China's Borderlands | The Most Beautiful 'Ink-Wash Painting' on a Sea Island
In the painting, a sea island is shrouded in morning mist. Waves lap gently against the rocks. Sailors in camouflage face the rising sun, gazing up at the fluttering Five-Starred Red Flag.
This painting is a gift from Lin A-gong, a fisherman on the island, to a certain station of the Southern Theater Command Naval Aviation Force. The two island-garrison soldiers depicted in the painting are First-Class Staff Sergeant Fu Bingjian and Second-Class Staff Sergeant Xu Youxiong.
When the painting comes up in conversation, Fu Bingjian's thoughts return to the day a typhoon struck. Late at night, massive waves had sealed off the sea-lanes, when urgent knocking sounded at the station's door. He hurried to throw on his clothes and open the door. Lin A-gong stumbled in, soaked to the skin, and said anxiously: "Something has happened at home—my pregnant daughter-in-law is showing signs of premature labor, and in this weather the fishing boats simply cannot put to sea..."
There was no time to lose. The two men immediately reported up the chain of command and requested an aviation rescue. After hanging up the phone, they rushed out into the rain to clear broken branches and debris from the helicopter pad; then, without pause, they calibrated the navigation equipment, coordinated with the flight crew, and stood in the wind and rain confirming the flight route with their superiors again and again.
As the wind and rain gradually subsided, the rescue helicopter broke through the clouds and landed. Together with the fishermen, they carried the pregnant woman aboard the helicopter and watched it lift off. Before long, good news arrived: both mother and child were safe. Half a month later, when sea routes to the island reopened, Lin A-gong came with his son, daughter-in-law, and newborn grandson—and before even entering his own home, he went first to the station to express his gratitude.
On a sunny, pleasant weekend, Lin A-gong cradled the ink-wash painting he had made and knocked on the station's door once more. He said with great emotion: "I have been painting ink-wash pictures of this island for decades. Only today do I understand that the most beautiful colors on this island are the red of this flag and the white of these waves."
The painting is filled with a story of deep friendship, but the youth spent garrisoning the island beyond the painting's frame must contend with hardship and solitude—the supply ship comes only once every two weeks, and when typhoons or cold surges strike, the sea routes are often impassable for months at a time; there is no fresh water on the island, drinking water depends on resupply, and water for daily use is collected from rainfall.
With Lin A-gong's delivery of the painting, Fu Bingjian found a "weapon" against solitude. Lin A-gong is known among the fishermen as a "master of ink-wash painting," with a particular gift for painting the sea. Fu Bingjian had also studied traditional Chinese painting for a period before enlisting. Seeing Lin A-gong's exquisite works, Fu Bingjian decided to take him on as a teacher, and had his wife order brushes, paper, and tracing books online, using his rest time to study intensively on his own.
Lin A-gong's encouragement helped Fu Bingjian turn painting into a sustained habit. He uses his brush to render the ink-wash paintings in his heart: the morning glow and white sails capture a poetic quality; the vegetable seedlings just breaking through the soil in the windbreak shelter carry the growth of hope; the silhouettes of soldiers standing at their posts and gazing at the evening glow speak of fortitude...
As he painted on, Fu Bingjian arrived at a reflection of his own: "This sea, these hills, this national flag, and the island-garrison soldiers—are they not themselves a natural ink-wash painting of the island? Every day we stand watch over this island, we use day after day of steadfast duty to brush the most beautiful colors onto this painting."
On another wall of the station hangs a painting titled "Island Reunion"—that midsummer, Fu Bingjian's wife Chen Xiu came to the island for the first time. She found that the hardships here far exceeded her imagination: the island is not connected to the national power grid, and electricity is prioritized for navigation duties; because of this, no matter how hot it became in the family quarters, the couple could not bring themselves to turn on the air conditioning.
During that month-long family visit, Chen Xiu accompanied her husband in raising the national flag, patrolling the island, helping tend the vegetable garden, and sitting together on the rocks to wait for sunset. When the visit ended and she was about to leave the island, under Fu Bingjian's guidance she painted a scene of the family's reunion on the island.
In the painting, the family stands hand in hand facing the sea, with a brilliant evening glow before them. In the lower right corner, a line of small characters reads: "You guard the island; I guard you." Fu Bingjian hung the painting beside Lin A-gong's ink-wash painting—on one side, the righteousness of family and nation (家国大义); on the other, the warmth of a small family. The two paintings on the wall have become the softest armor of the island-garrison soldiers, and the source of their resolve to hold fast to the island.
Another morning arrives. The sun leaps above the sea. Fu Bingjian and Xu Youxiong, dressed in crisp service uniforms, stand beneath the flagpole. Bathed in sunlight, the Five-Starred Red Flag rises in the wind. The two men salute the flag, their gaze resolute. A sea breeze passes gently by; the ink-wash painting on the wall sways lightly. The figures inside the painting and outside it merge together, merging into the mountains, the sea, and the morning light.