Passing By the Central Academy of Fine Arts: The Choice That Changed Yim Mau-Kun's Life

Some turning points in life are visible only in retrospect. It is only years later that we realize we had been standing at a crossroads.

For the painter Yim Mau-Kun, one of the most important of those crossroads arrived in the form of an examination permit sent from Beijing.

By then, he had been working in Guangdong for many years. In Zhaoqing, he worked in stage design for a theatrical troupe while continuing to make his own paintings. Taking Opera to the Boat had been selected for a national art exhibition. Song of the Warrior won first prize in a Guangdong provincial exhibition and was reproduced in Guangdong Literature and Art.

His name was beginning to be noticed in Guangdong art circles.

Then an even larger opportunity appeared.

The Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts began recruiting graduate students.

Yim decided to apply.

Sending Guangdong Literature and Art to Beijing

In those years, of course, there were no digital portfolios for art-school applications.

One of the most direct pieces of evidence Yim had of his ability as a painter was the issue of Guangdong Literature and Art in which his work had been published.

So he mailed the entire magazine to Beijing as part of his application to the graduate program in oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Years later, he remembered that more than thirty people from around the country had applied.

His application was accepted.

Not long afterward, the academy's admissions office sent him an examination permit.

This is the kind of detail that can easily disappear into a single sentence.

I had been thinking of applying to the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

and

I had already received the examination permit from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

are not the same thing.

The first is a hope. The second means that he had actually reached the door.

For a young painter working in stage design at a regional theater and gradually gaining attention through his own work, this was a natural path forward.

Further study at the Central Academy could have meant more systematic academic training, a larger artistic platform, and perhaps an entirely different professional future.

But around the time the examination permit arrived, the circumstances of the Ran family changed.

After His Father's Death, the Family Began to Rethink Its Future

In Yim Mau-Kun's recollection, this turning point was closely tied to the family changes surrounding the death of his father, Ran Peng, in 1978.

The family began discussing something that felt more urgent than graduate school:

Where would the family go next?

The plan was to find a way to Hong Kong first, and from there to deal with the possibility of eventually going to Taiwan. At the time there were no direct links across the Taiwan Strait.

But this was not a simple decision.

Who should go first?

Where would they live in Hong Kong?

Who could receive them?

With very little money, how would they begin again?

Someone had to take the first step.

Yim had one very practical advantage. He had already lived and worked in Guangdong for many years and could speak Cantonese.

For a family preparing to enter Hong Kong with few resources, language mattered. Among the family members, he was one of those most likely to adapt quickly and help the others find their footing.

Suddenly, Beijing and Hong Kong had become two roads that could not be taken at the same time.

A Family Meeting

Yim remembered that the family gathered to discuss what to do.

Around that time, because of rumors of an earthquake, his mother had traveled from Hunan to Guangdong and was temporarily staying in Zhaoqing.

The application to the Central Academy's graduate program was happening during the same period.

Later, other family members gathered in Guangzhou, and they began to discuss their future seriously.

This was not an abstract debate about "artistic ideals."

It was a family making a practical decision.

If Yim went to Beijing for graduate study, his life would continue to develop within the mainland academic art system.

But if the family intended to leave the mainland, someone had to prepare the way toward Hong Kong.

In the end, the family decided:

Do not go to Beijing. Prepare for Hong Kong first.

Yim accepted the decision.

He Sent the Examination Permit Back

It may have been the quietest action in the entire story, but it carried enormous weight.

The examination permit from the Central Academy of Fine Arts was already in his hands.

He did not take it to Beijing and sit for the examination.

Instead, Yim wrote a letter of thanks and mailed the permit back to the academy.

There was no examination.

No admission or rejection.

No final attempt just to "see what might happen."

That road ended with the examination permit.

Years later, when he spoke about it, he did not dramatize the decision.

I decided not to take the Beijing graduate-school exam. I withdrew.

Then the family continued discussing how to get to Hong Kong.

Many of the most important choices in life happen this way.

Not with a dramatic farewell, but with a decision, a letter, and a piece of paper sent back.

A Family That Could Not Afford a Hotel

Before going to Hong Kong, the family first needed to gather in Guangzhou.

But even the cost of staying in a hotel was difficult for them.

At that point, one of Yim's old classmates, He Shengshan, helped.

He Shengshan and Yim had been classmates at Changde No. 1 Middle School. Both loved to draw, both joined the school art group, and later they were admitted together to the affiliated secondary school of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.

After graduation, He Shengshan was assigned to work in stage design at the Guangzhou Acrobatic Troupe.

The troupe later moved to a new location, leaving some empty beds in its old dormitory. He Shengshan was still living there.

When Yim's family came to Guangzhou, they could not afford to stay in a hotel for long, so they temporarily stayed in those old dormitory quarters.

The contrast between two scenes is striking.

On one side, an examination permit from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

On the other, a family crowded into spare beds in an old acrobatic-troupe dormitory, trying to work out how to reach Hong Kong.

Both belonged to the same moment in Yim's life.

The Road to Hong Kong Was Not Planned Either

Deciding not to go to Beijing was only the first step.

Actually reaching Hong Kong was still difficult.

The family had no secure place to land there and very few resources.

Yim later contacted his former classmate from the Guangzhou Academy, Li Haiji.

Li Haiji had an older sister living in Hong Kong.

After they got in touch, she agreed that, if circumstances allowed, she would help receive and look after members of the Ran family.

In Yim's later recollection, her help was crucial.

He even believed that without her assistance, his mother might not have been able to reach Hong Kong smoothly, and the family's later move toward Taiwan might also have become much more difficult.

In other words, when Yim sent the Central Academy examination permit back to Beijing, he was not abandoning one certain road in favor of another equally clear one.

Quite the opposite.

The Beijing road was the clearer one.

The Hong Kong road was full of uncertainty.

What If He Had Gone to Beijing?

Looking back today, it is natural to ask:

If Yim Mau-Kun had taken that examination permit to Beijing, what kind of artist might he have become?

It is a question that can never truly be answered.

Perhaps he would have entered the academic system of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Perhaps he would have remained on the mainland, teaching and painting.

Perhaps his artistic career would have taken a completely different course.

But the life that actually happened was this:

He did not go to Beijing.

He went to Hong Kong.

In Hong Kong, he began teaching art, selling paintings, and painting portraits, gradually establishing himself in an unfamiliar place.

Only afterward came the years in Taiwan and the much longer artistic career that followed.

In that sense, the unused examination permit from the Central Academy of Fine Arts marks a dividing line in Yim Mau-Kun's life.

Before it stood a young painter who was gradually gaining recognition within the mainland Chinese art system.

After it stood a man who had to begin again.

The Road Not Taken Is Also Part of a Life

When we describe an artist's career, we usually record where he studied, who taught him, which exhibitions he joined, and what awards he received.

But the things that did not happen can matter just as much.

A school never attended.

An examination never taken.

An examination permit mailed back.

They may never appear on a formal résumé, yet they can alter the direction of a life more profoundly than many events that do.

Yim Mau-Kun did not "miss" the Central Academy of Fine Arts because he never reached the door.

On the contrary, the door was already in front of him.

He chose to turn away and take another road whose destination he did not yet know.

That road led first to Hong Kong.

Later, to Taiwan.

And it ultimately helped shape the Yim Mau-Kun we know today.

A true turning point in life is not always the moment when an opportunity appears.

Sometimes it is the moment when two roads appear at once, and you choose which one to take.