“Sunnyrain” 雨晴（2020）

Sunnyrain: Seven Years like One Day is BFA Photo Media’s graduation project, as well as a photobook that is deeply significant to me, as it is a surreal epitome of the past seven years that I have spent in New Zealand. On 15 September 2013, when a 14 years old boy departed from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, he had no idea what kind of journey would be ahead waiting for him. Now I have stepped on almost every corner of this foreign land. All the ups and downs of adolescence, the joys and sorrows, have turned into yesterday’s bubbles like the winter in July, but still vivid in the mind.

In this series, I return to those blurry but familiar scenes in my memory. I still remember the sense of insecurity when I first arrived, hiding alone in the corner of King's College dormitory, facing all the unknown people and things. In a glance, I left there wearing a row of badges on the blazer, then wandering on another unknown journey.

I also remember those friends who have experienced unforgettable times with me, such as seeing the mirages of the city with fellow student John Shen in those pinky light evenings outside the studio. Drinking in the middle of the night at best friend Erwin Xing's house, the wind blew down the Chinese couplet at the door, but it could not dispel our yearning.

I remember that not long ago, the Sichuan noodle restaurant on Dominion Road not closed yet, also living with my cousin Untaka in Mount Roskill, he was always busy preparing me a delicious dinner. The day we cleaned up the house together and departed for our own future is still in sight. That piece of pale-yellow blanket that has been with me for 17 years, I don’t know when it wrinkled so much and turned into its current thin, tattered look, fortunately it’s still by my side. Those countless lonely days and nights during the lockdown, those monitors, windows and mirrors that surrounded me, seem to be more dazzling than the sun, the moon and stars.

Today all of this has passed, and some emotions seem to be pushed farther and farther away, and have become difficult to distinguish is true or false. But Sunnyrain will remind me that these versions are real, we have all existed on this land, longed for things we cherish, lost, loved... Maybe that is enough.