Pursuing the Dream to the Very
End
and
Cutting
Paper with Teeth
5
Aril 2007
Shan Guojun (单国军) isn’t the only child in
his family. When he was born in 1963, Chinese
were yet to appreciate the heavy burden
placed upon the earth, and big family was
still very much in fashion with highly
productive women branded “proud mom” (光荣妈妈). So as it happened, Shan was
born to one of such proud moms and became the
proud seventh child of a family living in
Harbing, in the Northeast of China.
The pride he brought to the
family, however, did not last very long. Soon
it was discovered that the baby was born with
a condition of cerebellar vermis
maldevelopment, which led him eventually
contracting a viral disease: the infant
paralysis. He was kept prisoner in home ever
since.
But that did not stop him
dreaming. When he was ten, he fell in love
with folk art paper cutting, and aspired to
be a paper cutting artist. Ten years later,
he indeed became a master in the field and he
was about to once again make Shan family
proud. Then Fate stroke again. His condition
deteriorated and he was paralysed from the
neck down – he could no longer cut paper
using his hands.
It would be a lie to say that
he did not consider giving up his dream all
together. He did, as he confessed to the
Chinese reporters twenty years later – he
once secretly put aside the pills his mom
gave to him and swallowed them in one go. He
was saved, and eventually touched by the
heart-rending tears and tender love of his
parents and family. He decided not to back
down, and began to learn how to cut paper
with a knife held between his teeth.
Mr Shan Guojun
working on
paper cutting by holding the
knife between his teeth
It often takes days, even
weeks, for him to finish one paper cut-out.
There were dangerous instances that the knife
got stuck in his mouth, and painful moments
when his lips and gums were badly swollen to
the point that they kept dripping blood. But
at all times his grey-haired mother was by
his side, taking care of his physical needs
and strengthening his spirits.
Gradually, his accomplishment
on paper cutting becomes widely known in his
neighbourhood and beyond, and his cut-outs
are hotly sought after. Although bedridden
and quadriplegic, he is busier than many
people who are able to run around.
Now aged over eighty, his
mother’s devotion to help him following his
dream is as strong as it ever was. She acts
as his toolmaker and material purchasing
officer. A thousand paper cut-outs have
witnessed both a man who is staunch and
unbowed to his ill fate, and a mother whose
unconditional love and support for her son
never fades.
But his physical condition
keeps worsening, and early this year he was
diagnosed with prostate disease. Knowing he
might not have much time to spare, he set an
ambitious final task for himself: to produce
108 paper cut-outs as his gifts to the 2008
Beijing Olympics. He is determined to pursuit
his dream to the very end and to leave proud
legacy behind.
