We Mirror Each Other
20230821 13:30-17:07
I started attaching Velcro and mirrors to my body at 11 a.m. I had to stay standing the entire time, which made going to the bathroom nearly impossible.
At a crosswalk across from the police station, a middle-aged couple was waiting at the red light. The woman talked to me, saying she saw the mirrors. I asked what she saw in the mirrors, and she replied, “Myself! What else would I see?” I wondered what she thought I might be trying to say. She immediately responded, “That we should reflect on ourselves.” I couldn’t help but laugh, and told her that was an interesting interpretation.
I asked her which mirror she could see herself in. At first she said none, but after taking a few steps closer, she pointed to a hexagonal mirror on my right chest and said, “Ah, here.” I invited her to pick a crayon and either write, draw, or color something on that mirror to record what she saw in herself. She picked a green crayon and wrote “Happy.” I asked if she felt happy now. She replied, “I’m happy that I met you.” I said, “Me too.”
I was holding a picture frame with mirrored paper inside, originally intending to use it to check my appearance along the way. But once I stepped out onto the street, I found it had become a 360-degree movable accessory, or even an extension of my body. I kept changing its position, sometimes holding it above my head, sometimes against my face, sometimes on my shoulder, constantly adjusting its angle.
Two older women eating shaved ice outside a toast shop commented on me. The one in a mask said, “You’re very special.” The other, wearing glasses, read out the word “Happy” that someone had written earlier. The masked woman drew a smiling face on the large mirror on my stomach and told me, “You’re very brave.”
While waiting for the red light, the small mirror on my left buttock fell off. I tried not to bend my body as much as possible, slowly squatted down on one leg to pick it up, and then put it back on.
Walking to the middle section of Xinzhongshan Belt Park, a little boy in yellow clothes was playing with flowers and plants by a market stall. I called out, “Hey, little boy!” He ran over and said he saw lots of little cards on my body. He picked a red pen and, while muttering “angry,” drew a smiley face on the hexagonal mirror on my left chest. After finishing, he said he felt happy. I asked him, “So, are you still angry?” He said no, and then we smiled, high-fived, and said goodbye.
Half an hour later, an unexpected afternoon storm rolled in. Strong winds pushed the rain through the alley as if a downpour was chasing us. We couldn’t escape. My helper and I ran toward Coffee Dumbo, soaking wet, and flung open the door yelling, “Help!”
We drank hot coffee in Dumbo as we waited for the rain to ease. Once it lightened, we walked around Chifeng Street and made our way to Showtime Cinema.
Through the mirror in the elevator, I saw a few elementary school-aged children with their dad looking at me. The father smiled and nodded at me.
In the waiting area outside the screening rooms, a young father with kids kept staring at me. Everyone else just stared at their phones.
I stood in front of a wall-mounted mirror, looked at myself, and left the cinema.
As I walked past the tea shop on the basement floor of the XinXin Department Store, I overheard two saleswomen discussing me, thinking I was doing some kind of promotional event. Neither of them saw their own faces in the mirror, but they did see each other.
I jumped on bus No. 292, and the driver asked me what I was doing. He said, "I thought you were a fashion design student working on a project!" I said that was possible. He said that for him, mirrors are not just for reflecting faces, but also represent safety. When he drives a bus, he has to look at many rearview mirrors and there are many other things in the mirrors that he needs to see.
I got off in the East District and passed a Starbucks. Two foreign women sitting near the arcade entrance turned out to be German. The one with long straight hair said, “Are you reflecting other people?” Then both agreed it felt more like reflecting ourselves. They shared how, in Asia, they felt the social gaze was more critical—too thin, too fat, no matter what, it never seemed good enough. That wasn’t the case in Germany. In the end, they each drew a heart on the mirrors.
I walked into a photo booth shop. Among a group of girls trying on headbands, one asked, “Where’s the mirror?” I said, “Here,” and she laughed awkwardly and thanked me. Then another group of girls whispered loudly, “Isn’t that the person from earlier on the street?” I exited through the back door.
Halfway down the alley, my helper came over and said there was a girl who had been following us since we got off the bus. She had also stopped nearby while we were at Starbucks. We turned back to find her, and she was just a few steps away, standing in front of a shop.
She wore glasses and had natural curls, with only one AirPod in her right ear. She said, “This is performance art, right?” and then added, “Like… I want to say something, but I don’t know how. You know what I mean?” I gave her my email and told her she could write to me. Then she pointed at my helper and asked, “What did she say?” My helper said she hadn’t thought deeply yet, but she had seen the girl's face in one of the mirrors. The girl had also seen my helper in the same mirror. They ended up writing it together. The girl with glasses wrote “hi,” and my helper wrote “good.” That mirror, by chance, was the same hexagonal one where the first auntie had written “Happy.”
Another couple approached. The woman looked at me and said, “You’re so cute!” She guessed I was trying to convey a message about “offering mirrors for reflection.” Then she added, “But I’m not sure who exactly they’re for. I haven’t thought that far!” She worried the mirrors might cut me. Her husband said young people are very creative and asked what I thought it all meant. I replied, “If you think I’m cute, maybe it’s because you are too.”
In front of the Ming Yao Department Store, an elderly woman using an umbrella as a cane came up and asked what I was doing. She said, “I don’t have much education, so I don’t know, but it feels so unusual! I’ve never seen something like this, so refreshing!” Her husband, who was with her, ended up signing one of the mirrors.
When I took the mirrors off my body, it felt like pulling off fingernails or tearing skin.
Special thanks to my helper and J for documentation, and to Coffee Dumbo for offering shelter.。
