Poem Hat
POEM HAT is a hat designed to communicate my culture and life experience from two countries. I was born and raised in a traditional intellectual family in China. At the age of 20, I left my hometown and started a new life studying in the United States. As language is an essential part of culture, I juxtapose my favorite Chinese and western poems to show my experience from two cultures.
The folding fan is a symbol for Chinese scholars who often wrote poems on a fan to show their knowledge and beliefs. I put both poems and their authors on the hat box so viewers can better understand the meanings of the broken typography on the fan. The hat can be divided into two pieces: the fan, and the base. The fan then can be folded to fit in the box.
The first paragraph of Youth by Samuel Ullman:
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind.
It is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees.
It is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, vigor of the emotions;
it is the freshness of the deep spring of life.
The translation for the Chinese poem:
木兰花·拟古决绝词柬友
MAGNOLIA FLOWER
Rede to My Friend
纳兰性德
Nalan Xingde
人生若只如初见
何事秋风悲画扇
等闲变却故人心
却道故人心易变
If life could be all the same
As when I knew your name,
Why would the wind waul
For the fan forsaken in Fall?
Without rime or reason told
His heart went stone-cold.
But he said without shame,
"The Fickleness is to blame."
骊山语罢清宵半
泪雨零铃终不怨
何如薄幸锦衣郎
比翼连枝当日愿
Upon Mount Li of mid-night
They did their troth plight;
Till death she's ne'er loath'd
The man in fine robes cloth'd.
"May we be a pair of Birds,"
To her he's given his words,
Words said with love so deep,
Yet he finally failed to keep.
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