A visual representation of "His t-shirt" by Tammy Ho
WANG Lihang
Sha Tin Government Secondary School
My painting is about ‘His t-shirts’. I used two big T-shirts as the background.
The joining part of the sleeves forms a heart shape.
Inside the heart features a family enjoying their leisure time with coca cola.
No matter how busy my father is, he always makes time to accompany us.
My father’s love never ends. He is the core component of our family.
I used different pastel-like colours because my father has coloured my life.
His t-shirts
Medium-sized t-shirts on his dark body.
He’s totally Chinese - more so than me.
But in periods when he’s building bridges,
fixing window panes or drilling roads,
I think he’s from Africa.
Yellow skin is black in the sun.
Who said colours are God-given?
Medium-sized t-shirts he has aplenty.
Elated, in countries foreign, we do not forget
at home he’s suppressing his worried lips.
He wants nothing from us, but
we like the idea of giving. And so he’s
wearing t-shirts from London, Thailand,
Auckland, Japan, Finland, India,
Malaysia, Poland, Korea...
‘Where are you from, father?’ We are
teasers. Names of places bold
in English on his chest. He doesn’t know.
‘China,’ he answers. We laugh.
We laugh. Bad daughters.
Medium-sized t-shirts on top of Large
-sized ones in his drawers.
He once stood huge
in front of a snack bar,
buying us coca-colas,
and we cheered.
Tammy Ho
“His t-shirts” was published in hula hooping by Tammy Ho Lai-ming, p.5. Copyrights © 2015 by Chameleon Press. Reprinted by permission of Chameleon Press.