As I walked through the rows upon rows of household items (from the cracked ceramic plates situated against the faded plastic bags, to the empty tubes of toothpaste and ragged dolls) of wu jing qu yong/Waste Not, I was struck by how well the images of my own experience paralleled that of the artist. His description of his mother’s background, specifically of how quintessential it was of the generation living under communist rule, made sense of practices that I’ve ridiculed since I was young. I never fully understood the purpose of keeping those extra takeout containers or saving clothes that clearly could not be worn any longer. Criticizing the absurdity of retaining such useless materials never affected my parents either, as evident by their ambiguous retorts and growing piles of crap.
Despite my belief that these actions were characteristic only to my family, seeing the eclectic assortment of his mother’s collection settled something from all those years of questioning practice. Strangely reminiscent of my own home, he exposed that it was not limited to such.
I can now fully comprehend that the action to waste not serves as the remnants of the need for survival.
But I wonder sometimes if life would have been that bad for my parents if they had never left for America. Choice and a better life they always claim in their talks of life here. They say that they escaped communist rule as refugees but the paradox of such opportunity in the States is seemingly hidden in their stories of the “good” life of their respective home countries. What is the meaning of choice and a better life when those euphemisms are reflected in chasing the American dream in the form of hard intensive labor? There are times when the trade off seems unreasonable, but what in my wonderment is to guarantee that they would have had the good life if they had stayed? After my travels and seeing such communist countries inflicted with capitalist principles, I was left to reconsider the negative constructions of these places. But I am blind sighted in that 2009 is not the four decades ago and my position is not one of a native. Perhaps, my romanticized memories of Asia have finally gotten the better of me.
Ironic though, how a change in perspectives can change more than just the perspective.
