The reflection of lenses

My personal history with film photography

Nine days after my birth, my father took the first picture of me in my life using his 120-type Tianjin manual film camera. In the photo, the baby version of me was wearing the silver necklace made by my grandfather, and I was in swaddling clothes, the wound on my forehead caused by the birth surgery was not yet healed.

During the 1990s, film cameras along with camera rolls were still luxury items in China. From my parents' memories, at that time, it was a fashion for people to wear new clothes and take family portraits in the photo studio. Therefore, when my father got a domestic-made film camera—spending all of his one-month income—he was so proud of having it and used it to document the precious moments with his family. He was always bragging about his excellent skills in taking photos. I still remember, at that time, all the negatives needed to be taken to the photo studio for development.

The image processing technology at that time was far less advanced than it is now. Everything recorded in the photos was somewhat “authentic.” For each picture taken by film photography, the colors were not as vibrant as the digital ones, the resolution was low, and the boundaries among objects and figures were blurred. Looking at the photos taken when I was 4-year-old or younger, I was always frowning and looking straight ahead. It is like I stared at the camera and thought, "what the hell is this?" Then later, when I was five years old, until I was 12 years old, I was always smiling in the photos. The photos tell how I got along with the camera. 

Maybe it was my father's influence. I started secretly taking pictures with my father's camera when I was 6 years old. I still remember the first film camera I touched was decorated with leather. I wondered, “Why does this machine have skin?” Every time I pressed the shutter, I was so excited and listened carefully to the sound of the shutter and the film rolling in the camera. There was a time I pulled the film out and saw a lot of brown-black negatives. I pondered that the negatives formed in the camera were black and dark brown, so how did they become color photos in the photo studio? 

I remember that, after the photos were developed and laminated, my mother always put them in a big album. In the album, there was a handwritten sentence on the first page, with a “for 姚龟雀” in the end. “姚” is our family name, “龟” “雀” means turtle and sparrow in direct translation. I asked my mum, “Who is 姚龟雀? ” She said this was the name my grandpa gave me. Because he dreamed of a turtle and a sparrow the night before I was born, I found it so hilarious.  

When I started elementary school, around the early 2000s, I noticed that the streets and buildings around me were undergoing rapid destruction and reconstruction. Parks, grocery stores, and the markets I used to visit with friends—the streets I passed by every day for schools—and my family’s favorite restaurants were all destroyed and replaced with brand new but unfamiliar streets and buildings. The friends that were playing with me lost each other’s contact one after the other. This continued demolition and resetting brought me endless unrest, and it was the starting point for me to keep forgetting about my past experiences and everything that was surrounding me.  

From then on, every once in a while, I would flip through the photo albums at home and read them carefully. The collection retold my parents and me through the form of storybooks. The film camera was the tool that allowed us to resist oblivion and devastation. These photos helped me remember my grandpa’s appearance, who passed away when I was 8-year-olds. Since the death of my grandmother, relatives in my mother's family have never reunited again. It was the photos that recorded the time when mother’s siblings were still together.

I didn't realize how meaningful the film photography was to me until I saw Beijing Silvermine, an Instagram account that keeps posting abandoned photos from a recycling plant, whose photos are all about daily portraits of and taken by ordinary people, from the 1970s to 1990s China. I was so touched when I saw the hairstyles, clothes, and accessories people wearing in the photos, and those recreational facilities, infrastructures, and household appliances in the photo backgrounds that symbolized the period of transition in China from a communist planned economy to a capitalist market economy. I found the part of me that was forgotten in those nostalgic collections of abandoned pictures.

Those photos remind me that, although China is ruled by oligarchy and centralization; film cameras empowered us to record and depict the personal stories we crave. The photos are not only the archives and mirrors of us—looking at Beijing Silvermine’s collection, they, as a whole, are also the medium that bypasses the homogenization caused by the country’s propaganda and censorship and zoom into each individual and small family. Look, our lives were vivid and colorful, in those years, though the choices of commodity and entertainment were scarce and the space of our voice was compromised, we were living happily in the bitterness.    

After I attended middle school, my father continually bought three or more digital cameras. Each camera has higher performance and efficiency than the previous one. Since then, I have never seen the film cameras we used in my early life again. After I got my first iPhone during the time I was in high school, taking photos has become very convenient for me. This accessibility made me never treat photos seriously again as I used to. Many times I would take hundreds of pictures at once, but never browse them twice. As a consequence, there were lots of duplicate photos in my phone album, and I never delete them.  

With the increasingly rapid iteration of technologies, the values of photography are getting inexpensive. These days, it is so easy to take a photo using a cellphone, then upload it on social media, such as Instagram. We seldom print out the photos and put them into albums. We no longer believe photos are precious. As the meaning of photos changes, it seems that our lives also become cheaper. Although film photography technology helped us resist forgetting, this technology itself is gradually being forgotten.

Bracelet

(Written on January, 2019)

According to my fragmented memories, the first time I saw a bracelet was in my grandparents’ old house. I could not remember correctly that maybe I was around 2 or 3 years old. When my father brought me to the grandparents’ house, I saw grandfather was sitting beside the fire and using a stick-like tool, making something. He looked earnest about what he was doing. Several days after, he presented me with the most beautiful bracelet I had ever seen. It was a silver ring with two knots where the size could be adjusted. There were charms, which like small bells, on the bracelet. When my father took me outside, he put the bracelet on my arm. I still remember those crisp clanging sounds made by the charms when I moved my hand. When I looked closely, there was a small stone inside each charm, which is what caused the sound. Even after all of these years, I still wonder how my grandfather put that little stone into those charms. Years later, I noticed if I shake the charm when I hold it in my hand, it didn’t make a loud sound, but when I allow it to shake it without any touch freely, the sound was loud and crisp.

I was too young to appreciate its significance. I was told years later that the most exciting part about the bracelet was how it was made. During those years, before I was born, in China, resources were scarce. The government had banned activities, including making jewelry. Hence, it was illegal to make jewelry privately between the 1960s to the 1980s. Besides, my grandparents were poor farmers, and they could not afford to buy jewelry. For survival, My grandfather gathered materials and made jewelry for others secretly. The government lifted the ban in the 1990s, and making jewelry was not illegal anymore. My grandfather was able to make silversmith as his part-time vocation at that time. Therefore, I believe that silver bracelet was the best gift that my grandfather could have ever given to me.

As the years went by, I forgot that bracelet as it had been put away for safekeeping. My next memory is at a time when I was eight years old. Each day at noon, when I went home from school for lunch, there was always a street vendor standing in front of the school and selling bracelets she had made. I was so fascinated by the bracelets the moment I first saw them. She made the bracelets with intricate strings in different colors and textiles. Besides bracelets, she also made other small items, such as little slipper, frog, flower, and dragonfly with plastic strings. I spent a lot of time looking deep into those original items, and wondering how she intertwined those strings into three-dimensional objects. I had saved all of the pocket money my mom gave me and bought many bracelets and small items from her.

Both moments were significant, but the first moment I saw the street vendor’s merchandise was the moment that I realized I could create things and display for others to see. I started buying books and materials to help foster this passion. I spent weeks looking at designs of bracelets and started to follow the steps. I still remember the difficulty I had in following the steps in the book. The illustrations were shown in flat pictures, and the operation of flip or insert strings were presented by using arrows. Therefore, there were always some trials and errors in each step during the process of making.

I, like my grandfather, made bracelets secretly in my room, because I knew my parents would not permit what I did as they always wanted me to focus on my studies. My parents would always tell me the only things I should be focused on were school assignments and exams. I remember late one night when I thought my parents had gone to sleep. I pulled out my materials and quietly sat working on the bracelets. I did not realize that my mother was not asleep, and she would find out what I was doing. She was so angry in a way that I had never seen her before, and then she grabbed the bracelets I was working on, lit it on fire, and threw it outside off the balcony. I cried so hard that night, and I was afraid of doing anything secret for a long time. To this day, I still remember what kind of knot I was making for that never finished bracelet. I felt crushed and defeated. Not only was my work of art destroyed, but I could feel the crushing of my creative spirit.

That feeling stayed with me for a long time. After I entered college, I saw something that reminded me of the fascination that little 8-year-old girl experienced when she saw that street vendor. So, I decided to buy some tutorial books and materials for making bracelets again. I tried to restart what I loved in my childhood, but I found my passion for making bracelets could not be ignited anymore. For a while, I thought I was no longer the person who loved hand making any longer. I felt as though maybe my mother was justified in stopping such childish nonsense. This feeling continued until last year when I came to New York. After experiencing a lot of cultural shocks, I attended Maker Faire and re-examined what I had experienced in my childhood. I realized that my talent and creativity in making things is my precious treasure. It was not burned that day and thrown off the balcony, and it was merely locked away until the right moment presented itself. A person’s creativity and eagerness of expression is not something that can be destroyed unless we do not allow ourselves the freedom to explore that side of us.

3C's Essay

(Written on February, 2019 )

Education theories of 3Cs: Constructionism, Constructivism, and Critical Pedagogy.

Piaget's Constructivism, Papert's constructionism, and Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy have shifted our attention from teacher-centered ways of delivering pedagogy to student-centered learning. All of them shared commonalities. At the same time, each of them also holds ideas that are distinct from the others.

Papert and Piaget both agree that learning is a developmental process rather than a fixed one. However, Piaget was in favor of the developmental stage in learning due to "biological maturation". His theory only focused on the learner. On the other hand, Papert’s view was more focused not only on the learners but also on the contexts, interactions, and tools of the whole learning process. “Papert is interested in how learners engage in a conversation with[their own or other people’s] artifacts, and how these conversations boost self-directed learning and ultimately facilitate the construction of new knowledge. He stresses the importance of tools, media, and the context in human development”(Ackermann, 2001, p.1).

Piaget and Papert both supported the view of “Equilibration,” which is “adaptation” and “assimilation”. However, when examined in-depth, the differences become evident. According to Ackerman (2001, p.8), “ the difference is that Piaget's interest was mainly in the construction of internal stability (la conservation et la reorganization des acquis), whereas Papert is more interested in the dynamics of change (la decouverte de nouveaute). ”

When analyzing the different types of knowledge and how each saw their contribution, Piaget thought the ability of learning could be determined on a scale of development that is determined by biological factors. He focused on learning in the early stages as being a combination of biological factors. In the early stage of a person, he/she needs to have solid knowledge about an object. They have to see it touch it, use it, and be told what it is. They are then able to commit that information in their brain for later knowledge. Later in a person’s life, learning is defined differently as a person grows their knowledge transfers from concrete to formal. It is due to the person's biologically maturing. The person can draw upon previous knowledge they gained from seeing, touching, and learning about the object. During the formal learning, the object does not need to be present because they can use the memory of discovery earlier on in life. Ackerman (2001, p.8) summarized that “Piaget's theory relates how children become progressively detached from the world of concrete objects and local contingencies, gradually becoming able to manipulate symbolic objects within a realm of imaginary worlds mentally. He studied children's increasing ability to extract rules from empirical regularities and to build cognitive invariants. ” Whereas at this point, Papert had thought a little bit further, and he argues the “revaluation of the concrete” (Ackerman, 2001, p.6). It means that Papert believes concrete and formal knowledge are not in a development sequence, whereas they are just different ways of how people perceive knowledge. Both of them are worthy of being valued.

Like Papert and Piaget, Paulo Freire also reevaluated the relationship between teacher and student and valued the importance of the learner’s initiative. Freire (2005, p.72) wrote, “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” Moreover, he brought up a point of view that Papert and Piaget didn’t consider that students were being oppressed and alienated by teachers, and “Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.” (2005, p72).

It is worth noting that both Papert’s Constructionism and Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy emphasized the importance of influences coming from the environment. As Ackermann (2001. p.8) summarized that Papert emphasized that “intelligence should be defined and studied in-situ; alas, that being intelligent means being situated, connected, and sensitive to variations in the environment. ” Freire also wrote in his book “Pedagogy of the oppressed” (2005, p.32) that “This world to which he relates is not a static and closed order, a given reality which man must accept and to which he must adjust; rather, it is a problem to be worked on and solved. ”

However, there is a difference that lies between Freire, Piaget, and Papert. As aforementioned, Piaget and Papert believe the construction of knowledge is a developmental process, and only through this process, people can see the world critically. However, Freire’s view steps a little further, and he believes that the ability to be critical has nothing to do with the developmental process of learning. Instead, it is all about experiences. As stated in the book (2005, p.32), Freire has convicted:

   “Every human being, no matter how “ignorant” or submerged in the “culture of silence” he or she may be, is capable of looking critically at the world in a dialogical encounter with others. Provided with the proper tools for such encounter, the individual can gradually perceive personal and social reality as well as the contradictions in it, become conscious of his or her own perception of that reality, and deal critically with it.”

From my point of view, although Paulo Freire’s tried to argue that the ability of how to look at the world is not that related to the education that a person received, having experiences or conversations with others are still ways of learning knowledge in incremental manners, but just in an informal situation. The expertise of knowledge is not only measured by whether the person is literate or not. It is also worthy of looking at other types of knowledge, especially gained from experiences and dialogical communications. Hence, based on this, it is not a surprise to read when Paulo Freire brought up the example (2005, p.32) that “A peasant can facilitate this process for a neighbor more effectively than a “teacher” brought in from outside.”

There is another point of view from Paulo Freire in which I can't entirely agree. Paulo believed that the development of technology is inhibiting us from learning and from gaining the full environmental impact needed to look at the world critically. Richard Shaull expressed this opinion through the summarization in the Foreword of Paulo’s book (2005, p.33), “Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of most of us and subtly programming us into conformity to the logic of its system. To the degree that this happens, we are also becoming submerged in a new “culture of silence.” However, in my opinion, although the development of technology might increase the possibility of reducing the chances for people getting experiences with the real world, technology increases the opportunities for people to have dialogic communications with others. In other words, technologies promote possibilities for people to educate each other; this can be seen in technologies such as instant messaging applications, vlogs on video platforms, and so forth.

One thing I agree with Paulo Freire is that he describes, under the banking education, students are oppressed by the teachers. There is an importance of emancipating students from the marginalized situation and reconciling the relationship between students and teachers. When I was a student in China, I felt the same oppression as described by Freire. It was when I came here that I realized that thinking beyond some preconceived ideas and using my critical thinking skills for something other than doing homework is not wrong behavior. I still remember the moment when I was at the Maker Faire when a little boy so proudly said to me, “ These are all made by myself!” His mom was standing behind him so supportively and proud. I will also never forget the moment when performers on the stage said: “Let’s enjoy this spectacular mess! ”

Piaget, Papert, and Freire shed light on the learning process and emphasized learners as the center of Education. All three of these theories had some points in common. It is essential to understand the theorists and to see how each complimented the other.

References:

Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed/Paulo Freire. New York.–London: Continuum.

Ackermann, E. (2001). Piaget’s constructivism, Papert’s constructionism: What’s the difference. Future of learning group publication, 5(3), 438.

The breath of life in Macau

(The original Chinese version of this article was written on April 24, 2012, and its translated in January 2020.)

The bus crossed the bridge, left the bustling downtown area, and left the casinos. During the rush, I was driven into the streets where the daily life of Macau was taking place.

Arrived and got off, when I was crossing the streets, I felt they appeared much narrower compared to those in mainland China. Looking up, I saw houses standing on both sides of the road, and the sky is between the close gaps. Those buildings are in characteristics of Cantonese style, and some of them are traditional Cantonese riding towers. For the students from Guangzhou, I could not help feeling familiar and strange.

The houses were all in gray and black as if covered with years of unwashed dust and oil fume from the kitchen, wires on the walls, and neon signboards, making the entire house look even older. They stand in stark contrast to the luxurious and magnificent casinos and cabaret hotels. If tourists from the Mainland see them, they will be amazed by this "weird" contrast.

I cleared my thoughts and looked around. Crowds of people were on the street: older women with pale hair but fancy clothes, well-dressed students, trendy young people, office workers in suits, and so forth. The windows of various shops are filled with small snacks, some are dim-sum, including the freshly baked barbecued pork with hot steam, and other shops are hanging quilts. At this moment, Cantonese, with various accents floating in my ears, endless yelling, chatting noises, mixed with the whistle of cars on the road, and the sound of food stirring in the pan. What I saw and heard on the streets of Macau was so similar to my hometown. However, the details determined the essential difference between the two.

I remember when I was in the third year of middle school, the school organized a "Discover Guangzhou" event, which was to find the architectural monuments that were forgotten by the rapid development of Guangzhou. When I was walking on the Zhongshan 5th Road, for the first time, I was surprised that in the city where I lived, there were still trees and buildings from the Qing Dynasty, the antique Xiguan mansion, and the never torn rock roads. I always remember the names of those ancient streets: Qi Zhurong, Gaudi Street, Xu Di, and Longjin Street. When I was walking there, it was as if my whole person would melt into history; that was also the first time I felt that the city's modernization. It is/should be rooted in the citizens' accumulation of life. The memory of this life precipitated the city's construction. The antique style of a town was polished by time and carried the warmth of a long time ago.

In 2010, to host the Asian Games, the Guangzhou Municipal Government spent 200 billion yuan on painting all the old buildings in the city with new colors. At first glance, the whole town seemed to have become more “international" and "metropolitan” overnight. Still, those buildings had repainted in the old downtown area turned like giant funny clowns under the “glossy” appearance. Although the government's approach satisfies the vanity of the people, the real presence of a city should not be concealed under the rigid hypocrisy. Comfortable and warm lives in the city no longer exist.

When the government in the mainland became shameful of our past and tried to transform and improve it, Macau has kept it as it is. The markets and daily livings in Macau have always been the original. I have never thought that the mandatory transformation would instead obliterate the most authentic things in our lives. The old streets and shops have retained the people's legacy. Changing the physical construction of a city is like erasing memories, whose consequences are often painful.

Coming back with my thoughts, I continued to walk in the Red Street market. I enjoyed the hustle and bustle of this place. Although noisy, it did not make me feel impetuous. The day was getting dark, and every window was lit with orange lights. Those lights represent the hard-working of many people during the day and their eagerness to return home. At that time, I couldn't help hoping that my hometown could be like this, the street still retains the quaint and warm taste, how I wish I could walk on the streets of my hometown, and enjoy the spirit of lives with others.

There is a unique beauty of humanity in the eaves and tiles in the streets of Macau. It was built by the citizens in accordance with their real heart and enjoy the happiness brought by life. Perhaps over time, things will change. Macau's streets and markets will change over the years, but people will never forget that it is the breath of life that infiltrates people's hearts.