Part 1. (250 words)
My family definitely uses photo to remember people, places, and events. Twenty years ago, most of Chinese families have the table that covered by thick glass to protect the wood table surface. Pictures are always put between the glass and table, because that can keep the pictures flat and it can be seen every day. Although my family does not use photo to specific remember something, when we look at the picture, it still reminds us to remember something. The oldest photo that my family has is my mum’s one-year’s old celebration picture. It is a black and white picture. My mum stand inside her bed with lovely smile. Actually it is my first time see this picture, I just talked with my mum that I think she was so cute at her early age. In my small family (mom, dad and I), mum is the person who takes pictures for the family and takes care of the photos. She always put our photos inside the top closet. Those pictures are all taken by film camera. I think since we have the digital camera, we have not printed out any pictures. All the digital pictures are keeping inside our family computer’s D disk. It seems my family does not usually look at photos. We only take out the photos when we need to use them.
Part 2. (250 words)
This photo was taken in 1990, when I was four years old. My big family went to a photo studio named Beifang to have this photo. At that time, the colorful photo was too expensive, so that we only had the black and white picture. My parents told me that was the National Day, my grandma suggested all of us went out to the professional photo studio to have a family picture. This is the first family photo that has my younger cousin and me. My grandpa is a blind person, but he has some feeling about the light. I still remember when taken the picture, the photographer hold a lamp, asked my grandpa to follow the light, so that it would look like there was nothing wrong with my grandpa. From the picture, I can tell the close relationship between the families. Every big holiday, like New Year’s Day, Chinese New Year’s Day, Labor Day, National Day, etc, my family always stay together to celebrate. My grandparents’ love with us can also be seen from the photo. They put my cousin and I onto their knees. Although I do not know what was the weight my cousin had at that time, I can tell you that I was so heavy. When taken the picture, the photographer took a long time to adjust his camera and the light, I think my grandpa at that time hold me tightly just in case I would not fallen down.
Part 3. (250 words)
Stir-Fried Tomato:
Ingredients:
2 tomatoes (sliced)
3 eggs
1stalks of green onion
2 tablespoons cooking oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
Method:
- Beat the eggs with a pinch of salt
- Finely chop green onions
- Heat oil in a frying pan until hot, put green onions into the pan and wait until can smell the onion’s smelly.
- Put the green onion away, hot and pour in eggs. Fold eggs occasionally to create a scrambled look.
- After cooked the egg in eighty percent, put it into the bowl, and add the tomatoes inside the pan, cooked for 2-3 minutes.
- Put egg back to the pan, mixed egg with tomato, add salt and sugar. Continue cooking for 3-5 minutes until the tomato is soft and there is some soup there.
- Serve hot.
Preparation time: 8 minutes
Cooking time: 8 minutes
Stir-Fried Tomato and Egg is an easy dish that almost every Chinese family knows how to cook. I choose this to describe because this dish always recall my memory. When I was in elementary school, I lived with my grandparent. In the lunchtime, I always came back home. At that time we lived in the building named “Tong Zi Lou” which only had one restroom, and every family’s kitchen was outside the room on the corridor. At the meal time, you could see which family is cooking the meat, which had the fish. The neighborhood’s relationship was so nice. I do not know why during that time, I was so fascinate in Stir-Fried Tomato and Egg. Almost every neighbor knows that. When I came inside the building, some neighbor usually told me my grandma did the stir-fried tomato and egg again and they hope I enjoy the meal.
When my grandma preparing the food, my grandpa always sitting beside the table in the room, listening to the storytelling from the radio. I was the person who helped to set the table and bring the dishes inside the room. In my grandma’s perspective, a good meal must have rice, vegetable, meat, and soup. She believes that will serve the balance nutrition for the children. I think that is the reason why I was a big girl in my elementary school.
Part 4.
I think the story that could be subject of a video documentary is about the photo. When I took the pictures from the top closet in my apartment. I did not only find my family’s photos, but also the development of China. The characters in the documentary will be my grandparents, my parents, my cousin, and I. I will narrative the story about my family’s memory about taken photos. I will interview my grandma, my mother, and my cousin to see their attitude toward take the pictures. And I will include photographs from the black and white to digital. From this we could see the development of the technology, as well as China’s development. For the documentary, I would like to use the music. The music should be the light music. So that will accordance with the topic of recall people’s memory.
