Te -.
Hands...
When did you last observe your own hands, and what signs of time or change do they reveal?
I miss my maternal Grandmother’s hand the most, who was my primary caregiver when I was a child.
Cooking and music are the skills passed down to my hands. My Chinese grandfather was a chef and owned a Chinese restaurant in Hawaii, and my dad was the one that taught me how to cook. My Okinawan grandfather played traditional Japanese/Okinawan music, and my mother and uncle both became musicians—they then passed that on to me.
When my hands are not working at my job, they are doing one of two things:
interacting with my son or making food in the kitchen for my family.
I want my hands to be remembered for the connection and warmth they brought to others.
I hope they are remembered for offering comfort, kindness, and creating meaningful relationships, leaving people feeling valued, understood, and loved.
My mother’s hands look most like my hand.
I hope my children’s hands will never have to beg for needs.
I miss holding my mom’s hand the most.
My left hand has the most “history”, I ran with glass bottles in my hands when I was younger, I tripped and the glass bottles broke in my hands, I ended up giving myself a scar that I still have to this day that looks like a teardrop.
As a foreign adoptee coming to America at 18 months I was petrified. Just in the span of a few weeks I was now surrounded by people who didn’t look or sound like me.
I remember my mother telling me that I wouldn’t smile for the longest time. Every photo of me in China I’m seen with scared and confused eyes. I don’t think people realize how scary it can be for someone so young to transition from their own birth country to a completely new world, but for my parents this journey was everything to them. While it wasn’t in America I had this item, but I distinctly remember holding onto this red toy cup. There was nothing special about the cup, but I remember just never letting go. In the bath I would have this cup, we’d be out in the city of China and I’d still have the cup with me, and even when I was asleep I was holding onto this red cup. I think what drew me to this cup was that it gave me some sort of comfort. I'm surrounded by new people who don’t look like me and or sound like the people around me. So I think what this red cup did for me as a child was to be able to comfort myself into something new.
Myself is the heaviest thing my hands carried during my journey to the U.S.
I am right-handed, so when I was little, I felt very unbalanced with it (and I still do). And with that feeling, I started to use my left hand for more things intentionally, or in other words, the left hand is for the choices; the right hand is for the naturals. I have scarred skin so that every wound I had will leave a scar. For some reason I just got more scar on my left hand than the right. For the scars and the "new" abilities on my left hand, I'll call them the history.
You could request the postcard/artwork with subjects’ stories by sending email to shunjyong@gmail.com
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.