Ａ Ｃｈｉｎｅｓｅ Ｃｏｌｌｅｃｔｏｒ ａｎｄ Ｈｉｓ Ｓｔｏｒｙ

Ｚｅｎｇ　Ｌｉ

1 Collection starting with two pieces of embroidery In 1977, China was under a gray sky everywhere. On the air, there were no more than 3 to 4 radio stations, which emitted revolutionary news and songs everyday. In my childhood, just like any others of that time, I was always wearing clothes of a monotonous color. Mom tied my hair into two ponytails with two bright red bowknots, which became the only bright color that could be seen on me.

My dad, 36 back at that time, had given up his career in fine arts, instead, he worked as a professional photographer in Guizhou Pictorial. He took tons of professional pictures of mom but yet, she found a blemish in the otherwise perfect pictures as they were black and white. She liked color ones. She always colored them so as to make them look more beautiful. In those years, it was a big luxury to have a real color picture.

As a photographer, dad was always out of the town and every time we asked him where he was going, “To the country, many different villages in the country” was his simple answer. I had always wished that dad was going to Beijing or Shanghai, instead of those poor villages in the country, where there were no beautiful colorful clothes that he could bring back as gifts for me and my younger sister. Occasionally, father would come back with something from the country, but what he brought back was some wild hawthorns. We had always been disappointed till one day father came back with something special, which changed my views and my sisters.

There was a day when I came home after school and father, who had just come back from the countryside, told me he had something beautiful. I went over to dad delightedly and was shown two pieces of embroidery cloth, which I had never seen before: some colors were embroidered into patterns on black cloth. I couldnt figure out why they were beautiful in Dads eyes, as they were way less charming than those embroidered by my grandmother, who was greatly well known for her great skills in embroidery in the local area. Grandmother did embroidery with sewing machine and she could finish an embroidered pillowcase within a couple of days. I was told that the patterns on the black cloth were embroidered manually but I couldnt understand what made it beautiful. Dad didnt give a damn to my baffle. As usual, he was talking to mom about his trip down in the country. I remember nothing about what dad told mom but one thing impressed me much-dad told mom the embroidery pieces cost him 6 RMB and mom immediately complained that he had spent too much for something that count for little. As the total monthly income of them both amounted to 114RMB. This income would support a family of four and a part of it would be spared for grandfather and grandmother. We had all been on a tight budget therefore mom didnt see the expense of 6RMB on the embroidery pieces cost effective. Mom obviously agreed the pieces were beautiful but she couldnt understand what dad had bought them for. As a housewife, what she was really concerned about was whether dads passion for the embroidery would financially threaten the normal life of our family.

However, dad didnt behave as mom had wished, instead, he seemed to be out of control in his passion for the embroidery. Every time he went down to the country, he would buy some embroidered clothes and cloth pieces. Sometimes a couple of them at the beginning, and 3 or 4 later on. As time passed, he bought more and more, and more often. He was seemingly under a magic spell and probably he himself didnt know what he was doing. I always thought that he had bought those clothes and fabric for mom but later I noticed I was wrong. Mom started to interfere and dad gave her an account: Those things would be taken pictures of and the pictures would be published on magazines or papers. Each picture would bring in 5-9 RMB as authors remuneration. Therefore, he could publish his works, make money and keep things he favored. Why argue against something like killing many birds with one stone? After his account, we all didnt oppose his idea any longer, instead, we hugged ourselves for his discovery.