and it burns, it burns, it burns, it burns
There is a tapestry that has hung in the hall of my grandparents’ house since before I can remember. In it there are musicians, a grand lady in a chair carried by servants, men in horseback, and girls who watch from a second story window. There are characters written down the right side. And it is beautiful.
I remember when I was little and alone, while the adults talked downstairs of matters I didn’t care about or understand and I was supposed to be asleep, I would sit at the foot of it and stare upwards wondering what it meant. I assumed the tapestry to be Chinese, but that was as far as my guesses went. I could not read the inscription, understand the cultural significance of the clothing or procession, or even guess what the instruments they held would sound like. There was no information I had ever be exposed to in my life that would allow me to place it in some context.
So I understood it the only way I could, with my soul. I stared at their facial expressions and imagined a story for them. What their life was like, what they dreamed, what they felt. How they were related to each other, what secrets they whispered in the night, who they were. We were humans, bound together by common desires and needs. Though I could not speak their language or comprehend their culture, we were the same. We were beautiful.
All of my life I have felt that there is this whole other part of the world that goes largely unrecognized in the Western education. There is little mention of Asia in grade or high school history books or in most museums. You must seek out the “other”, the non-Western, all that which is deemed unworthy since it is farther away, since it has less of a history with “us”. I think all of my life I have been wishing to bridge that gap, to show how we are connected through history, through time and space, through our shared humanity. I think all of my life I have been wanting to really be able to understand and appreciate that tapestry. I hope someday I will.
I remember when I was little and alone, while the adults talked downstairs of matters I didn’t care about or understand and I was supposed to be asleep, I would sit at the foot of it and stare upwards wondering what it meant. I assumed the tapestry to be Chinese, but that was as far as my guesses went. I could not read the inscription, understand the cultural significance of the clothing or procession, or even guess what the instruments they held would sound like. There was no information I had ever be exposed to in my life that would allow me to place it in some context.
So I understood it the only way I could, with my soul. I stared at their facial expressions and imagined a story for them. What their life was like, what they dreamed, what they felt. How they were related to each other, what secrets they whispered in the night, who they were. We were humans, bound together by common desires and needs. Though I could not speak their language or comprehend their culture, we were the same. We were beautiful.
All of my life I have felt that there is this whole other part of the world that goes largely unrecognized in the Western education. There is little mention of Asia in grade or high school history books or in most museums. You must seek out the “other”, the non-Western, all that which is deemed unworthy since it is farther away, since it has less of a history with “us”. I think all of my life I have been wishing to bridge that gap, to show how we are connected through history, through time and space, through our shared humanity. I think all of my life I have been wanting to really be able to understand and appreciate that tapestry. I hope someday I will.