Jaffa Lam • Looking For My Family Story
林嵐 • 尋找家史
17/7/2015 - 23/8/2015
Lumenvisum, L2-10 JCCAC, No. 30 Pak Tin Street, Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon
九龍石硤尾白田街30號賽馬會創意藝術中心L2-10光影作坊
開幕酒會 Opening Reception 17.07.2015 (五 Fri) 6 - 8 pm
藝術家講座 Artist‘s Talk 01.08.2015 (六 Sat) 3 - 4:30 pm
展覽日期 Exhibition Period 18.07 - 23.08.2015
林嵐不擅長以影像去表達想法，偶然一試，才知道原來自己一直質疑相片的真實性。
【尋找家史】是根據真實事件、口述、想像和疑似記錄所組成的圖像，對照出藝術家所願意相信的家史記錄。她選取父母不同年代的相片，來對應截錄自互聯網的大時代小圖片。搜索的關鍵詞是她對那相片的好奇點，希望尋找一個答案來解答她對那個時代的疑問。一個個別人的回憶記錄串起了民間的社會記憶，一些官方的檔案似是而非在述說。幾個關鍵詞的輸入將茫如瀚海的互聯網抽空，只剩下那相關又再相連接的圖片選擇，歷史的重組竟在彈指之間輕易完成。
以窗扇的對照形式，家人和互聯網截錄出來的大時代下生活化的圖片，在微光下變成一幕幕電影截影，像是拿起放大鏡去看那些無謂的時代細節，嘗試尋找和了解改寫家人命運前因後果的蛛絲馬跡。
由小史去重新思考大歷史、以至身邊所存在的人和事，少了一點殘酷，多了一點抽離，更多了一分浪漫。
Jaffa Lam is not well versed in expressing herself in photography. In her first ever attempt with this medium, the artist realised she has always felt doubtful about its veracity.
“Looking For My Family Story” is a photographic collage put together according to facts, oral histories, imaginations and pseudo-archives, to explicate a family history that the artist is willing to believe in. Her parents’ old photographs are juxtaposed with their contemporaries - images of everyday life in those tumultuous times retrieved from the Internet. Throughout the search, Curiosity is the keyword, the point in the image that triggers her questions concerning the period, setting off her pursuit for the answer. Recollections from individuals form society’s memories, while the official documents utter ostensible truths. The enormous Internet can be emptied by a certain few keywords, with the scanty remaining options relinked and interlinked. In a mere few clicks, the task of reconstructing history is completed.
Presented in windowpane-like format in a room dimly lit, the Lam family pictures and the Internet images are transformed scene by scene into a cinematic storyboard. As if with a magnifier, the artist puts the frivolous details of her family history under scrupulous scrutiny, painstakingly tracing the bits and pieces of the events that veered the course of her family’s destiny.
Rethinking the grand national history through the small personal ones as well as the people and things around us, we have come to appreciate history with less apathy, less attachment, and more romances.
左上： 攝於1927 年左右，父親的養母結婚前，約十四、五嵗，旁為其母及兄嫂 。
搜索關鍵詞： 1911 年中國婦女腳
右上： 民國時期的女生，身著新潮校服，文藝風範十足。
來源：http://chongqu.wang/a/yls/2015/0130/1111.html
左下： 隨父親送給養父母的家傳銅盆，盆底實物掃描 。父親生於1943 年。
搜索關鍵詞： 國民政府遷都重慶
右下： 1937 年11 月，國民政府主席林森到達重慶。
來源：http://dangshi.people.com.cn/n/2015/0429/c85037-26922638.html
相傳林森是父親生母的親戚。父親生父本在南京身居要職，卻沒有追隨國民政府到重慶， 反而回到故鄉福建長樂。後家道中落，孩子送給林家撫養。
Upper Left: C. 1927. Father’s adoptive mother at 14 or 15, with her mother, brother and sister-in-law. Taken before she got married.
Search Keyword: Chinese woman feet 1911
Upper Right: Girls during the Republic days, wearing new style of school uniform.
Source: http://chongqu.wang/a/yls/2015/0130/1111.html
Lower Left: Scanned image of the bottom of the copper basin, an heirloom given along with Father to his adoptive parents.
Father was born in 1943.
Search Keyword: National Government retreated to Chongqing
Lower Right: Chairman of the National Government Lin Sen arrived in Chongqing in November 1937.
Source: http://dangshi.people.com.cn/n/2015/0429/c85037-26922638.html
It is said that Lin Sen was a relative of Father’s biological mother. Father’s biological father used to hold a high office in the Nanjing government, but he did not follow it to Chongqing; instead he returned to his home in Changle, Fujian. Then came the family downfall, and Father was given away to the Lam family.
左上： 約攝於 1947 年，父親四、五嵗時，隨其養父舉家到緬甸打工。
左下： 爺爺親手打造的蚊帳銀鈎。
搜索關鍵詞： 五十年代在緬甸的中國人
右上： 緬甸總理吳努到仰光機場迎接周恩來總理訪問緬甸。
來源：http://www.zgzzs.com.cn/show.asp?id=10703
右中： 〈中緬邊界和解幕後〉文字摘錄
來源： http://www.zgzzs.com.cn/show.asp?id=10703
右下： 圖中美軍影射麥卡錫。
來源： http://news.21cn.com/history/tushuolishi/a/2014/1008/15/28341533.shtml
Upper Left: C. 1947. Father was 4 or 5 then. He later went with his adoptive parents to Burma.
Lower Left: Silver mosquito net straps handmade by Grandpa.
Search Keyword: Chinese people in Burma in 1950s
Upper Right: Prime Minister of Burma U Nu receiving Premier Zhou Enlai at Yangon Airport.
Source: http://www.zgzzs.com.cn/show.asp?id=10703
Mid Right: Behind the Scenes of the Settlement of the Sino-Burmese Boundary Dispute
Reported by Shi Zhaokun
“During the negotiations of the China-Burma border in the 1950s, Zhou Enlai raised the principle of ‘Mutual Understanding and Tolerance’ in removing the differences between the two sides. Stated Zhou, ‘This is not only our basis in resolving the Chinese-Burmese border issues, the same will be adopted in our border disputes negotiations with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, USSR, Mongolia, North Korea and Vietnam.’”
Source: http://www.zgzzs.com.cn/show.asp?id=10703
Lower Right: The American soldier caricatured is an insinuation of Joseph McCarthy.
“The Chinese people will neither tolerate foreign invasion nor the Imperialist attack on our neighbouring countries ”
Source: http://news.21cn.com/history/tushuolishi/a/2014/1008/15/28341533.shtml
左： 攝於1956年，母親與姨母的小學畢業相片。鄉下沒有中學，聽說福州有間華僑中學，專收僑生，祖父從福清連夜騎著連煞掣都沒有的破單車，趕了整整一天山路，送母親去碰機會。
搜索關鍵詞： 1956 福州華僑中學
右： 華僑中學校歌歌譜
來源：http://chsbp.net.my/html/2010/chs_wg_1011/1414.html
Left: Mother and Aunt’s primary school graduation photo, taken in 1956. There was no secondary school in rural Fuqing. Grandpa heard that there was one for overseas Chinese students in Fuzhou. Overnight, he drove Mother on his broken bike with no brakes for one whole day, all the way over hills to Fuzhou to try their luck.
Search Keyword: Fuzhou Overseas Chinese Secondary School 1956
Right: Score of the school song of Fuzhou Overseas Chinese Secondary School.
Source: http://chsbp.net.my/html/2010/chs_wg_1011/1414.html
左： 攝於1961 年，母親與姨母的初中畢業照。
搜索關鍵詞： 1961 年，家庭成份，中國大學試
右： 〈六十年代的「接班人計劃」〉文字摘錄
來源：http://history.huanqiu.com/china/2015-03/5878879.html
Left: Mother and Aunt’s junior high graduation picture. Taken in 1961.
Search Keyword Family class origin, university admission exam 1961
Right: The “Leadership Succession Scheme” in the 1960s “Mao Zedong raised for the first time the issue of leadership succession at the Central Committee Work Conference on 8th June 1964. Mao said during his speech, ‘This message has to be relayed to every team, group, and province. How can you not train your successors? Now all those holding offices are elderly, and they just won’t give them up to the younger generation. Yet, into each life some rain must fall. A party cadre must always have the next, second-next, and third-next in line ready. You cannot fall scattered when one dies.’”
Source: http://history.huanqiu.com/china/2015-03/5878879.html
左上： 攝於1962 年。母親因地主家庭身份無法考上大學，被分配到做小學教師。
左下： 攝於1962年。爺爺獨自留在緬甸賺錢養家，奶奶和父親回國，正值大饑荒年。父親說奶奶捨不得吃自己的那份肉票，讓給他吃，但那仍是他最瘦時的相片。父親的身份評級很好，是勞動工人。
搜索關鍵詞： 1962 年中國的小學教育政策
右上： 宣傳海報，來自〈那些上山下山的年輕人〉
來源：http://www.21ccom.net/plus/view.php?aid=117331
右下： 〈人民公社的公共物品供給：集體主義的脆弱性〉文字摘錄
來源：http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/issue/articles/099_0606052.pdf
Upper Left: Taken in1962. Mother due to her landowner family status was unable to sit for university admission exam. She was sent to be a primary school teacher instead.
Lower left: Taken in 1962. Grandma and Father returned to China while Grandpa stayed working in Burma to support the family. It was during the Great Famine. Father said Grandma would save her ration of meat coupon for him. Yet it was the time when he was thinnest. He fared well in his class assessment and was assigned a working class status.
Search Keyword: China primary education policy 1962
Upper Right: A propaganda poster, with the article Those Young Men Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Mao Zedong quoted in the picture, “It is highly necessary for the young and educated to go to the villages to be reeducated by the poor peasants. We have to persuade the party cadres and other people in the city to send away their children of junior high, high school and university education, and to organise them for a ‘great mobilisation.’ The comrades in the rural area shall welcome them.”
Source: http://www.21ccom.net/plus/view.php?aid=117331
Lower Right: The Public Supply in The People’s Commune: The Fragility of Collectivism, by Liu Qingle “After 1962, education in rural areas took a more pragmatic turn. In 1964, Mao Zedoing in his significant ‘Jia Chen Talk’ criticised the negligence towards providing education in rural areas. In the Cultural Revolution that followed, his ideas of ‘education must serve proletarian politics,’ ‘must be combined with agricultural and working labour forces’ and ‘must target the rural areas’ became the ‘highest instructions’ and were carried out down to the last detail. A vast number of intellectuals and educated youths were sent down to the rural countryside, where they in turn became an ample supply of human resources. […] In the minutes of the meeting of the Fengyang Province Committee on the 29th of September, 1966, there is such a note on the junior high school admission of that year: The children of Hao XX, and Li XX have very good grades. However, both Hao and Li are currently being persecuted in struggle sessions. To accept them or not (resolution: yes). The son of Chen XX and the children of an active learner of Mao’s literature from Mentai failed in all subjects. Accepted as special cases.”
Source: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ics/21c/issue/articles/099_0606052.pdf
左： 母親在華僑大學醫學院上課的情況。
搜索關鍵詞： 印尼歸僑學生，1965 年
右上： 1960 年8 月底載，著在印尼遭受逼害、流離失所的1600 多名歸僑的「俄羅斯號」輪船登 船證牌。
來源：http://www.qiao-you.com/index.php/article/detail/uid/10421.html
右二： 光華輪，接印尼僑生回中國的輪船。
來源：http://www.qiao-you.com/index.php/article/detail/uid/14809.html
右三： 建國初年，歸國的華僑青少年在回中國的海輪上
來源：http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_649f7a400102vdjz.html
右下： 1958 年，接印尼僑生的基望意號輪船離開雅加達，返回中國前的照片
來源：http://www.qiao-you.com/index.php/article/detail/uid/14809.html
Left: Mother having class, at the medical school of Huaqiao University.
Search Keyword: Indonesian Chinese students 1965
Top Right: The boarding pass of the cruiser “The Russian,” carrying over 1600 Indonesian Chinese being purged and displaced in Indonesia to China, in late August 1960.
Source: http://www.qiao-you.com/index.php/article/detail/uid/10421.html
Upper Mid Right: The cruiser “Guanghua” carrying the Indonesian Chinese people to China.
Source: http://www.qiao-you.com/index.php/article/detail/uid/14809.html
Lower Mid Right: Young overseas Chinese getting on board for China, in the early days of the New China.
Source: http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_649f7a400102vdjz.html
Bottom Right: The liner Tjiwangi with overseas Chinese on board, taken before its departure from Jakarta to China in 1958.
Source: http://www.qiao-you.com/index.php/article/detail/uid/14809.html
左、右： 父母結婚前的單人照。
搜索關鍵詞： 不同家庭成份婚姻
中： 〈學歷與身份：特定時空下的鏈接〉文字摘錄
來源：http://www.nisd.cass.cn/upload/2012/12/d20121224190825247.pdf
Left, Right: Mother and Father, before they got married.
Search Keyword: Marriage between families of different class status
Middle: Academic Qualification and Identity: Their Correlations in Different Time-spaces
“Before China’s reform and opening-up, it had long followed strictly the ‘Class Theory’. ‘Chengfen’, short for ‘jiating chengfun’, was one of the most frequently used terms after the establishment of PRC and before the opening-up. It refers to one’s social status and class assignment, determined by one’s early life experiences, occupation, and family economic status. It looks like any other fields in one’s curriculum vita, but the effect it has on one’s destiny is mammoth. Under the influence of the ‘Class Struggle as the Key’ campaign, throughout one’s important life events, be it study, army admission and promotion, or joining the Party and promotion within, Class is always the determining factor. Family background and class status as a direct reflection of the Class Alliance Strategy is an essential, or even the decisive factor, when forming lines and teams.”
Source: http://www.nisd.cass.cn/upload/2012/12/d20121224190825247.pdf
左： 1968 年，父母的結婚照
搜索關鍵詞： 1968 年中國婚姻觀
右： 文字錄自〈中國人50 年擇偶之變：從政治決定一切到多元之愛〉
來源：http://www.china.com.cn/culture/weekend/2008-02/15/content_9943000_6.htm
Left: Wedding picture of my parents, 1968.
Search Keyword: Chinese views on marriage 1968
Right: The Changes in the Criteria of Choosing Partner in China in the Last 50 Years: From Politically Determined to Pluralism.
“During the 1950s, marrying a soldier or a Party member is a decision for political safety.” Party members, or poor peasants who had impeccable pro-Party credentials were highly favoured upon as partners during 1950s to 1960s. In those days, everybody worshipped heroes and model workers.
The harm that Cultural Revolution had done to our generation could be described as ‘tragic’. Many have no idea what the chastity and passion of love is because of that. In those days, everything is politically motivated and tied to national interests. Personal feelings were something to be ashamed of.”
Source: http://www.china.com.cn/culture/weekend/2008-02/15/content_9943000_6.htm
左上： 1969 年，第一個孩子出生了。
左中： 1973 年，我，第二個孩子，可惜不是男的。
搜索關鍵詞： 1969 年中國家庭觀
右上： 〈中國的計劃生育〉文字摘錄
來源：http://news.xinhuanet.com/zhengfu/2002-11/15/content_630929.htm
右中： 〈中國各個時代的美女標準〉文字摘錄
來源：http://entertainments.dwnews.com/big5/news/2013-12-08/59355087-all.html
右下： 圖片示範了1960-1969 年的美麗標準。
來源：http://entertainments.dwnews.com/big5/news/2013-12-08/59355087-all.html
Top Left: 1979, the first child of the family was born.
Middle Left: 1973, me, the second child. Such a disappointment that I am not a boy.
Search Keyword: 1969 Chinese family value
Top Right: Family Planning in China “In the 1960s, China had seen the second upward slope in its population curve ever since New China was established. From 1962 to 1972, the number of births in China was 26,690 thousands annually, an increment of 3 billion in total. In 1969, the Chinese population exceeded 8 billion. As population rose, many problems in economy, society, resources and environment began to surface in 1960s. In view of that, the Government had called for planned pregnancy and the use of contraceptive means. But as the impact of population growth was not yet entirely felt, and there was still no clear population policy from the government, the family planning scheme had not been effectively carried out throughout the country.”
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/zhengfu/2002-11/15/content_630929.htm
Middle Right: The Standard of Beautiful Woman in China in Different Times
1960-1969: The standard of beauty: Manlier than men. The Sixties is a time of standardization, to the point that there was no differentiation between the two sexes. The relationship between men and women was simplified as ‘comrades,’ ‘allies,’ and ‘class associates.’ Beautiful women were described by phrases such as ‘Iron Girls’ Team,’ and ‘Female Oil Drilling Team.’
Source: http://entertainments.dwnews.com/big5/news/2013-12-08/59355087-all.html
Bottom Right: Models of Beauty 1960-1969
Source: http://entertainments.dwnews.com/big5/news/2013-12-08/59355087-all.html
左： 母親和當時醫院的同事，從事醫務工作是母親一生最引以為傲的事，亦是改變其父母生活 的唯一方法。
搜索關鍵詞： 1972 年中國醫生收入
右上： 湯沐黎畫作〈針刺麻醉〉
來源：http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/book.aspx?cid=2&tid=2834&pid=6967
右下： 〈針刺麻醉〉畫作簡介摘錄
來源：http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/book.aspx?cid=2&tid=2834&pid=6967
Left: Mother and her colleagues in hospital. Having been a doctor was something Mother is most proud of. It also used to be the only way to improve her parents’ livelihood.
Search Keyword: Doctor’s income in China 1972
Upper Right: The old painting Anaesthesia with Acupuncture by Tang Muli, 1972
Source: http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/book.aspx?cid=2&tid=2834&pid=6967
Lower Right: Tang Muli on Anaesthesia with Acupuncture
“In the propaganda paintings at that time, all people regardless of age or sex would be painted red-skinned. There would be hanging in the background propaganda items such as ‘Quotations from Chairman Mao,’ badges with Mao’s image, slogans, etc. Tang and his team had considered whether to put the little red book inside the doctors and nurses’ pockets, or to paint the face of the patient bright red. However, the painting is basically blue in tone, with the clean bright blue ceramic tiles forming a blue background. Red would be at odd with the sense of calmness and peace the picture conveys. Furthermore, operation theatre is a strictly sterilized environment. Someone carrying a little red book in the pocket does not fit with reality.”
Source: http://mjlsh.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/book.aspx?cid=2&tid=2834&pid=6967
左： 1984 年母親獨自先來港，臨行前與父親的合照。
搜索關鍵詞： 1984 年香港
右： 1984 年12 月19 日中共總理趙紫陽與英國首相戴卓爾夫人簽署《中英聯合聲明》
來源：http://www.secretchina.com/news/14/12/18/563042.html
Left: 1984, Mother first came to Hong Kong alone, photographed with Father before her departure.
Search Keyword: 1984 Hong Kong
Right: Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration on 19 December, 1984.
Source: http://www.secretchina.com/news/14/12/18/563042.html
