Translated…
“Head of the class, are we still having our reunion just as same as before this year?”, the chief of arts of my class texted.
The once-every-three-year high school class reunion, our homeroom teacher would always take his wife along, but at the start of the year, our homeroom teacher had died, so, how, are we going about, having our class reunion this year?
On the year we’d graduated, our homeroom instructor graduated alongside us, he’d retired, he said, that our class was his youngest daughter, that after our year, he would retire, and planned, to give ALL his time to his first love—drawing and art. Turns out, after he retired, my instructor took his wife all over the places to travel, took along a sketchpad too, he’d drawn everything he saw on his trips. He said, “Without my art, there wouldn’t be a focus to my life. Life is short, but, art lasts forever, I’m compelled, to leave memorable art in my lifetime.” He’d used his own life, his passions to, to keep the canvases burning on bright.
The first year, at the class reunion, my instructor told us, “You are all my wonderful daughters, as my daughters get married, I will give you each a painting, as your dowry, but if you ever get divorced, then, I want my paintings back.” And, all of us behaved well, after twenty years, nobody returned her paintings, worked hard to make our separate marriages work. And he’d always told me, with this seriousness, “I’d already painted your piece for you, so, trade for it with your wedding invitation.”
Every time, the reunion is like a small art show, hearing our instructor express his thoughts about art, “there are, four major points, for a work of art to reach what Wei Wang, the poet considered as art: first, philosophies, second, poeticness, third, taken from nature, fourth, the colors must be, smooth and gentle.” Back then, the business English he’d taught us had all, been returned back to him through the years, but, how come, I’d still recalled every single word he’d spoken on our gatherings.
I’d, flipped open the pages of the year book, the calligraphy characters printed, “although how good your work is, is seen from the delicateness of your writings, but the key is in your writing strokes.” Right next to this line, was my instructor’s photo at age sixty, that sturdy gaze, so full of power seemed to be saying to me: head of the class, keep on having these reunions, and, don’t think about slacking off!
So, this instructor, was what’s kept the classmates so close over the years, and, now that the instructor had died, he’d naturally not wanted his students, to lose contact with each other. He is like the parents, and his students, all his children, and that, is what a good teacher does, loving his students, like he would, his own children.