate students. We made trips to several elementary schools. After walking on foot for ten kilometres, we saw a shabby elementary school located in between the mountains (there were three rooms – one classroom, one kitchen, and one room for general and sports equipment storage). From afar we could already see on top of the earth-built dam, a red fag futtering in the wind. We were just climbing over the mountains when we met a few students who were on their way to school. It was a severe winter then, they were carrying stoves made out of bamboo or tin cans, and were hurrying their way to the direction of the school. During our chat with them, we realized that they were from a very remote village,and have already spent nearly two hours walking dozens of miles on foot to come here. We then walked together, and when we almost reached the school, we could hear the sounds of students studying. This made me feel very warm in the heart; it was like being back in childhood. When we walked into the classroom, the voices of students all of a sudden stopped and all forty pairs of awestruck eyes stared at us. The room had less than twenty square meters of space, the desks were worn, and the four windows had no glass but were instead covered with some yellowy plastic flms. I did not see any teacher in the classroom, and when I asked the students, they pointed me to a mid-aged man standing afar who was washing his face in front of a room. “That is our Teacher Zeng,” said the students, “he teaches us Chinese,
maths and sports. He also cooks lunch for us.” Normally, teachers at rural villages have
double-responsibilities—being both the teacher and the parent. “Young people in town have all gone out for jobs, only old people and children remain.” Teacher Zeng later told us, “and since schools in rural village all live on self-provision, the constant lack of funding means that classrooms cannot be renovated, and the learning environment gets very poor. There are even a few kids who had to drop out from school due to poverty.”
At Teacher Zeng’s consent, I arranged my graduate students to read books to the students and to teach them drawing. Then during the breaks I played Cat’s Cradle with them. They had a really happy time, and I saw that the vacant eyes of the children all of a sudden sparkled with brightness. I could not help but sigh when I think of how lovely these children are, how they have to grow up in such unusual environment and face such conditions in education,the defects in their characters, their lack of family education, and all the other problems. This trip to the Kong Shan village had moved me deeply, I saw that the simple and undeveloped village used to be a piece of pure land, and the issues behind the pure land makes one refect. This just cannot go by without raising our awareness.
Last year I also went to a few elementary schools in Chong Qing city, one of them being a school with mostly children born to migrant workers. The conditions were bad and teaching resources were uneven. The venue was shabby, the sanitation was poor, and it seriously affected the physical and mental health of both teachers and children. The few other schools we visited, on the other hand, had mostly children who were residents in the city centre, and what we witnessed was an entirely different picture – newly renovated school buildings, green soccer felds, fne educational facilities, organized systems of teachers, and also neat and tidy school uniforms. Rural village schools and schools for migrant-worker-children simply could not compare at all. Another remarkable difference is that children from cities face enormous pressure in their studies and exams. Outside their school curriculum, children are brought to all sorts of weekend tutorials and workshops by their parents. Under high pressures from life and from school, these children leave their “childhood” at a young age, and are forced to become mature and adult-like early, which is a serious corrosion on their tender minds. What hits
my heart is that the children have lost the innocence they were supposed to have at such young age. The pure nature and innocent eyes can now only be found in memories.
That so-called “past” in our memories was an era of red idealism, it is actually not that far away at all from our lives today. The “Red Five Star” is the icon representing red China, and is still inextricably intermingled with our “today”. The Memories of China Series is filled with my striving for the spirit of care in humanity. Through the innocent eyes of the children, I want to link yesterday, today and tomorrow, and to fnd a new way to interpret our past, present, ideology and reality. And with Cat’s Cradle, a game of youthful fun, I would like to interpret the awareness people have on their state of existence, and the refections they have on reality. To me, Memories of China is another profound experience of refection I have had in my life as an individual being.
Zhu Yiyong
March 7th, 2011
Written in Chong Qing
中 国 记 忆 • 创 作 随 想
四川汶川大地震后，带给我们太多的思考：特别是儿童生存环境引发我强烈的关注，先后几年走访了农村、城市的很多小学，对他们的生活状况、学习环境作了多方面的考察。
记得2007年底我带着我的研究生一同前往四川省通江县平坝镇空山乡的小学，我们共走访了几所小学。在徒步十公里后，看见其中一所破旧的小学位于大山之间（共有三间房：一间教室、一间厨房、一间杂物及体育用具室）。远远就见用土夯出来的坝子中间的旗杆上挂着一面随风飘扬的红旗。我们正步行翻山时遇见几个上学的学生，当时正值严冬，他们每人提着用竹编或罐筒盒做的烤火炉，往学校方向赶路。在与他们交谈中得知他们是从很远的村庄步行几十里来学校，差不多走了两个多小时。我们一路同行，快到学校时，远远就听到早到同学的读书声，这使我备感亲切，仿佛回到童年。当我们进教室后，读书声嘎然停下，四十双带着惊异的眼睛看着我们。这是一间不到二十平米的房子，简陋的课桌，土墙上四个没有玻璃的窗户蒙着发黄的塑料薄膜。教室里没有老师，问同学们，在顺着同学们指的方向看见一个中年男子正在远处的房前洗脸，“那就是我们的曾老师，他教我们语文、数学、体育，中午给我们做饭”。一般来说山区的老师具有双重责任，既是教师，又是父母。从曾老师口中得知：“乡里的年青人都外出打工去了，留下的只有老人和孩子。由于乡里学校的经费是自给自足，缺少经费就意味着没有钱修缮教室，学习环境很差，还有几个孩子因贫困而辍学在家不能上学”。
在征得曾老师同意后，我安排我的研究生给孩子们读课文、教他们画画，课间休息时我与孩子们做翻线游戏，孩子们玩得非常开心，此时我忽然发现孩子们茫然的目光中瞬间是那么的明亮。我感慨这是一群多么可爱的孩子，面对这些孩子特殊的成长环境及教育现状、性格缺陷和家庭教育的缺失等种种问题，空山之行使我深深感受到朴实、落后的乡村曾是一片净土，而净土的背后让人深思，这不得不引起我们的关注。
去前年我又去了重庆市内的几所小学，其中一所是以农民工子女居多的学校，办学条件比较差，师资力量参差不齐，场地简陋，卫生条件差，严重影响着师生的身心健康。另外去的几所学校则几乎完全是城市居民子女就读的学校，看到的是截然不同的景象：新修的校舍、绿色的球场、完善的教学设施和教师编制、以及整齐的校服，乡村的学校和农民工子弟学校与这一切是无法相比的。更不同的是城市的小孩在应试教育下学习压力非常重，孩子们在完成学校的课程外，周末休息时间在家长的陪同下读各种各样的补习班和兴趣班，在学习和生存环境压力下，孩子们小小年龄就告别“童年时代”，因此变得早熟，性格成人化，这些都严重侵蚀着儿童幼小的心灵。让我感触的是：当今的孩子小小年龄本应有的童真已消失，质朴无华的天性、纯净的眼光只能去记忆中搜索。
记忆中的“过去”，那是一个红色理想化的年代，离我们今天现实生活并不遥远，“红五星”是红色中国的标志，它与我们的今天依然有着难以割舍的联系。“童年的记忆”这批作品力求洋溢着人性的关怀，我的想法是通过儿童纯真的眼光，将昨天、今天、明天联系在一起，力求寻找过去与当今、理想与现实的全新解读方式，以一种充满童趣的翻线游戏来诠释人们对生存状态的关注，对现实的反思，我认为“童年的记忆”是我个体生命中又一深刻的体验和思考。
朱毅勇
2011年3月7日于重庆