Design, Fishing, Woodworking

Design is my profession; the other two are my hobbies. These three things have some similarities for me.

In first grade, other classmates had backpacks with multiple pockets. I envied them, but we couldn’t afford one. What we could afford was a small, single-layer book bag in army green. So, I used needle and thread to sew a compartment inside. This is the first design I remember creating.

In fifth or sixth grade, I’d heat sewing needles to bend them into fishhooks, use chicken feathers as bobbers, and cut bamboo for fishing rods. Naturally, my interest in fishing started young.

As for woodworking, I didn’t actually do much when I was a kid. I remember a carpenter named Wang coming to our house to make furniture. We treated him with great respect. Between watching him use the adze and the plane, I saw how objects were created.

Also, these are three things my brother is currently doing. Besides fishing, we don’t share much about the other two; we each do our own thing. Fishing, though, means so much to us. Every time I go back to Changsha, we have to fish together. But often, when my brother takes me fishing, we come back empty-handed (in fishing lingo, ‘air force’).