Three daughters from China
This is the story of three generations of women in my family, my grandmother my mother and me. Three women, one lineage, the era makes the fortune, We love each other, but we can't take each other's fate instead. My grandmother and my mother are my role models in life.
Grandma 阿婆
My grandmother was born in 1940 in China. Her husband was a member of the People's Liberation Army and she had five children. Unfortunately, her husband died of illness when she was forty years old, and their oldest child was eighteen and the youngest was only six. She was left alone to bring up her five children against all odds. Only she knows how hard and difficult it was for her. Fortunately, her children are now very filial to her, and each of them is by her side. My grandmother never went to school and was completely illiterate because of the social and personal family circumstances at the time, but the Bible is the only book she could read. She was a devout Christian. She always had a smile on her face, a smile of peace and love, and her smile was so warm and unhurried. I loved the way she smiled. My grandmother taught me to be strong and independent and gentleness.
(Size: 30mm*40mm Painted by Tu Lin in 2024 in Munich)
Mama 妈妈
My Mama is born in 1972 in China. Her dad was a soldier who made her proud and her mother was a strong, independent working woman. She has four siblings and she is the fourth in the family. What she remembers most about her childhood was when her dad took her for horseriding, which was not an easy thing to do at that time, and she fell in love with it. Unfortunately, her dad died suddenly of an illness when she was eleven. Without her father, her mother had to go to the city with her older brothers and sisters to work to earn money, and she and her little sister were both fostered at her uncle's house to continue their schooling. The foster children were often bullied by other children, my mama fought back with the boys who bullied them. My mama dropped out of school after primary school and came to the city to find her mother. She was always hard working, independent and smart so when her older siblings got married she started supporting her mother and taking care of her sister at age 14. Later she met a man after many times split up and they got married. Her married life was not really happy, but she has a daughter and a son and her children are all she has. She endured the unhappy marriage so that her children could have a complete home. My mama taught me to be brave and to fight for my life and to be serious and diligent about my life. By the way, my mama is also a very romantic artist, she once told me she had a dream that she wants to bring her flute and sit on the rocks by the sea and perform with the waves. Fate is bitter, but she still has poetry and dream in her heart.
(Size: 30mm*40mm Painted by Tu Lin in 2024 in Munich)
Me 我
I was born in 1994, in a time of peace in China. I had a strict father and a lovely mother who always encouraged me and a naughty little brother. I have always felt blessed by my family, even though my childhood was full of domestic violence, I feel blessed when my family of four is together. I wondered how I would go about simply summarising my story. Well, let's just start with my education, my mama is my starter teacher who felt it was important to be educated, even though she didn't have a lot of education herself and she sent me to the best school in town. She loves music, so she sent me to piano and dance lessons besides schooling. But then she realised that what I really like was painting, and she sent me to study with a very famous local national artist. When my dad found out, he thought it was useless for me to study painting without taking school seriously. Dad locked me up at home and wouldn't let me attend painting classes, saying that it was too expensive and that if I didn't go to school seriously, I would have to drop out of school and go to work. Then, my mother invited my art teacher to home and let my teacher talked with my father, and later he accepted that I can continue to paint. Because of my mother's persistence, my hard work, and my belief that fate is in my own hand. I am now an artist with an overseas postgraduate degree. Thanks to my mother.
(Size: 30mm*40mm Painted by Tu Lin in 2024 in Munich)
Three daughters from China, three women of their time, who represent the strength, independence and confidence of women.
(Written by Tu Lin)