When I was little, my dad took me to his hometown during summer break. It’s a place in LiaoNing province in northeast part of china where the southeastern of Manchuria used to be. My favorite part of this place would be its boundless mountain and earthly smell of the evergreen. Off course, climbing mountain is my favorite thing to do here. Grandpa took papa and I to the mountain and picked some mushrooms for dinner. I saw this as a treasure hunt, and tried to find the most delicious mushroom you can find. Suddenly there was red light flashed in front of my eyes. Out of my curiosity, I picked this “ruby” up. What would it be? It’s a mushroom that’s red and with white polka dots on it.
(studio illustration works)Grandpa told me this mushroom is poisonous the mushroom that we need to pick is the gray mushrooms that looks like an oyster. Now thinking back, we were trying to find oyster mushrooms in the forest. “Remember, don’t pick the one with color, you tummy will go bad if you eat them.” On the way back, I still did not grasp the concept of “colorful things are dangerous and grayish colored things are not.” That night, grandma took the oyster mushrooms and cooked a delicious chicken stew. I thought to myself, maybe gray colored things are great.
Colors give characteristics to anything from religion to fashion, from drawings to movies, and so on. We lived in the world that’s dominant by color. People who are color blind have to see the doctor. It’s also funny that the things that we relied on so much can turn into something detrimental. I can see how everything is not just one face, but with so many possibilities. Human civilization cooperate colors as part of their daily life, whereas animals and plantations in nature use it as luring or signal of poisons. A mundane shade of gray can be boring but also safe.
