My Lifelong Passion Is Nature

 After a couple of years of playing flutes made of metal or plastic, I eventually switched back to bamboo flutes. I feel that bamboo flutes have some earthy characteristics that cannot be matched by flutes made of other materials, despite they have their own challenges, such as that pitch accuracy is harder to be achieved due to the natural variations of bamboo. Those natural variations, from another perspective, give unique features to each individual instrument, as if filling the musical instrument with a soul.

I am always keen to enjoy nature in the countryside, even though I grew up mainly in an urban area. I like the fresh air, the green mountains, the rivers, the insects, the animals, and even the soil, which are hard to see or touch if you are living in a city. When I was at university, I once saw photos from a classmate who was from a village in northwestern China. There was a small cottage in a mountainous area, with a lot of corns and chili peppers on the wall outside. All of them attracted me, but I was most interested in a bull sitting in front of the house. "Have you ridden on it?" I asked with full curiosity. I envied those who grew up in rural or mountainous areas, despite people said life was not easy there.

Especially when I was living in the university dormitory, I had a roommate who was from Guizhou Province, and he told me that he had to swim across a river to school when he was young. I felt it a bit scary and dangerous, but in my deeper mind I felt it was also romantic and attractive.

Throughout my childhood, I could only experience much of the country life during school holidays with my maternal grandma, who lived in a quiet village before moving to Hong Kong. Every morning, Grandma would take me to the marketplace to buy food for lunch and dinner, as well as to have breakfast in a restaurant. When we arrived home, I used to play under the star fruit tree near the house. I favoured the evening most, with a stunning starry night and sounds by insects and frogs. Usually, there would be grandpas and grandmas living nearby coming to our home to play dominoes. If not, Grandma would tell me lots of stories of the old days of her own life.

Twenty years ago, I went to Hong Kong to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma told me that, throughout her life, the happiest time was when she was living in her hometown village and I went to spend my school holidays there.

When I was young, I used to study painting from a book about Chinese Landscape Painting Techniques. There was a chapter about learning from nature. "Learning from nature" is still my principle of art practice, but it is not limited to painting. I applied it to music and literature too.

The opera The Peony Pavilion, written by Tang Xianzu is one of my favourite literature. In an episode, when the main character, Du Liniang, came to a garden in spring, she couldn't help but say, "My lifelong passion is nature!" And so is mine.