Children's drawings of childlike innocence - the home in children's drawings

brief introduction:

For every Chinese person, home is not only a shelter from wind and rain, but also a place where the soul rests. However, as time goes by and society develops, family affection is gradually overshadowed by heavy work. After parents come home from work, they would rather face the cold computer TV than chat with their children, and family affection is gradually ignored. On the other hand, children, who are often ignored or looked down upon by adults, innocently and naturally express their desire for family affection through media such as drawings and speaking.

Image is a visual symbol and a language of the soul, even more direct than speaking. People often say that painting is an international language because it has the ability to communicate across time, space and age boundaries. If a person in this country does not understand the language symbols of another country, communication between him and another person will be difficult. However, there is no communication barrier in this regard with pictures. For children with limited language expression ability, their paintings are a concrete manifestation of their emotions and cognition, which can be said to be an explicit spiritual language; therefore, there are many different languages, different colors, and different colors in children's paintings. The moods and different stories‥‥‥are all the crystallization of their hearts. Therefore, if we can use the family pictures drawn by children and their interpretation of the pictures, we can effectively obtain the children's views on home and reflect the magic of art.

In 2006-2007 , we conducted 40 family drawing activities (such as "My Home", "Ideal Home", "My Dad", etc.) and interviews with 32 children, and collected more than 640 A child's painting is used to explore the child's home, expectations for home and family, thereby understanding the child's inner emotional world, the child's family life, and the child's future life. It also uses the child's voice towards the home to awaken the adult's awareness of the home. , attach importance to family and affection.

We published these precious pictures and information into a book titled "Children's Paintings. childlike innocence. "Tong Family" records the children's voices towards their families.

From the children's drawings one after another and the words they said during the interview , we were alerted to the fact that children have seen everything that happens again and again within the four walls of every home in Hong Kong. In the eyes , in the ears , in the hearts , every bit in the heart. The child is like a camera or tape recorder , which captures and records scenes of shocking "family affairs". Adults may not have the courage to see or listen , because the truth about family affairs is always ugly. Adults deceive themselves and others just to protect themselves , defend themselves , and shut themselves away.

In our book , what did the children in Hong Kong see , hear , and think about ? Parents were noisy all day long , quarreled first , and then resorted to violence, performing all kinds of martial arts in front of their children. Absent fathers and mothers who forcibly send their children to "homes". Mothers also imitate their fathers and use foul language and even violence to vent the anger that has been accumulated for a long time due to work . The children become victims and watch. The child is helpless , powerless and voiceless . What sociologists should be careful about is : will today’s abused children become tomorrow’s wife , child and elder abusers ? When will the intergenerational inheritance of domestic violence end ? How to end it ?

From the children's paintings and their interpretation of their own paintings , we soon realized that their requirements and expectations for their parents were so simple and direct . They asked their parents to spend more time at home , accompany them , or hold hands with them. Their hands go to the park , watch movies , and have fun , but in Hong Kong, the big dyeing vat of the luxurious foreign market , time is money . In addition to the six to eight hours spent sleeping and resting , the rest of the day is All time has been handed over to the bosses . The working class in Hong Kong in the 21st century has long been reduced to captives and slaves of capitalism. The upper, middle and lower class workers have been wiped out without any luck . The children of this generation It has long been a victim of money worship.

No matter how frank a child is, he will never tell the whole story, detailing the faults of his parents without missing a word. There is a Chinese saying : A family scandal should not be reported outside the family . Children still have reservations about criticism and accusations against their own family . After all, if a child attacks his own family , it is equivalent to attacking himself. Therefore, children's paintings and their interpretations are inevitably love-hate , half-love, half-hate , half-true, half-false , ambiguous, sad and happy. Children's love for home and parents is always so sincere no matter what, like a trickling river , a long stream of water. This is pure innocence , and it is something that all parents can feel.

Children seem to be talking to society , the government , adults, sociologists and social scientists through their pens and words. It seems to be telling (or even warning) them, what kind of life would it be like to have a ruthless life (similarly , what kind of sociology would it be like to be ruthless in sociology ) ? As a result , they repeated the following words more than a hundred times: hope , want , really want to , wait, look forward to , fantasy , ideal , fantasy .

So what is the ideal home that children look forward to ? If adults are willing to take a moment to listen, the answers they will get will be shocking. Just like traditional Chinese literati landscape paintings, in the pictures titled "Ideal Home" , we can't see people , we can't see parents, but only different kinds of animals and plants. . In a child's mind, an ideal home is not a static "real estate", but a moving car , boat , and airplane, full of sunshine , hope, love, and kindness. What the children hope to have is thousands of miles away from the "luxury house" that Hong Kong adults dream of, sacrificing their family life , and trying every means to get it !!

The ideal home in the hearts of children longs for no adults or parents. This display of their inner world is undoubtedly a wake-up call for adults. Children's paintings , children's words , and children's hearts sound a wake-up call for Hong Kong society!

About the Author:

Li Wenqing loves learning, loves society and loves life.

Graduated from the Department of Sociology of Hong Kong Baptist University. With sociological knowledge, he went to the forefront of society to work as a reporter. After practicing, he also practiced his writing skills. Then he returned to school with social experience to study for a master's degree and do research, and then returned to the society. Engaged in affairs for members of the Legislative Council. He served as the election manager of the Citizen's Tong Ka-wah team in the 2008 Legislative Council election, the Hong Kong Island director-general of the five-district referendum campaign in 2010, and the general manager of the Citizen's Chan Ka-lok Chan Shu-chuang team in the 2012 Legislative Council election.

Chen Guoben , founder and chairman of Chan Institute of Social Studies (CISS). He served as head of the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore, head of the Department of Sociology at Hong Kong Baptist University and the first chair professor of sociology, director of the Lin Siqi East-West Academic Exchange Institute, and president of the Hong Kong Sociological Society. He has published more than 40 monographs and more than 200 academic papers in Chinese and English. While serving as the president of the Hong Kong Sociological Society, he innovated and edited the society's journal " Social Transformations in Chinese Societies ". His monograph Stepping Out: The Making of Chinese Entrepreneurs won the Special Award from the National Book Development Board of Singapore. The translation of the book "Stepping Out: The Growth of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Singapore" was published by China Social Sciences Press and later by Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS) Adapted into a TV series of the same name. He is currently a visiting professor at the Department of Sociology at the University of Macau, a visiting professor at the Hong Kong-Macao Pearl River Delta Research Center at Sun Yat-sen University in China, and an honorary researcher at the Institute of Contemporary China at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Current areas of research focus include immigration, identity, racial discrimination, hybridity, transnationalism, youth, family and ethnic relations. In addition, he also likes to collect antiques and artworks, is keen on writing new poems, and is committed to promoting the development of community art.