​小盒子  The Little Box

I have not met my parents in person for over two years since the pandemic worldwide forced people to accept the lockdowns. Local governments limited people to travel between different countries and regions, so all I had was only to see my parents’ faces and hear their voices through video. Since Covid-19 spread, the hate toward Chinese and Asian increased. Yet, when my parents mentioned that the news of Asian people being attacked in Australia made them anxious, I had to lie to comfort them by saying that the discrimination and violence against Chinese and Asian were merely exaggerations of the media.

 

In the past two years, when some cities were blocked in China, I was free in Melbourne; when Melbourne shut down, my parents and friends were back to everyday life. Recently, Melbourne has cancelled most of the limitations on people’s lives. On the other hand, cities in China faced lockdowns again. And I read both Chinese and English information on the internet. I care what happens in China and I can do nothing for helping my fellow citizens while I live in Melbourne where the things happened here around me and I do hope people in Australia would stay safe as well. Either the misunderstandings about life in China from Australians or about the situation in Australia from the Chinese made me feel terrible. It was really hard to convince myself that people are able to understand each other equally and rationally. Eventually, double information in two languages and countries tore my soul apart.

In May 2020, in the middle of the long-term lockdown in Melbourne, I took some selfies in my room, the little box. I selected four moments and edited them to be a square grid photo. Later, I duplicated the grid photo and finally put 150000 copies which symbolised 600000 moments in one layout. I am just a little point in the photo now. A human being is just a point in a spacious plane. One cannot figure out what is my appearance and how I felt in that little box by viewing this photo. I am not more than a colour block for viewers. Do I have a voice? Do I want people to recognise who I am? Is my feeling valuable? I cannot tell. However, at least I knew that outside of my room whether in Australia, China, or other areas tens of thousands of people like me were there. This massive yellow photo may be our answer as its colour already sold us out.

自从世界范围内的大流行病迫使人们接受封锁后，我已经两年多没有见到我的父母亲了。地方政府限制人们在不同国家和地区之间旅行，所以我所拥有的只是通过视频看到我父母的脸和听到他们的声音。自从Covid-19传播以后，针对华人和亚洲人的仇恨增加了。然而，当我父母提到亚洲人在澳大利亚受到攻击的消息让他们感到焦虑时，我不得不撒谎安慰他们，说对中国人和亚洲人的歧视和暴力只是媒体的夸大之词。

 

在过去的两年里，当中国的一些城市被封锁时，我在墨尔本是自由的；当墨尔本封闭时，我的父母和朋友又回到了日常生活中。最近，墨尔本已经取消了对人们生活的大部分限制。另一方面，中国的城市再次面临封锁。而我在互联网上同时阅读中文和英文信息。我关心中国发生的事情，但我无法帮助我的同胞，而我住在墨尔本，这里发生的事情就在我身边，我确实希望澳大利亚的人们也能保持安全。无论是澳大利亚人对中国生活的误解，还是中国人对澳大利亚情况的误解，都让我感觉很糟糕。我真的很难说服自己，人们能够平等、理性地理解对方。最终，两种语言和两个国家的双重信息将我的灵魂撕裂了。

2020年5月，在墨尔本的长期封城的中间，我在我的房间，也就是我住的那个小盒子里拍了一些自拍。之后，我选择了四个瞬间，并将它们编辑成一张四格照片。我复制了这张四格照片，最后把象征着60万个瞬间的15万份照片放在一个版面上。我现在只是照片上的一个小点。一个人只是一个巨大平面上的一个点。人们无法通过观看这张照片来弄清楚我的外貌和我在那个小盒子里是什么感觉。我不过是观众眼里的一个色块罢了。我有声音吗？ 我希望人们知道我是谁吗？我的感觉有价值吗？我无法回答。但是， 至少我知道在我的房间外面，无论是澳大利亚、中国还是别的地方，有成千上万像我一样的人。而这张巨大的黄色照片也许就是我们的答案，就像它的颜色已经出卖了我们。