Episode 49: Alice Qin

September 29, 2019

I moved to Canada in first grade from China, and the only words my mom made sure I knew were yes, no, excuse me, and banana. (I’m really not sure why banana…) But I remember recess being a new thing for me, and I distinctly remember one day being there and looking at 6th graders who were playing on a giant red tube slide, sliding down head first. I thought to myself, “Sure. I’ll do that one day — seems neat!” So, when there were no 6th graders around, I did. Of course, I crashed into the woodchips at the bottom. I wasn’t in pain so I just moseyed back into the classroom.

My teacher asked if I was okay, and of the words I knew, I just picked yes. When my mom came to pick me up that day, I remember her face was just super frantic and I didn’t understand why. But I guess it was because I was wearing a light pink shirt that day, and the whole collar was soaked in blood. She took me to urgent care where I ended up getting stitches, and since then I’ve had a small bald spot on my head.

I have another scar on my nose from after my wisdom teeth surgery. Everything went swimmingly with the surgery, but they put me under I ended up fainting onto a pickle jar in my bathroom. I was using the pickle jar to clean my paint brushes and left it on the sink. My mom was also not very happy with me about that…

That was during my gap year. Unfortunately, I don’t paint now as much as I would like to. I went to college on a partial scholarship for studio arts. This was actually one of the times I feel like I really squandered an opportunity. It sucked, because I had a tough time balancing art with science. It became an assignment for me and that took the enjoyment out of it. I had unlimited supplies and was making my own canvases. When else would I have that opportunity again?

One of my favorite projects was a 3D art installation. The theme was myths, and a lot of people decided to do more classic concepts like Greek mythology. But I took a different approach — there’s a myth that toilet seats are really dirty but compared to doorknobs and other things in the environment, they’re actually relatively clean.

I ended up calling every plumbing company in Rochester and being on Craig’s List trying to find an uninstalled toilet. I actually found one for free! For my installment, I took a toilet paper roll dispenser from an abandoned bathroom on campus. I googled the different bacteria that grow in bathrooms and painted them all over the exhibit — I basically made it look like a grungy bar bathroom. I made the toilet seat pristine with a fresh coat of white and saran wrapped it. I think I chose this project more so out of convenience and simplicity of not having to do research about mythology. Still, I was pretty excited about this idea.

I think moving away for college helped me become closer with my mom. Growing up, it was tough, we were just two ladies trying to figure it out. I remember being so frustrated and almost resentful of how overbearing I thought she was. Looking back recently and truly internalizing how much of a sacrifice she has made given the hand she was dealt, it made sense, and I couldn’t see that when I was growing up. It’s hard knowing just how tough it must have been to uproot her entire life and raise her kid solo. I definitely don’t have the guts to do the same. We’re closer now but I still want to keep her at a safe distance, so she doesn’t have to worry. I’ve tried to make decisions career-wise not so much to make her proud, but to show her that I’m going to be okay, that it was all worth it. When I was younger, I wanted to move away to explore California, or anywhere, really. But now, I’m going to stay in New York. She’s my only family, it only makes sense.

What are your 5 Most Recently Played Artists on Spotify?

Troye Sivan, Frank Ocean, Chance the Rapper, Shawn Mendes, Miguel

If you could have any superpower, which one would you choose?:

Teleport but just up my five-floor walk up

Pick something or someone from NYMC go give out a shout of to!:

Nico and Tiff for essentially dressing me the first day of Surgery

If someone wanted to talk to you, they should lead with…:

Wanna go to TJs?