There was once an elder who told me, “Young people today have no dreams.”
He was a person of high social standing and considerable means. He once asked me, “What is your dream?” He often said that young people today were afraid to dream.
I kept thinking about it afterward. What would my dream be? And am I brave enough to dream?
This elder had grown up in a privileged environment, with many resources at his disposal. Of course he could afford to dream. And he had the means to turn his dreams into reality.
But what about me?
I want to open a hairpin museum. That is a dream.
But how could I possibly make it happen?
I am just an ordinary person, paid a salary every month. In my spare time, I do the things I love. I research hairpins, search for them, collect them, travel to the places where they once existed, and try to write down the stories I encounter along the way.
I don’t have a museum. In fact, I don’t even have a proper place to preserve these things.
I have an old, dilapidated house. Whenever the rainy season comes, water pours into it again and again. And my collection is kept in that old house — because, for now, it is the only place I can offer them.
I know it is not a suitable place for preserving a collection. I have always wanted to renovate the house, but doing so would require a great deal of money. If I really started the renovation, I might have to take on another ten or even twenty years of renovation loans — especially since I have not yet finished paying off the mortgage on the house itself. I might still be paying for it by the time I retire.
Whenever I think about this, I ask myself: under these circumstances, what kind of dream can I possibly have?
That elder once said to me, “Unless you win the lottery, how are you ever going to change your life?”
Eventually, I understood. So if he ever asks me again, “What is your dream?” I might simply answer:
“To win the lottery.”
It sounds rather vulgar. It sounds like the dream of an ordinary person who simply loves money.
But if I really won the lottery, I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I could afford to renovate the house, or whether I would have to give up the things I want to do in order to take on another twenty years of debt. I wouldn’t have to make such painful choices between reality and my collection.
I could continue searching for the stories behind these hairpins. I could continue to travel. I could continue researching. I could continue bringing back, one by one, the things that are slowly being forgotten.
So yes, I want to win the lottery. Not because I particularly love money, but because some dreams need real-world resources in order to continue.
The doll
Among my collection is a Manchu doll dating to around the 1930s. She is a German-made porcelain doll dressed in an exquisitely detailed miniature version of traditional Manchu clothing.
She has qixie, the traditional Manchu platform shoes. She wears a yajin, a decorative pendant, and there is even a tiny mirror on her clothing. Every detail of her costume is not simply decorative. It is a miniature reproduction of the actual clothing of that period.
But what amazes me most is her hair. It was actually styled using real human hair. She wears the hairstyle of a Manchu woman of the Qing dynasty, complete with a miniature silver-gilt and kingfisher-feather hairpin.
Today, when we can only look at old photographs to imagine how women a century ago styled their hair, dressed themselves and lived their lives, she stands before me as a three-dimensional figure from that world. Her clothing, shoes, hairstyle, hairpin, and even her hair are all miniature reflections of the material culture of Manchu women of that time.
I have always wanted to understand exactly how her hairstyle was constructed. But I cannot take it apart or risk damaging her. So, in order to learn more about her, I did something rather unusual:
I took her to have an X-ray.
I hoped that the X-ray images might reveal more about how she was constructed. To me, she is almost like a living fossil left behind by history. That is why she means so much to me.
Someone once wanted to buy her from me. I could ask for quite good money. But I didn’t even consider it. I know that she is more than a collectible doll. She is a piece of “living” archaeological and research material.
But what if one day I really do begin renovating my old house? What if I really take on twenty years of renovation debt? I don’t know. I don’t know whether, by then, I would still have the ability to keep her with me.
That is the cruelest part of having a dream. Sometimes it isn’t about whether you love something, whether you are passionate, or whether you work hard enough. Reality simply asks you:
Can you afford it?
So, do I have a dream? I do. But am I brave enough to pursue it?
I could give that elder a very grand answer: “I want to open a hairpin museum.” But after saying it, I might have to turn away and quietly nurse the wound inside me. Because I don’t know how to make it happen. With my current work, income and circumstances, it really is only a dream — a dream for which I still cannot see a practical way forward.
Sometimes I even wonder: if I stopped dreaming, would it hurt less? If I never said it out loud, could I pretend it didn’t exist? If I had never spoken of it, would I no longer have to face the enormous distance between the dream and reality?
But I have not given up. I simply have not given my dream a concrete form. I have not given it a deadline.
What I can do now is give everything I have to the things that are within my reach, and do them as well as I possibly can. Continue collecting, researching, traveling and writing down these stories. Keep doing what I can afford. Continue leaving behind the stories of hairpins that were once worn by someone, once accompanied someone through their life, and then slowly disappeared from history.
Perhaps one day, I will find a way to make that unspoken dream come true. For now, I want to see what kind of door the heavens will open for me.
So, if someone asks me again, “What is your dream?” I will smile and say, “I want to win the lottery.”
But only I will know that behind that lottery ticket, there is actually a museum that does not yet exist.
And perhaps I can find a place where all the things I am only temporarily caring for can finally have a place to call home, and stay safe.