My adaptation depicts the struggle and compromise of women ' s identity under social pressure . The work has three female characters : ' I ', ' my daughter ' and ' my mother '; it tells the story of one day the daughter finds photos of her mother when she was young and causes the mother to think about the choices she has made . Knowing that ' I ' used to cook as a hobby , ‘ my daughter ’ asked why ' I ' never taught her . The reason behind this was that ' I ' had materialised the pressure from society and the demands on women into cooking , and ' I ' was not willing to allow her the possibility of repeating my life again .
The inspiration for this work came from a conversation I had with a friend of mine ; I was surprised that my friend didn ' t know anything about cooking , so I casually asked , " Didn ' t your mother ever teach you that ? She replied no , " Because my mum thinks cooking is like , a mandatory lesson for women , like one of those good wife qualities ", " And my mum hates those so-called good wives , because she ' s one of them ", she said . This made me start to think about the so-called ' default ' demands on women in the culture ; and the results were quite sad because almost every woman I could know in life has ever been more or less compromised by the pressures of society to postpone or abandon her individual plans . And this pressure and demand sometimes does not originate entirely from the other gender , but rather from the women themselves . Being influenced by culture for so long has caused many women to lose the desire to be themselves . This influence and demand have been passed on to the next generation , creating generations of ' good wives and mothers ’ who should sacrifice everything for the family . So , I think my friend ' s mother is one of the rare people who can think beyond the social requirements of women , and I hope to use her story to discuss some thoughts on women ' s identity in East Asian culture . This adaptation is based on my friend ' s mother ' s story , but the details of the character are more based on my own life ' s female characters , as well as my personal experiences and reflections , to create an image of a mother who lives in an East Asian culture .
DESCRIPTION : The following are some of my thoughts and explanations on painting the adaptation .
The story begins with the daughter finding photos of her mother in a bookcase . It is in the 5 panel on the first page and the 3 panel on the second page that I have used a more realistic drawing of the photo , which references to real photos of my mother . The expressions of the hand-held photo are referenced from Maus . 1
JINGYI SUN
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