To me, there has always been something deeply captivating about the brilliance of traditional Chinese culture — a glow that feels both sacred and personal. But history doesn’t always protect what it inherits. During the Cultural Revolution, a decade of chaos and destruction, China suffered a cultural loss that remains impossible to measure. Countless relics were destroyed; centuries of intangible traditions were severed in silence. Ink paintings were torn and burned. Jade artifacts, once treasured heirlooms, were sold and scattered across the world. Along with them, fragments of China’s cultural identity faded into the past.

 

We cannot undo what’s been lost. What remains are fragments — scattered, damaged, incomplete — and the quiet responsibility of trying to reconstruct what we can. But no matter how carefully we try to restore it, something will always be missing.