Time-Space Children

The series "Time-Space Children" was created to address a practical life issue, which is to maintain my own health and reduce my fear of getting sick. Specifically, I place a child in various scenarios, initially sense the child's feelings in the scene while drawing, and then turn the drawing into a physical photo, laminate it, and place it on my desk. I interact with the children in these images, experiencing my own feelings. Through interactions with the children in the images, I explore a kind of spatiotemporal relationship, because the children in the picture are myself as a child, and the background images of the drawings are all taken from photos I shot in different parts of the world at different stages of my life. I regard the boys and girls as the external manifestations of my inner child, exploring the possibility of solving problems retroactively in time and space.

Acquiring these two images of the boy and girl was quite challenging because they were in other people's houses. I don't have any photos of myself as a child at my place. The picture of the little girl is very small in the original photo because it's a group picture, and due to its age, it has become a bit mottled. I had it restored as much as possible through modern technology. The photo of the little boy was sent to me by my uncle via phone, and I haven't even received the original photo. This little boy was also restored and colored with modern technology. These two photos are the youngest and most complete photos from my childhood that I could find.

The little boy was probably photographed when I was three to four years old. At that time, I felt very happy every day. That kind of happiness was instinctive, a carefree joy from within. The villagers where I stayed at that time were all very friendly to me, and the only threat I faced was the presence of my mother.

The little girl was about five to six years old, which was the most terrifying period of my childhood. I am puzzled by this girl. Although she was only five to six years old, she perceived herself as an old child because she believed she had wrinkles on her forehead (whether this was true, I don't know now), so she considered herself old. Once, she heard an unfriendly young man call her an old child, and she further affirmed this identity. Once when she was sick, her mother held her while other doctors examined her with a stethoscope. The physical little girl was scared and cried, but the old child found it strange. Why would a physical little girl be scared to tears by a stethoscope that poses no threat? The old child found the physical little girl's crying behavior very strange, almost incomprehensible. But the old child was unable to persuade the physical little girl not to cry. This incident is the earliest memory related to the experience of spiritual-physical dissociation in my memory.

I surmise that the little girl's self-identification as an 'old child' was deeply connected to her experiences at that time. Let's take a look at her life scenes: Scene one, since my aunt was a midwife, the girl often ran under the delivery bed, witnessing the process of human birth countless times. She was never troubled by the question of where she came from. Scene two, after doctors performed abortions, she would see them come out holding a dirty bucket full of blood. Therefore, her goal at the time was to witness the entire process of an abortion. Scene three, at that time, food was extremely scarce in Country G. To ensure that we had eggs to eat, my mother would raise chickens herself, which of course included hatching chicks. However, for some unknown reason, we would sometimes encounter many eggs that didn't hatch but instead became dead embryos. The embryos inside these eggs had already formed, their tiny feathers had already grown, and they looked quite terrifying. Due to the severe food shortage, these edible dead chick embryos absolutely couldn't be wasted. My mother's approach was to ask me to chop these dead chick embryos into pieces, then stir-fry them with normal eggs. The task of chopping the dead embryos was so horrific that my mother didn't dare to do it herself, so she had me do it. At that time, I was still very young and couldn't even reach the height of the table, so I had to stand on a tall stool. Moreover, the heavy cleaver used to chop the dead embryos was too heavy for me at that time, and I had to hold the knife with both hands to lift it. Each time I chopped a new dead chick embryo, my first cut would fall in the middle, and the yet-to-be-formed egg yolk would flow out from the dead chick's stomach. The scene was a bit scary, but the 'old child' remained calm and showed no fear at all. To be honest, if I were to face such a scene now, I wouldn't have the courage to even glance at it. Scene four, at that time in Country G, there was a kind of injection similar to a tonic, named placenta tissue fluid. According to my mother, the effective ingredients in this injection were extracted from the human placenta. Hence, she thought that eating the human placenta directly would be even more beneficial for the body. Therefore, she asked all the midwives she was in business with to deliver all the placentas from the babies they delivered to our home. From my memory, the appearance of the human placenta was truly terrifying. The entire placenta was bloodied, covered in green veins. My mother would use scissors to cut these veins, and then squeeze the placenta by hand to let the blood inside flow out as much as possible. The human placenta carried an extremely nauseating smell. When boiling it, a lot of foam would rise, so I had to stay by its side to prevent the foam from overflowing and extinguishing the fire. The human placenta was the most shrinkable meat I had ever seen, and it had a powdery texture when eaten, accompanied by a nauseating taste. From 1971 to 1972, our family had to eat this disgusting placenta almost every few days. In truth, I was afraid to eat the placenta, but out of fear of being scolded by my mother, I would reluctantly take a few bites. Scene five, due to the prevalence of rats, we kept a cat at home. The cat would often only eat half a rat and leave the rest behind, so the little girl often had to crawl under the bed to clean up the rat remains. Scene six, at that time, there were just too many dogs in the village. Every few days, villagers would die of rabies, and many dogs were aggressive, even often chasing after children. Therefore, how to fight against fierce dogs and protect oneself from harm was a very realistic and challenging survival task for the 'old child'. This is also why I am still very afraid of dogs to this day. By revisiting these six scenes that are still vivid in my memory, I believe there is some truth in the little girl considering herself as an 'old child', as her activities did indeed seem mismatched with her age.

My fear of falling ill is not a pathological one, like a compulsive fear triggered by certain sounds in the past. This fear is a normal human fear, derived from my real-life experiences. The first experience that had a profound impact on my life and worldview was the second car accident, which occurred on the morning of August 4, 1991, at around seven o'clock. I don't know the exact location because I don't have any memory of the period during the accident. When I wanted to ask about the specific location later, I was told it would be unlucky to do so, so I stopped asking. That day was a Sunday, just over four months after my first car accident, which had happened on March 31, 1991. The vehicle was a 12-seater. According to the traffic police, I was thrown out at a speed of over 130 kilometers per hour and landed over 100 meters away. This was what I was told, but I still wonder if 100 meters might have been an overstatement. Anyway, the car was going along, as if about to take off, and then it flipped over on its own without colliding with any other vehicles. It was a serious accident. I was sitting near the door and was the first to be thrown out. One of the passengers sitting behind me died on the spot, and another became vegetative. I suffered a comminuted fracture near the shoulder joint of my left hand, and you could hear the creaking sound of bones when I walked. Moreover, all the body parts above my abdomen turned black and blue due to severe soft tissue contusions. As a result, I couldn't sleep continuously for more than two hours - every two hours of sleep was followed by a few tens of minutes of sitting up. Thus, my deepest memory of the first car accident is the severe lack of sleep caused by pain.

The second car accident occurred when I was on my way to see a renowned folk orthopedist to treat my still-uncured left shoulder joint from the first accident. The car collided with a taxi crossing the intersection, once again overturning, and I was thrown out of the car at a speed of over 130 kilometers per hour. The car model involved in this accident was the same as the one in my first accident, from the same brand, and I was sitting in the same position. As it was summer, my exposed skin came into intimate contact with the road concrete. I was stopped by a pile of garbage by the roadside. Large areas of flesh, devoid of skin, were mangled and raw. Large amounts of coal cinders from the garbage pile ended up being taken to the hospital with me. In the hospital corridor, I faintly heard people around me saying, "This person definitely won't make it." In the emergency room, I must have been half-naked, as all my clothes were torn. The doctor must have covered me with a piece of cloth or something similar, but that light layer of fabric felt like thousands of pounds to me because I was finding it extremely difficult to breathe. I "knew" that I definitely wouldn't survive past 11 o'clock. I was acutely aware that my soul was about to leave my body. I also sensed another space in the emergency room where I was about to go. The distance between me and that space seemed to be just a thin membrane. It was a flat space, somewhat gray-black in existence, but that kind of grayness is impossible to describe because such a shade does not exist in our realm. I "knew" I was about to go there and thought of myself as a "wandering ghost". At the same time, I sensed the existence of another space above me, as if there was a passage going upwards, but I didn't know what this space looked like. I only knew that those who believe in God could go there. At that moment, a line from Dante's "Inferno" surfaced in my mind: "The worst part of hell is that there is no hope." During my freshman and sophomore years, I read novels based on the representative works listed in the "History of European Literature," so I had read 80-90% of the novels and poems from literature history. To this day, I cannot fathom why this line from Dante's work sprang to my mind. This line truly terrified me as I was dying, because it made me think of terms like "forever" and "infinite". To avoid the unknown enormous risks, I told God: "If I survive this time, I will definitely become a believer."

I later deeply regretted the deal I made with God, because I didn't know at the time that, according to doctrine, last-minute repentance before death could also lead to heaven. So, what I asked of God was to survive. Later, my perspective was that being in heaven is definitely happier than living in this world. I wasted an opportunity amidst the immense pain of being on the brink of death. I was covered in wounds then, but the doctors did not do anything about them. They thought those were minor issues and that other checks had to be done first to ensure I had a chance of survival before treating the wounds. I was not transferred to the ward until around noon, when the doctors cleaned my wounds with iodine. A tear on my lip was also treated at that time, so now I have a noticeable scar on my lip. Due to the severe damage to my skin all over my body, only the intact skin on the back of my right hand could be used for intravenous drips. Because my right hand was constantly being used for drips, the doctors failed to notice a wound on the inside of my right hand, so it was not cleaned. A few days later, they discovered that the wound had rotted to the extent that the blood vessels were clearly visible. This area also left a very noticeable scar. As for the inside of my right arm, the coal cinders that weren't cleaned in time were encapsulated by the healing skin. Even now, there are still traces of black coal cinders on the inside of my right arm.

After examining me, the doctors concluded that my head and lungs were the most severely injured. I had a concussion and my lung function was significantly reduced. They said that I was at risk of dying at any time within a week. I was fully conscious at the time, acutely aware of the intense pain all over my body, but I didn't even have the strength to move a finger. I was also unable to speak, firstly because I was completely out of energy, and secondly because the injuries in my mouth were severe. I used to have a set of neatly arranged, flawless teeth that many people envied, but several of my front teeth were knocked out and damaged. My entire mouth was full of wounds, so I lost the ability to speak normally. To express my thoughts, my ex-husband would bring his ear close to my mouth, and I would muster all my strength to hum a few words for him to guess their meaning. This was a terrifying experience that I will never forget, of a fully conscious soul trapped in a body that couldn't communicate with the outside world. Because my injuries were severe, I almost needed 24-hour care, and we didn't have enough people at home, so my ex-husband hired a helper at an exorbitant price to help with the shifts. The intense pain prevented me from sleeping. My ex-husband knew that if someone lightly touched my right hand where the drip was, it could lessen my pain, so he asked the highly paid helper to do so. The helper, seeing no family members around me, soon fell asleep on my hospital bed. I was furious, but I couldn't speak. The sense of helplessness when my soul lost connection with the outside world is indescribable. Much of my current fear of illness stems from this horrific life experience. The ultimate human fear of death disappeared from my life a long time ago because I know that death is just a return to God. Only illness is a real threat.

Due to being in intensive care, the nurses would pry open my eyelids every two hours to check if my pupils had dilated, which is a sign of death, so during that critical week, it was impossible for me to get a good night's sleep. However, I was well aware that the most dangerous time for me was the night after the accident. That night, my mind was extremely confused. As soon as I closed my eyes, I would forget who I was, forgetting my name and the experiences associated with it. So even though I was very tired, I had to strive to keep my eyes open and remember my name and its connection to my body. The desperation of trying my utmost to remember myself, even now, sends shivers down my spine when I recall it.

On the morning of the third day, when I woke up, it felt as if a breeze had swept across my mind, and I suddenly felt clear-headed. My intuition told me that I had distanced myself from death. These very clear experiences made me realize that animals, including humans, indeed have the ability to foresee their own life or death. In the following days, the intense pain from my wounds made me truly understand what it means to be "in so much pain that one wishes to die". The pain from extensive skin damage is indeed unbearable for ordinary people. I once asked myself a question: if the wound is so painful, what would I do if I could move freely? The answer I gave myself was: "Jump from the building immediately to end my life". Because it was such a severe accident, almost all of my colleagues and friends came to the hospital to visit me. But I was very confused at the time, wondering why no one came up to me? Why were they all just looking from a distance? Why didn't my best colleague come to visit me? The answers to these questions didn't come until I returned to work. On the morning of the accident, all the examinations were carried out with the help of two young male colleagues in their twenties. After these two colleagues returned to the office, they couldn't eat a bite of lunch and kept vomiting, all because my appearance was too bloody. My closest female colleague was scared and so she didn't dare to visit me. In my second car accident, I spent a full two months in the hospital. Although my wounds were well cared for, due to the severe skin damage, scars were left all over my body, from head to toe. Another serious consequence was that I developed a phobia of cars. I was afraid to go on the road or take a ride, because as soon as I got on the road, I would feel that all the vehicles were heading towards me and about to hit me. It took me more than a decade to relearn how to cross the road and ride in a vehicle. The difficulty of this process is completely indescribable, and this is also why the theme of "tree bark" (in the praise series) moved me so much.

The gift that my second car accident gave me was a firm belief in the existence of the soul, a faith in God, and from then on, a fascination with exploring multi-dimensional spaces. I would read articles on quantum mechanics, although I often didn't understand most of them. Articles and videos about souls, near-death experiences, and the like were my favorite. I also carefully read most of the books in the Seth series. I was fascinated by Seth's description of multi-dimensional spaces. He said that some spaces are right in your living room, but they are farther away than the moon is from the earth, suggesting that some spaces are nested. This was consistent with the sense of space I experienced when I was near death, and it also explained a strange incident that occurred in my bedroom. One day in the early morning, when I was changing the batteries in my flashlight, I tore open a pack of four batteries too forcefully, causing all the batteries to fall under the desk in the bedroom (as shown in the picture).