Mian Shuang

The morning sunlight filters through the latticework of my shop window, scattering soft shadows over porcelain vases and carved jade. The smell of aged wood and musty paper greets me as I unlock the cabinets. It’s comforting now, though it wasn’t always.

My father opened this shop thirty years ago in the heart of Beijing, China, pouring his life into it. He loved its rhythms—the haggling, the stories behind every artifact. But when I told him I wanted to leave all this behind and become an artist, it was as though I’d committed a betrayal. His face tightened in that way I’d come to dread, and his words cut sharper than I expected.

“Art?” he said, the word heavy with disdain. “Do you think people buy art to eat?”

I was thirty-five then, driven and stubborn, and I wasn’t going to let him steer my life. I didn’t visit the shop for weeks. When my mother called me that evening to tell me he was gone, I felt like the breath had been punched out of me. I sat in my apartment for hours, staring at my half-finished canvases.

Could my silence have weighed on his heart? I’ve asked myself that question more times than I can count. I’ll never know the answer, but guilt has its own relentless logic.

After the funeral, I packed up my brushes and moved back home. Running this shop wasn’t just about keeping it open—it felt like penance. Yet, as the weeks turned into months, something shifted. I began to find pieces my father might not have considered valuable—an old scholar’s brush washer, a cracked but intricate teapot—and displayed them with care. Customers noticed. The shop became a blend of his vision and mine, and, ironically, it began to thrive in ways it never had before.

Sometimes, late at night, I sit in the back room and sketch, the lines flowing without expectation or judgment. It’s not the life I imagined, but it’s a life I’ve shaped. Would he have been proud? I hope so. Even if he never understood, I think he would see now that I’m not running from his legacy—I’m carrying it forward.