MAI
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My mum wore this dress when she was coming over to the UK when she was 27, my mum is 80 years old now, so this dress is 50 years old. She was already a mother of three kids by then, she was starting a new life. This was the dress that she wore on the plane. There's no label and it’s all lined, it was handmade, she went to a little suit place in the New Territories, the local people to have it made.
Looking at it and I wonder what she must had been thinking and feeling; getting ready, getting her dress ready, getting on the plane? The dress symbolises her arrival and all the thoughts and questions that go along with this dress. She couldn't read or write English and at that point she could only speak her local dialect, she didn't even speak Cantonese then. What she was thinking all the time she was on the plane? She was on a plane for the first time.
But when you ask my Mum anything, she's very matter of fact about it all. She's very practical, there's no sense of, I felt like this, she just says, I got a dress and I got on the plane, that's what I wore! But they're not of that generation where you talk about what you think and feel because it's not about 'me', it's about ‘we’.
Even though my mum is older, thinking about her being younger, I can see my mum wearing it, I can actually see her being quite, you know: this is my new life and I'm getting on with it and putting on something new.
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我媽媽27歲來英國的時候穿的這條裙子。現在她80了。這條裙子也有50歲了。當時她已經有三個孩子，來英國開始新生活。這是她在飛機上穿的裙子。上面沒有商標，有內襯，手工做的。她去新界一家當地的裁縫店找人做的。
看著這條裙子，有時我會想她當時在想什麼，準備妥當，做好裙子，上飛機？這條裙子代表了她的到來，以及隨之而來的所有的想法和疑問。她不會讀或者寫英語，只會說當地方言，連廣東話都不會。她在飛機上的時候在想些什麼？那是她第一次坐飛機。
但是你要是問我媽媽，她很實際，非常實際。她不會說，我覺得怎樣怎樣。她只會說，我做了條裙子，我上了飛機，我穿的這條裙子。他們那代人都不會講自己的想法和感受。因為不是「我」怎麼樣，而是「我們」。
儘管我媽媽現在老了，我可以想象她年輕的時候穿著這條裙子的樣子:我要開始新的生活，我得重視，穿件新衣服。