Before you can JUMP TO THE RECIPE, here is the comic:
Bi Zixuan is a 12-year-old girl who wrote this poem when her parents were out working in the city:
“I watch the lotus in the pond they are like green wine glasses holding many many marbles it’s the lotus mom busy nurturing her kids how I want to be like the lotus seeds to also nestle in my mom’s embrace and fall into sweet dreams.”
I resonated big time. So I tried to depict what I saw as I read it…
I watch the lotus pods in the pond.
A pod holds its seeds; it’s like a mom busy nurturing her babies!
I wish I could be like the lotus seeds and fall into my mom’s arms.
But I grew when I wasn’t around her, and she did too.
Luckily, my sister is friends with both of us.
We can talk happily about her or through her.
I hope Mom and I can be friends one day.
and now here is THE RECIPE to make it in 9 steps; try it at home!
Be born by a woman named Silvia at 11:14 PM. Hike, watch scary movies, move to Hawai’i, and raise a little girl called Momo with her.
When you are ready, take the subway with Silvia to an apartment where you sit down for 5 hours to imitate a dragon (Figure 1) drawn by someone who died 1300 years ago, someone very cool in your mind. Also, don’t forget to read “30 Points Mom” by Takagi Naoko (Figure 2). You are encouraged to read it four times.
Then, at some point, send 100 drawings to a person (Hu Xiaojiang) who translates very weird graphic novels and other stories made of pictures and texts. In the 5 years that follow, on the rare occasions when you are alone and free, remember him saying, “Your intention changes easily across a single page. What if you were to spend a bit more time on one topic and accumulate page comics around it? “
Give
a persimmon when it’s in season, in the winter. Talk about your mothers occasionally. Finally, one day, you could sit on the bean bag of her friend’s house and show her a tiny sketchbook filled with comics about your deepest secrets and shame. She will text you two months later, “Wanna collab on a comic?” Propose, “How about a 4-panel comic of a poem we like?”But before she texts you, taste a fresh lotus seed.
You could find it in Yunnan but probably elsewhere too. First, you buy the whole lotus pod, stem and all. Pick a ripe seed, peel the thick green skin or crack it with your thumbs. Take the plump white fruit out and crunch crunch crunch between your teeth. Wait for the sweetness to sneak in. Wait for the bitterness too if you bite into the green bud in the middle.
When you get home, chat with an uncle who held you as a baby. Search for poems he mentioned by kids in the mountainous regions around Yunnan who are trying hard to make a living out of creative work instead of factory work in a coastal city. Feel confused and foreign about the difference in our situations and how nonprofits work, but feel delighted to read the poem “Lotus Seed” by a 12-year-old girl named Bi Zixuan.
Spend 5 days trying to see through the eyes of Bi Zixuan through interviews and thinking. Then say “f*ck it” and sketch a storyboard in 30 minutes (Figure 3). Ask yourself, “What now?”, stare at the screen for a bit then use a smaller pen to outline the shapes of beds and faces. “This feels like a trash pile,” you can optionally say to yourself but it’s really not necessary. Circle the details you like, such as the scene where the kid is peacefully sleeping so small in her bed, while the room morphed into a viney pond. “I would need much more time to make this right.” Again this is an optional sigh as you send it for workshopping.
Be mesmerized when you hear Trang describe her synopsis in emotional clarity. When she asks you “is my image too basic?”, ask her some questions (that Tingting asked you earlier that night) about the texture, color, and shape of the emotion. Send her paintings of complicated hugs by Kathe Kollwitz (Figure 4). Brace your fear and ask her “What is MY synopsis, can you tell?” Word vomit to her and realize you wanted to speak from your perspective and speak to your mom. Close your eyes and see what you meant.
The rest will flow: Make a new storyboard. Take Yutaro with you to a classroom of kids where you make a collage portrait of a lotus, but try to not injure any kid in the breaktime games. Make another storyboard, this time more detailed and with cute faces on everything, the way Momo does it. Suck up your nervousness and show it to Ujeza when you visit her in her yard. Feel so liberated to chat about the iffiness you both feel when you spend the first two weeks back home with your family — that is really what you wanted to express, and you are so glad it’s in her too. Rewrite the script this time to capture exactly what you meant.
One night, when you are alone in your new room in a new city, complete the last details of the 4 panels. Send it to your mom then go to sleep.
Here is a visual version of the recipe: