Me and art: the moon over the Vltava and the Yellow River

When I was choosing my field of study, I was attracted to Czech for one simple reason: I suspected that behind this language was a world of deep art and culture. Dvořák, Smetana, Janáček, Mahler - composers whose music I knew before I knew their country. I listened to it as a flutist: I admired the construction of phrases, the dynamics, the technique. The music seemed big and beautiful - but distant, like a painting behind glass.

Then one spring night came. I was sitting on the bus from Krakow to Olomouc, tired from the journey, and the moon was floating outside the window. I put on my headphones and listened to Rusalka's aria „Little Moon in the Deep Sky“ and the Vltava River. The soaring melody reminded me of clouds covering the moon, streams of sixteenth notes flowing like its light on the surface of the river. In my diary I wrote: „The same moon shines everywhere in the world - but only now I understood what the Czech one looks like.“ I experienced a similar feeling in the middle of nature. I knew the Czech landscape from the films of Jiří Menzel, from the poetry of Kytika, from the pages of Kundera. In the National Museum in Prague I admired the expositions dedicated to nature. But it was only when I walked with my friends through the snowy hills near Šumperk, just a stone's throw from the Polish border, that I understood something that cannot be read. The sun was blinding me, I slipped on the ice and laughed. In that moment, it became clear to me why Czechs have such a deep connection to nature - and that liveliness moved me.

But art also led me to more serious questions. In my research work, I connected art history with international relations: using the iconographic method, I analysed twelve scenes on the Orloj and linked them to the names of Czech months to show how they reflect the national revival of the 19th century. There are so many tourists in the Old Town Square that the images on the clock are hardly visible. Still, as I waited for the bell to strike, I felt an excitement beyond words. I had come to Bohemia with an image composed of books, films and sheet music. I leave with something else: an understanding that only direct experience can give. And at the same time I realized something personal - as a Chinese woman standing in the middle of a foreign culture and understanding it, I am beginning to understand myself better. I know who I am, where I come from, and what I want to explore next. Maybe that's the greatest gift art has given me: it's not just beauty, it's a way to learn about the world and myself.

NNela.Ni