None of the generations of my family prior to my father used to be a painter. My father in his early life used to enroll in Hangzhou Fine Art School as influenced by his classmate, but he was bluffed off by my grandfather. From then on my family never mentioned the study of painting. I used to be a worker with a state-run enterprise when I was young. I saw and admired those proud young workers in working cloths marked with two Chinese characters of “state-run”, but what I would be the most was a hunter riding on a strong horse, with a true rifle in my hand and followed by a hound, galloping amid the forest like a hunter of Oroqen nationality. I prefer to those primitive hunting tools such as arrow, knife and fork and others up to now and I manage to collect such tools if I have found any of them. Once I was told by an indigene in Yunnan’s Lijiang that an ex-hunter possessed a crossbow that could shoot a leopard to death, then I had a taxi to drive dozens of kilometers the next day to look for the said hunter. Of course, I did not buy that crossbow, for it was too common, unlike what I imagined. Furthermore, it was very hard to pull the crossbow fully. I never thought or dreamed of becoming a painter or an artist. My mother and I went to a “May Seventh” Cadre School or Remolding School with my mother in Hubei’s Jingmen and I continued my study in a local middle school. We returned to Wuhan two years later and my mother decided not to allow me to go to school, or we would be transferred to a lower level and again went to the countryside. Then my two elder brothers and an elder sister labored in the countryside as the educated youths. In such case, my mother managed to keep me in the city, but I felt grieved for a period of time: I discontinued my studying after a study at a senior high school for a year only—it was hard for a 17-year-old young man to accept such a crucial fact. Later, my mother entrusted somebody to get a job for me—to be an assistant for a capital construction team. The said “assistant” meant a helper to bricklayers in moving bricks and mixing cement and so on. There were few strong young men among such assistants and most of them were old women, so I had to finish the arduous tasks while such old women avoided such tasks and rebuked me somehow. I felt very tired everyday therefore. All my former classmates continued their study at school and no visit was exchanged between us at that time. I was alone at my leisure time and I idled out on Sundays. I saw a store by chance on a street at the city center, marked with the characters “Worker-farmer-soldier Fine Art Studio” on the door plate, where some girls were painting landscape, flowers and birds inside the broad window facing the street. I stood there and looked at them for a long time, feeling strange, fresh and wonderful. Such nice pictures and scenes were quite different from the messy and shabby construction site to which I was exposed all day long, as well as the mordant and unkind old women, and I was touched and attracted strongly. In the afternoon that day I bought some water colors, papers and brushes and painted at home my first picture—I copied a peacock from a teapot. I began to paint from then on. Later I thought that I paint because I was lonely, and that loneliness made me to paint and painting will accompany me all my life. I was never taught in painting, but I had an abecedarian, Huang Xianzheng. He was an engineer with a building design institute. He was kind and easy-going. His home was just opposite to mine, with a corridor between these two homes. The stoves and cookware of both families were placed at both sides of the said corridor. As a one-room home, while the room was very small, one could take in everything in a glance when the door of such room was open. One day, I painted in my home with the oil paint presented to me by one of my friends in my childhood last day, then I was imitating the oil painting No Armistice on paper. The paper was stained with the oil paint and I had no idea in mind at that time. “It does not work!” Mr. Huang told me, when he was standing in the corridor for cooking. This was the first sentence he spoke to me after our move into this house. Then he told me, “You have to paint on a glued board.” This was the second sentence he spoke to me. With time passed and the situation changed, these two sentences meant the enlightenment to me in my painting. We became the sworn friends from then on. He taught me how to paint whenever he was free. He kept two oil paintings he painted when he was at university: one was a book-sized still life with flowers; the other was about young Mao Zedong standing on a boat. Both paintings were the imitations and painted on board. I was crazy about these true oil paintings when I watch them. He told that I had to study the pencil sketch at the very beginning and gave me some thick papers and pencils from his institute, asking me to sketch the material objects—he was taught so when he was in the painting class at the college of architecture. Mr. Huang was sanguine, passionate and had many avocations—he was fond of photographing, painting, swimming and cooking. His nurse wife was very satisfied with him therefore. When he told the anecdotes to his neighbors in mandarin with Zhejiang accent, he brought many pleasures and enjoyments to their life of oppression and gloom at that time. No regular enrollment of college students was available at that time and no painting was tempted by fame and gain. Possibly like the popular words “all painters were crazy” at that time, all young painting learners in Wuhan then addicted to painting due to such crazy interest. They got together thanks to painting, with their own base, just like those boxers affiliated to some martial sects as described in the works by Mr. Jin Yong. While sketching in a park, for example, two groups of children met with each other and then would disclose their origin—a member from one of the groups would ask the other group: “who’s your teacher?” and he or she would be told that “Mr. Xu Mangyao” or “Mr. Xie Yuanhuang” or “We are from Children’s Palace.” Then they would be friendly to each other. Anyone without a proper origin would feel inferior to others, seeming that he or she studied painting without regular course. Anyone who painted well over a long time would be known to others within the circle of painting learners and became famous gradually. At first I did not find any other painting learner in the section where my home was located and I had to be often alone. With times passing by, Mr. Huang could not offer me anything new or attractive and I had no any book about painting. I had to paint blindly in such case. One day the child of my neighbor told me that there was a good painting learner living in the front building of dormitory, and would like to introduce me to that learner. As a result I met Zhu Xiaoguo as the first painting partner of mine. Xiaoguo was some years older than me, but I felt he was much older than me at that time because of the fact that he was older than his age and his good paintings standing in awe in front me. Additionally, he had a face like a poet, unusual expression in his eyes, while talking about “Tolstoy, Repin and Tchaikovsky” or some others at times of whom I had never heard, so that I felt like a child of babyhood. Xiaoguo introduced me to his circle of painting friends and I knew Chen Zhongjiang, Tu Xiaoding, Li Bangchao and Xiao Bao sooner or later. Then we went out to sketch together sometimes. I never went out to sketch before I knew them, so that my first drawing from nature was very poor due to my timidity after excitation with them. We were familiar with each other after a long time and we talked to each other freely and then sarcastic Xiaoguo often made fun of me, but he was not malicious, whether teasing or taunting. With such atmosphere, we felt easy and free. Anyone who made a careless mistake would be quizzed without hesitation, plus the occasional embarrassed prank. Then we were at 20 or so and most of us had never experienced love, except for Tu Xiaoding. He was married then and had two daughters. As a father, Tu was naughty and he would like to act like we bachelors—we would carry our painting box when we desired to sketch and Tu wanted to learn from us in doing so despite his housework, then he often had words with his wife, because he took his painting box to go out completely disregard of such housework in case of strong desire for painting and his wife was annoyed then. We had to pass by his home when we went to sketch and we would shout “Tu Xiaoding” whenever we passed by the window of his home. If he was alone at home, then he would answer us merrily “hi, just moment!”; if his wife was at home, then a reedy shouting would be cast out of the window “he’s not in” if we called Tu Xianding again. But Tu would join us after 15min and 30min at most by riding his green bike with his painting box, with the angry expression remained on his face after a quarrel. So we would shouted at the window “Tu Xiaoding” intentionally when we passed by his home and we would be answered in reedy voice “Don’t shout, he will not go out!” Chen Zhongjiang’s father was Japanese and he looked and behaved like Japanese. Chen would leave as the last one after each sketching. After stabilizing his painting box one the back seat of his bike, he would spraddle there still without movement for hours--this was his standard pose for painting, even in rain or snow, looking like a samurai. Li Bangchao looked like a lamb in terms of his character, with a high EQ, and played guitar very well. Being sensitive, Li was apt to hurting arising from some joke and he appeared aggrieved and innocent after some hurting. Such reaction attracted us to tease and make fun of him frequently. He would be touched by his painting, but we were not impressed by painting at all. We understood the value and significance of his self-complacency to vulnerable soul after years. We lived through days and years like that. We left our traces at many corners of Wuhan. Many things in past have been blurry, but the experience of painting with these partners remains fresh in my memory. I should say that none of my friends has forgotten the past in those days. I was touched by an article Unforgettable Bygones written by Zhu Xiaoguo when I read it some days ago, with some abstracted as below: “Thirty years ago, there were a group young men sketching in the streets of Wuhan. In those lifeless days this group of happy and unbridled young men should be the fairies of the city. These amateur painters almost came from factories. Since the boring and uninteresting life could not satisfy the expectations of young men for the future and the illusion of artist became the only light to lighten their life. This group of young men held a sketch exhibition at a primary school beside the railroad in Hankou in winter in the year 1977. For such exhibition, there was no master, tea or official message, and none of such sketches was decorated in a frame…Then there was the windy snow outside the window while the exhibitors were talking excitedly inside the window. At that time, such private exhibition was prohibited, so such mode should be deemed as a confidential get-together. The so-called exhibition was ended in hurry after half a day. There were more exhibitors next year, so that the second exhibition was held in a room from Wuhan Chu Opera Theater. I was the starter and organizer of such two exhibitions whereas Guo Runwen attended the second exhibition. In the inhibited times such shabby and hasty exhibition was of extraordinary significance to us, acting as a relief of a group of prisons in spirit, so that we could exchange the warmth of friendship and the sentiment of life with each other. Then we could not understand the artistic visage of the outside world, nor the western modern art at its climax. We derived our all aesthetic experience from the publications of Russian art represented by Repin, Levitan and Higgins and we were influenced by such cheap color publications. We were grateful to such poor albums bringing us the dreams of art and such childish dreams was watering our soul nearly dried up and moisturizing the ramous soul of the generation of young men growing up in the ‘Cultural Revolution’. There were two rows of dormitory buildings between the home of Guo Runwen and mine at that time. After we knew each other, Guo joined the sketching group. I remember that Guo lacked the sketching practice and skill then and he imitated some foreign landscape paintings or pictures at home at first. In Wuhan there were many sites fit for sketching, such as some streets of former foreign settlement, endless both banks of Changjiang River and parks full of vital force of the wild. Then I took a long sick leave, so I painted or played my violin all day long. Guo worked as a latheman for a neighborhood factory and envied my freedom very much. I asked for some days of sick leave at the hospital in his name sometimes, so that he could paint freely. Guo was not bold and restrained somehow amid us, but he was keen on painting. He succeeded in passing the entrance examination for the Department of Stage Design, Shanghai Theater Academy two years later. His success was attributed to a great deal of practice in during this period of time. A few decades has been passed by and that group of young men shaking off the spiritual depression by means of painting have met with different fortunes—some lives in a foreign country; some live outside Wuhan; some quitted painting for a long time, and now it is hard for them to meet with each other. I stays here in Wuhan all the time and still paints and sketches as before, so that I become the desired old friend as missed by Guo Runwen.” Zhu Xiaoguo was a man of temperament, with very high frame of mind and extremely good sense of art, but he was born at a wrong time. Then we all were workers and disliked what we did, whereas Xiaoguo disliked his job particularly, or hated his job. As to his class origin, it was a thumping favor for him to be employed as a worker for a state-run brick and tile factory, who used to be an educated youth in the countryside, but he never felt grateful to his employer. He did not think that the brick and tile factory was a right site for a man to stay—at the left side of the said factory there was a same factory surrounded with wire net for prisoner serving reform through labor; at the right side there was the vast farmland having no difference from where he stayed as an educated youth, so that nobody knew who were you, a worker or a prisoner when you went out of such factory and you were inferior to an educated youth in terms of the political position. Therefore, he took sick leave for a long time. Xiaoguo suffered from tachycardia over a long time and his heart would beat crazily once he held back his breath, with the heartbeat at more than 140 times per minute. If only he held back the breath when he saw a doctor, the doctor would allow him a sick leave of eight or ten days and later he was given a long leave for a good recreation. His disease and trick did us many favors and we requested him to ask for a sick leave for us in turn. I was doubted by my employer after a long time and nobody would like to connect heart disease with me who could sleep soundly and have meals properly, but they could not find out any handhold for a while. By the way, any employer, whether a collective or a state-run company could not dismiss a worker randomly at that time and the ideological means should be applied to solve any problem falling into the range of “contradictions among the people”. In such case, the factory director and workshop director often did the ideological and political work for me, but no expected effect was shown, so that the factory direct determined the nature of me: Xiao Guo was a worker who could not be counted on and his professional skill would be utilized; we could let him to edit the blackboard newspaper or to copy some documents, employing him as a disabled man. However, the kind decision of the factory direct did not change my mind and I did not go to work after asking for the sick leave. My farther was unsatisfied with my action. He thought that I did not value the hard-won job (my mother asked for help and gave presents to others in order to transfer me to the said neighborhood factory from the capital construction team) and the consequence was in the lap of the gods in case of my quitting or dismissal of the job some day. Furthermore, my sister and two elder brothers stayed at the education youth station then and my father was troubled with such case. He expected all his children had a proper a job and spend the lifetime in safety—if so, he would set his heart at rest. As to me, I had an exaggerated opinion of my abilities and was with a group of idlers, carrying a painting box on my back all day long, acting as one of the “group of lounge lizards ignoring their proper occupations” as described by my father. I certainly defended myself strongly: I believed in my capability and should do it. But such words were unbelievable then just like a blind man claiming his seeing of the beautiful rainbow. My farther was irascible and roaring all the time. My pals coming to ask me to sketch with them would often be frightened and shrank back from difficulties after hearing my father’s blare afar prior to approaching the doorway of my home. Such situation made me gloomy. In fact, my father used to be tender and mild and he became so worrying and bad-tempered after so many setbacks and hardship. My father graduated from the National Defense Medical Center during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression. As a young man of courage and uprightness, he joined the Chinese Youth Expedition Army to fight the Japanese invaders after his graduation and acted as a righteous man in the war. He took part in the Changsha Uprising in the year 1949 and then worked as a medical officer for the rear hospital of PLA Corps 21. He was transferred to the Wuhan Changjiang Shipping General Hospital in the year 1955, working as director of surgery. My farther was a master of medicine and went straight. He was not damaged at all during all movements in the past thanks to the fact that his direct superior in the army worked for the hospital as its secretary of the Party Committee and director. But he encountered the doom during the period of “Four Cleans-ups” Movement. Then he wrote the self-criticisms late in the night after his work each day. My father was taken away suddenly without premonition after the breakout of the “Cultural Revolution” and I saw him once during a period more than a decade from then on, when he was sent back to the hospital to be criticized and denounced. Unfortunately, I just saw his bend back and fuzzy silhouette and I even did not saw his face. I returned to home from my morning shift in an afternoon in late autumn in the year 1975 when it was very cold. I saw an old man in a Chinese-style coat and my second elder brother standing in the corridor after I opened the exterior door. This old man was strange to me, but it seemed we used to be familiar. That was my father—he was released suddenly just like when he was caught and took away. I watched the publication of the Unexpected Return painted by Repin a few years later by accident. The wide-opened, puzzled and sorrowful eyes of the exiled person who came back unexpectedly were quite like the eyes of my father when he looked into my eyes in the corridor… My mother had no objection to my painting and just worried about my situation. In her opinion, it was good if I could paint, for here colleagues who were good at composition and painting were quite good and would not be denounced at least. What she was concerned me was that what I could do if I lost my job and my employer. My mother was typical traditional women and she worked hard for her husband, her children and her family all here life while willingly bearing the burden of all hard works. She was externally weak, but she had a heart of oak in fact. My mother and my father worked for the same hospital. We were forced to move out from the original big suite on the fourth day after my father was taken away and into a small room with an area less than 15 square meters, while my father did not receive his monthly pay at approximately 200 Yuan. From then on, our family of six members had to live on my mother’s monthly pay at more than 50 Yuan due to our few savings in the past. Additionally, she could not stand for the situation that she was forced by the hospital’s Administrative Department to disclose my father in writing.Although we were not old enough, we could yet observe the expression of desperation often shown by my mother and we were fearful therefore. My mother was rather indifferent when such events were recalled, for she thought it was worth while paying these prices to keep our family intact though it was hard for her to recall such events. Furthermore, we enjoyed the reunion at last. She was proud of herself that she brought up her five children and none of us was disabled, nor was none of us a hooligan. I believed in all the time that I could paint and even thought that I would surely become an art designer in the future. I used to have many dreams, thinking of becoming a painter for a worker-farmer-soldier factory, an art designer painting posters for a cinema and even for a theater, but I never thought of becoming an artist. I imagined frequently that I met with a master artist and I made a rapid progress in my painting. I had a great mind to formally acknowledge some artist as my teacher, but there was no way at all. One of my mother’s colleagues introduced a painter to me when I was 19 years old. This painter lived next to the parents’ family of this colleague. One day in snow, my mother and I with a note written by this colleague and some gifts went to visit the said painter. It took us more than two hours by taking busses and walking to reach the home of the painter, but his door was locked. We waited for more than 4 hours. The painter and his wife came back in snow when it was becoming dark, with the fatigue in his face. He did not refuse us after understanding our purpose, but he did not ask us to enter his home. He watched my paintings under the light from his house and pointed out some problems and then said some encouraging words. Then we took our leave. I was very excited on the way home: the encouraging words “Do your best and you are capable of painting” were powerful enough to make me excited though our six hours resulted in a teaching of ten minutes. News was passed on privately in the year 1977 that universities would resume the entrance examination and such news was proved before long by the People’s Daily. This was an extra of surprise and stirred the whole China. Then many young people turned to the preparation for such examination. They knew that such hard-won chance might be the first or the last. The frequently changing polices over years allowed them to treat such chance lightly. In the city where I lived, almost all middle schools were occupied by various programs for such examination and it was difficult to obtain a permit for study in a better school, so that many learners were crowded in classrooms, corridors and even beside windows for a class. There were many preparatory materials and even the mimeograph, letter printed and even handwritten copies were quite hot. To me, such chance I never dreamed of turned out to appear in my life at that time. Hence, I would not miss or give it up. I put aside all matters and did not go to work in the factory, while concentration on the preparation for such examination. The date of such examination came after some months. Thousands of examinees came to the examination station at Hubei Art Academy (present Hubei Academy Fine Arts)—such case could be described as the “unprecedented grand occasion”. The streets around the Academy were full of people and examinees practiced painting under the dark street lamp for the approaching examination, with clothes or quilt on body in the cooler days then. Then the classrooms in the Academy could not hold so many examinees. So such examination was held in a borrowed auditorium, where thousands of examinees crowded, with dozens of groups of plaster model and still life for such examination. Such examination included the preliminary and secondary examinations. The list of those examinees passed the preliminary examination would be published and then the secondary examination was begun. It took me twelve days for such examinations and I was listed among the final qualified examinees. But I failed the “political examination”. I seemed not dejected, because the recruitment of the year 1978 would begin soon and I would have a new hope and some then celebrities also failed due to their families’ origin. I felt balanced somehow in my mind in such case. It was half a year or so between the entrance examination for colleges respectively in the year 1977 and 1978, but the latter was standardized much more. For example, the system that the examination was held in summer and enrollment was allowed in autumn was resumed; art examines had to submitted 5~8 paintings and should not be qualified for final examination until the passing of review. Then I entered myself for the examination for the art department of Central Academy of Arts and Design, Hubei Academy of Fine Arts and Wuhan Normal University Hankou Branch, whereas the latter two permitted the degree of junior college—I never thought of selecting and I had to be chosen by any of them. A very occasional case changed my life one day. I had my breakfast at roadside that day and took a small part of a newspaper conveniently for packing the oil cake and I found a student recruitment advertisement of Shanghai Theater Academy for the year 1978. This ad was quite complete on this handkerchief-sized paper. I took it back home and read it carefully with regard to the requirements and date of examinations, discovering that the examination date was ok to me, so that I decided to have a try. So I selected 8 paintings from the remained ones and sent them to Shanghai, together with the necessary data. I never thought of the Academy in Shanghai again. I received a telegraphy some day from the said Academy, requiring me to go to Shanghai for examinations and telling me that the registration would be given to me after my arrival to Shanghai due to the limited time. I hesitated then and wondered if I could pass the examinations of a so nice college so afar. I was uncertain about it. But I pondered that now that the Academy sent me a telegraphy for examination, it proved that my paintings were relatively satisfactory, that it might be hopeful if I took part in the examination. I was agreed to go to Shanghai for such examination after the discussion with my family members and I took the ship to Shanghai four days prior to the examination, with my painting tools and other necessities. I spend five days on the strict preliminary and secondary examinations, including the examinations of art and other courses. Similarly, I never thought of the result after I came back to Wuhan. I was in fever during my five days’ stay in Shanghai and finished all such examinations in the confused status and I thought that I would fail for certain. I waited for the result with patience after the examinations for the other three academies. One day in middle July 1978, a day afar from the date when the list of successful examinees was published, I received a registered letter from Shanghai Theater Academy. Then I worked in the factory. I thought it was over by judging from the simple appearance of such letter—this might be a comfort letter. But it was an admission notice after I opened it. It was unexpected! Thought the letter was rough, it was an admission notice. Yes, it was! My mind was blank at that moment. I reckoned later that Fan Jin was excited and wend mad due to his successful passing of the imperial exams at the provincial level in the imperial society, that I should be excited due to my success—that I was not excited meant another kind of crazy status. I put the notice into my pocket quietly and told nobody. I told this news to my parents without compunction after going off shift and back home and washing my face and my mother shed tears immediately after hearing such news… I went back to the factory for work after handling all necessary procedures, seeming nothing happened. The noise from the running machines was not as harsh as before and the grave faces of the factory director and workshop direct softened, while my fellow workers treated me mannerly just like toward a guest afar, and even with great care. I worked hopingly for a month—I never did so before. I took my leave a week prior to my registration. I bid farewell to my factory director after the middle shift one day. She told me some words and then filled an envelope into my hand. After opening the envelope at my home, I found 150 yuan inside it. Then I was sorry somehow. I went to Shanghai a week later for registering at Shanghai Theater Academy and dreamed at night of that day that I returned to the factory and operated the 3.0 machine, asking my fellows “why am I here” in perplexity, and then laughed together and answered: “Why not? Then where will you be?!” I woke up suddenly and my collar was soaked with sweat. I dreamed the same for a consecutive three days after that day and seated heavily each time after waking up. I was enrolled in the university at last and my dream of restructuring came true finally. That year was the happiest year of my few happy years. I felt strong and as fit as a fiddle. I felt my environment was so fresh and elegant and my position was admired so much. I loved life deeply and the terror, desperation and nightmare in former days were gone for ever. My life had a new starting point! I reveled in the swirl of happiness…