Color photo
54 x 80 cm
Since 1997, my cousin Ming and I have been conducting a small, private experiment. Ten years ago, at a banquet celebrating my grandparents’ golden wedding anniversary—back when both of them were still alive—I found myself, as always, seated beside Ming. It has long been our unspoken custom to sit together at family gatherings, even though in daily life we rarely meet. It’s difficult to explain why we feel so close despite spending so little time together.
That night, wanting to share a thought with him, I said: “Time passes so quickly. Let’s try this—blink your eyes right now, and try your best to remember this blink. Then, ten years from now, we’ll blink again and see whether time still feels as if it has disappeared within a single moment.”
In 2007, at another family banquet, we found ourselves side by side once more. We blinked again. And the feeling—strangely, beautifully—was exactly the same. As if nothing had shifted. As if we had remained who we always were.
I once heard a story about a Chinese painter who said that the first line and the last line he draws feel equally fresh to him. That sense of continuity, of unbroken selfhood, resonates with me. We are always, in some essential way, who we used to be.
