'The Right Time' began with my three-year long-distance relationship with my wife, Xiaotong. We are same-sex couples from China.
When I was studying in Belgium, she was still living in China, there was always a 7 hour time difference between us and we spent much time with each other but only through our phones, especially when Covid-19 started in 2020 and we didn't see each other at all for two years. After two years of preparation, she moved to the Netherlands, where we finally live in the same time zone, and we got married last week in the Netherlands. This is the first country to allow same-sex couples to get married. But we couldn't tell our families that we were getting married, we wouldn't get any support from them. We can leave our home country but our families are still under pressure from people around them and from society. But I found similarities between the different generations in our family, when my parents got married, my grandfather disapproved and my grandparents didn't attend my parents' wedding. I used our parents' archives. To let them involve and to present their absence. The time differences between countries due to physical distance, time differences between different generations due to different educational backgrounds and experiences We always say the right time will come, but when do we not have to hide any secrets from the people we love?
I wore my mother’s wedding dress and walked from Amsterdam to Eindhoven, the city where Xiaotong studies and lives now. I followed her flight schedule when she arrived in the Netherlands in 2021. She left Hong Kong at 00:15 am and arrived in Amsterdam at 6:40 am. Plus a 6-hour time difference, the whole journey was 12 hours. I left at 05:15 pm from Amsterdam and arrived in Eindhoven at 6:40 pm the next day. So we spent the same amount of time meeting each other.
Every second, a new drop of water converges from the edge of the film into the center of the film. When water gathers, it slowly creates a convex lens shape that gathers light and project a light spot on the wall. As the angle of the sunlight changes throughout the day, the position of the light spot slowly moves in between the four walls of the space. As time passes, the water evaporates and the film is left with an annual ring of watermarks.
