From the time I was in elementary school, my father went to work in a city far away. I lived with my mother and grandmother, and I grew up in an environment that lacked a male identity. I don't think this was a bad thing, but the lack of a father in my childhood also affected me. Because I was used to living with women in my life, I mostly played with girls at school. Gradually, I became unfamiliar with men, not to resist, but to feel that I could not talk with them or play with them. I fought and was afraid of things that boys liked or were good at. For example, I wouldn't say I liked gym class. Although I was able to achieve good results, I was very unconfident in the process.
In addition to spending time with my mom and grandmother, occasionally, my aunt would pick me up and take me to her house to play. Her neighbors saw me as very shy and always jokingly said I looked like a little girl. My aunt would also bring girls' cards and accessories, which I thought was pretty funny at the time.
My mother and I moved to live with my father in junior high school in the city where he worked. That was the first time I started living with my father permanently. Before that, I usually saw my father twice a year, and he doted on me every time I saw him, but I still felt quite distant from him. Because my entire childhood was almost devoid of my father's company, my personality and perceptions gradually took shape, so I didn't change much after we started living together. And living with my father also created some friction, and we often argued for a while. However, after that, we all gradually became familiar with this new family environment.
When I was in kindergarten, I lived in a large yard. Because the neighbours are friendly, I often play with a brother ten years older than me.
I remember it was the hottest time in summer. He took me to his house to play,
and I went happily. In my impression, the windows of his house were tiny, and it was very dim even during the daytime. He closed the door quietly and blocked me in a corner with his body. He said he wanted to make a fun game with me. Then he took off his pants and let me hold his private parts. At the time, I couldn't know what
this behaviour meant, but my instinct felt it was dirty and strange, it was not fun,
so I was unwilling to do it. However, he repeatedly persuaded me to do so. Then,
he asked me to suck it. I couldn't help but nauseated. He didn't feel like want to end this "game", so he took out ice water from the refrigerator for me to drink, which can eliminate my irritability and restlessness. After that, he continued this "game" until the end.
He warned me not to mention it to anyone, and this glass of ice water became the keyword for him to continue this "game". On a hot summer afternoon, "Come and get some iced water" becomes his safe word for sexually assaulting me.
This memory seemed like automatically erased from my memory for a long time. It was not that I intentionally forgot, but the meaning of "sexual assault" still didn't arise in my immature mind. But after I knew the definition of "sex" when I became older, I equated the incident that happened in the vague memory with sexual assault.
In this project, I use the first wall to represent my childhood period. The lollipop on the wall alludes to male organs, and I use tape to refer to the oppression I suffered at that time.
Since elementary school, I've been given girly nicknames, some of them harsh, some of them perhaps not so malicious. But these nicknames have always been with me growing up.
At school, some of my classmates maliciously gave me nicknames, and then everyone would tease me. But for reasons of my character, I never said anything either and had to suffer in silence. When I got to middle school, the situation became even worse. Some boy students would directly call me by these nicknames and then even threaten to beat me up. Although I didn't suffer physical violence until I graduated, the verbal violence and intimidation never stopped. In high school, I became more and more outgoing and got to know most of my guy classmates around me pretty well. But in the process of getting along with them, they would occasionally call me gay in a joking way. Although I knew they were joking, it made me understand their opinion of me and their attitudes. These experiences have made me feel like there has always been some distance between straight boys and me.
Due to the lack of father's company for a long time, my mother's education of me played a leading role in my childhood. Her strict discipline gradually formed her strong character. In school, almost all of my friends are female. Besides, I would easily rely on and like the boys who got along with me. Perhaps the reason why I grew up in the female environment made me gradually build partial female thinking.
When I was in junior high school, my mother found that I had a close relationship with a boy and admitted that I liked boys under her repeated questioning. But the behaviour at that time caused her sadness and anger. I remember when she told me that, "boy and boy could only be good bros". At that time, my mother and I had a cold war. Finally, we chose a traditional way of communication to reconcile. I spent that helpless and awkward time to talk with her by letters. I didn't dare to mention my sexual identity to anyone in my family after that. And I collected the letters into the cartons where I didn't remember.
So the second part of my work represents my juvenile. I sealed the letter in the wall and wrapped it in cardboard at the outermost layer: my initial self-awareness and my first experience of telling secrets to my family but being rejected.
But I always try to find the lost carton in my memory and tear it up, but I find that the exposed box is still a crack that has not been filled and a letter that has no meaning as a white paper.
Because most of my friends at school are girls, I cherish my close male friends. I had two guys who played very close to me during my middle school and high school years. But as time went on, my feelings for them would naturally change, and I wanted us to be more than just regular friends. But they would be intimidated by this change in me and then stop playing with me. I'm not sure if I'm into them either, but I hope they can treat me as a significant presence as well. But this idea and my eager expression always screwed things up. After that, I learned to restrain myself from such emotions and look at friendships with guys in a usual way. When I got to college, I still had a guy I played very close. But because of my previous experience, I began to spend time with him as a straight man. We played basketball and went to the gym together, and then I started learning how to play computer games. These were all things I resented doing before, but it didn't feel so bad when I did it. The whole college process was great with him, but that's about it. We didn't have much contact after that, and occasionally we just exchanged pleasantries.
I went to college in the United States. The United States is a much more open environment for sexual minorities, but I never talked to anyone about my sexual orientation during my college years. I spent my entire college experience getting along with others as a pretend straight man. The process of getting along was not as unpleasant as it was before. But I always felt that the person I was in college was not the real me, and the person who got along with my college friends was not the real me either. My disguised behavior also became a barrier to getting along with others. My college life went well, I played well with everyone at school, but after I left campus, I had no contact with any of them either.
