After graduating, I decided to work and settle in Vancouver, in large part because of my mother.

When my mother was young, my grandfather once took her to Vancouver on a business trip, and it was not easy for the family to go abroad at that time, unless there was special approval from the superiors, so my mother was very impressed by this trip, and she never went to another country before she was twenty years old.

After her grandfather's death, Vancouver became almost an obsession with her mother, with whom she spent a very memorable time as a child. She gushed that when she first arrived, the building had not changed at all from what it is now, and that the building seemed to be new, and that a very large maple tree had grown here, and now it had become a wooden mound in someone's yard. The alleys and alleys here all seem to belong to autumn, but they are completely different from before.

The home we just moved in here is near Luhu Park, which is also where my mother lived when she was a child, and then the owner of the building has changed, and it has not been renovated, and there are still traces of 40 years ago. We lived here for a long time, and the maple forest next to the nearby park was beautiful in autumn.

My mother said that my grandfather often took her for a walk in the park after work, fishing or feeding the ducks, and sometimes did nothing but sit on a chair and wait for the sunset. She also carved her name on the tree, but then the tree could not be found, I don't know if it had grown up, the mark was gone, or if she had found the wrong one. Later, she also learned that the ducks she had fed when she was a child were not ducks, but pairs of mandarin ducks, and the big birds she had seen were not birds, but wild ducks.

My mother always felt that her grandfather had left her something here, and then the house and trees were gone, so she felt that it was this memory that comforted him, and she missed her grandfather, so I accompanied her here and quietly missed him.

In the original plan, if I didn't return to China, the teacher planned to keep me and my brother in school, and be his teaching assistant, and still do what we wanted to do the rest of the time. The teacher has also brought many excellent students this year, and my senior brother and I have too clear styles and personalities, which is probably one of the reasons why he is interested. But his intentions and expectations were also let down by me after all. Knowing that I was determined to come to Vancouver, he didn't say much other than a little lost, but just gave me a letter of recommendation recommending me to work at the current Academy of Fine Arts.

The current dean was a former classmate and friend of the teacher, and he knew that I had a degree in language and literature, so he handed him the letter of recommendation at that time, along with my file and other entry procedures. I stayed here and became a member of the Photography Art Teaching and Research Group.

It was at that time that Mr. Walter met as the Vice-Dean of our Secondary Branch and the head of the Teaching and Research Group, but two years later, his ability to speak out had led him to the position of the top leader of the Branch, responsible for the management of the school's art center. As for me, my ambition is not to teach and educate people, nor to be in administrative management, but to be promoted to a knighthood. Two years have passed, and he is still a small lecturer, except for the heart flying higher and higher, going farther and farther, the others are still standing still.

When I first arrived at the hospital, it was said that the dean was in a dilemma between arranging me to be in the School of Photography and the School of Languages, and finally he chose the one who was closest to me among the two leaders, although Mr. Walter was one year older than Jiang Li, but this is not the point, the point is that through this incident, you can see how unimportant and not casual I am.

It is still said that at that time, our leader was "entrusted with important tasks", and the dean personally conveyed to him my work requirements: "It doesn't matter if you are idle, you can go out to class as little as possible, oh, her literary skills are also good, and the editor's words can be considered." If she can get her work done, she doesn't care about other free time, but it doesn't necessarily mean how long she can stay. It is said that these words were later passed on by word of mouth in our branch, and everyone thought that I had come from with a parachute against the mountains somewhere.

When I first arrived at the academy, my colleagues kept asking me why I wanted to work in the academy, whether I took those works myself, and whether there were people behind me who praised me for winning awards and becoming famous. Because they would think that it was completely unnecessary for me to come to work at the Academy of Fine Arts, if I were a free, talented, and honorable independent photographer. But no matter how much I explain to them why I came to work at the Academy of Fine Arts, they will doubt my strength, because in their opinion, Chinese photographers are generally regarded as having no artistic cells in the world, especially modern photography.

Our photography group is a diverse group of people from different countries and regions in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas, each with a diverse educational and cultural background, as well as a rich diversity of languages. In addition to me, there are two other Chinese Canadians in our group, but I am the only Chinese Chinese. But it's clear that they are much more interested in me than the other two. It took me a while to get them to become less curious about me.

The nature of my work is relatively free, which also determines that I don't have many opportunities to get along with my colleagues, but if I am invited to participate in the activities of the hospital and the group gatherings, I will also participate, and I have my own consistent rules for interacting with my colleagues, that is: refuse to discriminate, talk about one thing at a time, only talk about work interests, do not discuss private life, never talk about culture and political system, and even raise the issue to the regional and ethnic level. Because my achievements in modern photography art, especially the awards for humanistic photography and documentary recording, are the highest in our academy, it is inevitable that some people in our academy will question my level and works, and I will not answer or respond to such questions. At first, when we had communal socializing, my colleagues would gather to bring the conversation to me, and Mr. Watt was there, and as long as the questions they asked were not offensive or sharp, he would just sit on the sidelines and let me deal with it myself. Only a few times in a while, he would take the initiative to help me out.

I don't have any personal relationship with Mr. Walter, and he probably has a lot of curiosity about me, but what makes him different from others is that he has the reserve and pride that he needs to maintain because of his status, and he has a good confidence because of his family. Because he himself was one of the more famous people in the world of photography, Mr. Walter was not as eager as his colleagues to be as eager as his colleagues to look at me, or he began to be dismissive of me. So when other people began to test me in turn, and after I avoided the real and attacked the false again and again, he finally realized that I was not a soft persimmon to be manipulated by others, and he was a little impressed with me.

It is a very difficult process for people to adapt to a social group, no matter what industry they are in, no matter how high or low their status or position, or whether they have a good or ordinary cultural background. Fortunately, my colleagues gradually understood my temperament and knew that I was not a threat to them, but they could not keep up with me when it came to the success of my work. In the process of seeking common ground while reserving differences, despite cultural conflicts and social contradictions, we finally accepted each other in harmony.

Mr. Walter was one of the people I admired more than our dean at a certain time, and the several social documentary reports he followed were very socially reflective. One of the documentary photographs of the refugee crisis in Europe was very impressive.

Mr. Walter and I are good at different fields, the photographic style is very different, and I rarely communicate with him in the professional field, and because he is my superior, I have always been more conservative about my interactions with him, but maybe we both have some kind of similarity between artists (barely I am), and after two years of getting along, it is a bit of a tacit understanding that is not enough for outsiders.

I may be a little angry that Mr. Walter is so provocative that he knows about my condition, but I will not blame him for being rude. Just like he should know in his heart how I will react when I hear it, he won't turn his face against him, he won't settle accounts after the fact, and he will say some things he wants to say.

"I don't even know about you....... I'm sorry." Mr. Walter said solemnly.

"It's none of your business, you don't need to say sorry."

"It was very abrupt just now, I asked you that. To be honest, I was shocked when I first heard it, and I still am. He was still a little apologetic, "but I can't see it at all......."

I asked him, "Is it any different from usual?" ”

He said, "I can't see it." ”

I said, "I have a doctor myself, and what you see now is that I am indeed normal." ”

Mr. Walter said that he had just been taken aback by my posture, because he was afraid that I was really afraid that I would pour juice on his head, in which case he swore that he would never be treated like this by a woman in his life.

Mr. Walter said, "If you think about it, you are really casual with me, and I am your superior, but I really feel that you have never taken me seriously. It's not that you mean that you're rude, it's just that I think you're a very special person, and your personality is very handsome, and to be honest, I'm afraid of provoking you. ”

I could hear him say that he was afraid of provoking me, but the subconscious implication was that I was not easy to get along with, and that I was separated from people by a distance, and once I broke through the defense line, I would be rebounded.

I said, "I'm not a very sophisticated person, I like to be by my own temperament most of the time, and the people I get along with will be very tired, because they need to accommodate me, in order not to affect more people, I just want a few people to be affected by me." ”

Most of the people around me are people who know and tolerate me very well, they are very aware of my beliefs and stubbornness, and my teacher also knows that my personality cannot be changed, so he wants to keep me by his side, and he also thinks that instead of letting birds fly high and being exposed to the rain and sun now, it is better to wait for her to grow into an eagle who can fight freely in the sky, and then let her go to a freer and broader world.

In the past two years, perhaps the teacher has gradually understood that I am not a tired bird in the greenhouse, so he never said the sentence that I can come back when I am tired of flying outside.

I wouldn't have said these things to Mr. Walter, but I thought that maybe this would be the last time we would have such an opportunity to drink and talk together, so I might as well be more honest, I told myself.

After hearing this, Mr. Walter said, "I have always felt that this is the arrogance and talent of an artist. ”

I said, "That's part of the reason, of course. ”

He was in a very sudden mood, it was rare for us to have such an opportunity to have in-depth exchanges, and we had a tacit understanding regardless of each other's identities.

"Do you have any special relationship with the dean?" He suddenly asked me, "He has always asked me to take care of you, it seems that it is not appropriate to put you in any position, and sometimes he will ask about you, and I say that it is not good to talk more or less." He also looked a little annoyed: "But don't think I'm betraying you by doing this, you're just my staff, and my knowledge of you is limited to work." ”

I understood it and briefly explained to him in a few words: "I don't have any special relationship with the dean, but I did come to the academy because he and my teacher knew me, but I am not familiar with the dean, and if we want to talk about the relationship, we should be regarded as a mutually beneficial relationship." ”

The so-called mutual benefit, Mr. Walter will understand when he thinks about it.

We talked about the whole lunch break, and Mr. Walter talked about his impression of meeting me for the first time, except for the sentence he saw on my resume, "Hasselblad International Photography Award winner, rookie Chinese photographer", and the most impressive thing for him was that once at a colleague's birthday party, someone said in front of me that the dean had arranged for me to arrange a vase for Mr. Walter to put in the office"Vase" describes a person, but will gently remind her not to eat a vegetarian meal. Whether I am a corpse vegetarian or not, you will know later, but whether you are a fly camp dog or not, I know. ”

Mr. Walter said that he had asked several Chinese friends he knew before he could translate my original words, and that he had gone through a dictionary of Chinese idioms. At that time, his first impression of me was that he was not only arrogant, but also sharp-tongued.

I said that my first impression of him was very good, he was born in a scholarly family, behaved rigorously and decently, and revealed a little naïve nature in some small details that did not attract attention, such as taking photos that he was satisfied with, and naturally half-closed his other eye.

He laughed, saying that he hadn't even paid attention to it.

At the end of the conversation, he wished me a smoother career and life, and was very happy that I was now in full health, as if we were saying goodbye.

But it's hard for me to imagine that he saw cases of PTSD on the Internet, and there were several extreme cases of suicide because he couldn't bear the pain, and he was worried for a few days because he was worried that I would go to the same extreme. But now that he's healed, he's relieved.

In the end, I didn't tell him about my intention to leave the academy, and I had been thinking about it for a long time, until Mr. Ann came back and I was even more sure. I didn't tell him at that time, I wanted to talk about it for a while, maybe another week, or half a month, or longer, but I didn't want to say it now to make him think more.

I have always felt that I am a person who is more open to parting or saying goodbye, and I made up my mind at that time, and I did not find it difficult to accept the fact that I was going to say goodbye to everything in the Academy of Fine Arts, and that I would also leave my group of colleagues. But on the day of the real countdown to parting, I suddenly couldn't bear it, and I have been very reluctant.

I also know that everyone will be a one-way track in their life, and only if you are lucky will you find someone who constantly overlaps with you, and the trajectory and end point are the same. As for the others, they just meet or walk with you for a while, and one day, you find that they have long since lost their time away from you. But there are always those who are reluctant to get too far away from you, even if you are walking in different ways, even if you are walking much faster than them, but as long as you remember to look back, you will always see them behind you.