Qixi Festival·Fashion｜Zhou Keyin: Hand Marks
2024-08-06
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Life experiences leave unique marks on our hands.
Five female middle school students suddenly rushed into the subway. They were wearing green school uniforms, like a fragrance infusing the carriage. The girls stood around the pillar, and one of them said, "The last photo was not good, let's take another one." The five girls tacitly raised their scissors hands at the same time, and their fingers touched each other, and the five "scissors" formed a five-pointed star pattern. The girl raised her mobile phone, clicked, took a picture of the pattern, and said, "I'll send the picture to you." Then, the "five-pointed star" appeared on the girls' mobile phone screens at the same time.
What a creative picture! I was attracted standing next to them. I couldn't help but glance at their mobile phone interface. I saw not only the five-pointed star, but also the five beautiful hands that made up the pattern. The slender jade fingers were like water lilies, and the backs of the hands were white and smooth.
I was quite interested in this kind of "picture making" and wanted to catch a chance to imitate it. The opportunity came. That day, it happened that the five of us "senior" girls had a small gathering. As usual, it was lunch; as usual, coffee; as usual, group photos. I suggested that we try something new this time, how about taking a group photo of hands? I told them about the scene I saw on the subway. Suddenly, everyone became interested. So, the five of us stretched out our scissors hands and started to make a puzzle. Unexpectedly, after a long time of hesitation, we finally made a satisfactory five-pointed star shape.
Thinking back to the five little girls, they stretched out their fingers in unison, and with a click, the photos came out immediately. Suddenly I realized that it was not so much the pattern that attracted me, but the youthful energy they exuded. Although it was the same "photography", it seemed that the effect would not be ideal if the "originals" were different. Sure enough, when the photos were sent to our group of five people, "gossip" was rampant. "Oh my, the blue veins on the back of my hand are so obvious that they don't look good." "My fingers have become thick. I wore a size 7 ring when I got married, but now it's still tight when I wear a size 9." "The brown spots on my hands are too conspicuous. Can they be removed?"
Xiaowen said she knew how to retouch photos, and could make fingers thinner, or remove defects such as blue veins and brown spots. "I don't think it needs to be retouched!" Jiamin disagreed. She stretched out her left hand and said, "There is a small piece of the nail on my middle finger missing, which is a souvenir left from when I was in the second grade of junior high school studying agriculture. During that trip to the countryside, I was assigned to the cooking class. Once, we bought a piece of hot pork from the local villagers. I was dicing the meat while chatting and laughing with my classmates. I was distracted and the blade rubbed against my fingertips, cutting off a piece of flesh along with the nail, and a lot of blood flowed. That day, my classmates deliberately asked each other if there was Jiamin's meat in the diced meat you ate. So much so that thirty years later, when my junior high school classmates reunited, everyone still cared about my finger. My finger has become the collective memory of this class. If the photo is retouched and the nail is repaired, is it still my hand?"
After hearing what Jiamin said, An Jing also opened her palm. There was also a scar the size of a fingernail under her left thumb. She said, "Back then, I rode my bicycle to a Chinese medicine shop on Hefei Road to deliver dried orange peels. That day, the medicine shop was filming a scene for the movie "Spring Sprouts", and the crowd was packed. Even the people who came to get medicine couldn't squeeze in. I had to go back home. As soon as I turned around on my bicycle, I bumped into someone who came to make trouble. I fell down and a small stone was embedded in my palm, leaving this mark. Now when I see this scar, I will think of the old Chinese medicine shop that has disappeared, and the past when they bought back a pound of orange peels for three cents."
From the appearance of the hand, we unconsciously enter the story of the hand. The experience of life has left a unique mark on our hands. The blue veins are the scratches of the growth rings; the spots are the stamps of the years; the scars are the proof of memory. Why do we need to retouch the photos to erase them? Yes, the pictures we imitate are not beautiful, but they are more engaging than any party conversation.
Just imagine: if the five girls on the subway were to meet again decades later and put together a puzzle, I'm sure they would also have stories of the past on their hands. (Zhou Keyin)
