My mother has been suffering from menopause since the year I began settling in Australia.

 

Some days, her fingers and feet clench in pain until she can hardly move; other days, a heat rises in her chest like fire. But this pain is never new—it’s only now becoming visible. No one, not even she, knows how far she has walked since leaving her family and hometown in China, to resettle in Hong Kong with my father. No one knows how many tears remain trapped in her body, swallowed silently—from her eyes to her throat, down into her stomach— until the day she stops bleeding.

 

She reminds me of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, who listens and saves those in suffering. In her hometown of Fujian, Guanyin is deeply worshipped by many women, including my mother—especially after she lost her own mother during migration. Always giving, always enduring, like Guanyin, I wonder if it is a way of reaching for the love she once needed from her mother.

 

And now, I find myself trying to absorb everything she carries into my own body—to soothe it, to walk the rest of the path on her behalf, as if to mother my mother in return.

 

自我在澳洲落地的那一年起，母親便開始飽受更年期之苦。

有些日子，她的手心和腳底突然痛得幾乎無法移動；有些時候，一股灼熱從胸口湧現，如火燒般難以承受。但這份痛楚並非一朝一夕形成，只是直到如今才慢慢浮現於表面。從未有人，包括她自己，知曉她自離開家鄉與親人、與父親一同遷居香港建立家庭後，究竟走過了多遠、多久的路。亦未聞有多少眼淚困在她體內，悄然吞下——從眼中、喉間一路滾落至腹中，直到那一天，她的血不再流。

 

她讓我想起觀音，那位傾聽眾生苦難，投入苦海施以救渡，慈悲的菩薩。在她的故鄉福建，觀音是許多女性虔誠信仰的對象，包括我母親——特別是在她遷徙途中失去母親之後。她總是習慣辛酸、把自己最好的一切分給所有人，宛如觀音。我不禁思索，這是否是她潛意識裡試圖填補對母愛渴望的方式。

 

而如今，我也開始試圖將她的一切吸納進自己的身體裡，撫平，渴望代她繼續走剩下的路，彷如成為她的母親。

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Ka Yan So’s installation work No milk for the crying baby (2025) subverts the saying 'The squeaky wheel gets the grease’. She draws on her mother’s experience of menopause to explore maternal sacrifice and intergenerational pain. Incorporating sculpture, drawing, photography, and ritual materials like incense as hand clay, So reflects on the reversal of caregiving roles between mother and daughter. Symbolically invoking Guanyin—the bodhisattva of compassion—her installation speaks to inherited endurance, the silence of filial devotion, and the quiet grief of care. Material contrasts between soft wool, rusted metal, and teardrop-shaped clay elements underscore a gesture of care towards fragility that passed down through generations of migration and loss.

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蘇嘉茵的裝置作品《不會哭的孩子有奶吃》顛覆了「會哭的孩子有奶吃」這句諺語。作品源自其母親更年期的身體疼痛經歷，從女兒的視角揭示了母職堅強表象下的脆弱——這份忍耐在華人文化中往往是無意識地承繼，尤其體現在她母親的家鄉福建。作品透過觀音菩薩慈悲的象徵，以香灰、陶土與手寫文字等素材承載這些重量。跨過對女性身份的觀察，她以自傳式創作手法，探討在香港兩代移⺠經歷中的家庭創傷承繼。她的繪畫與攝影作品揭示「反哺」的現象——女兒反過來成為母親的母親。這是一種不尋常但深切的跨代關愛，源於上一代勞苦與犧牲的生命歷程中，對自己與下一代無條件的愛之缺席。空間裡柔軟的羊毛、鏽蝕的鐵線與散落如淚水與石塊般的陶土，像是對這些無可挽回、被長久壓抑的痛苦的一種安靜回應——一份說不出口的致意，一份遲來的溫柔。