My life: Wu Qiang

I was born in 1967 in Zigong, Sichuan province. That was just after the Cultural Revolution began. I can recall red flags and mass movements. It was dazzling but the more intense things got, the poorer people became. You had to quote Chairman Mao even when you went to buy food. For example, if you wanted a turnip, you'd first say, "Mao Zedong thought for 10,000 years," and then you could pay for it. Food became scarce and people ate anything. I had an aunt who would fry up cockroaches because there was no meat. Of course, we added Sichuan peppercorns and chilli peppers for flavour. I was nine years old when Mao died. Everyone was outside crying in unison. I thought it was funny and started to laugh. A policeman hit me and said, "Chairman Mao has died and you laugh?" But I wasn't sure what it all had to do with me. Those times were like North Korea is today. I think Pyongyang must have studied China.

The older brother of a friend of mine used to draw. He mostly drew pictures of Mao and other socialist images. He gave me a join-the-dots Mao portrait when I was six years old. I soon abandoned the dots and started drawing freehand. In primary school we had an art teacher, but he couldn't really paint. Zigong was a poor place and education was very backward. The best learning you could do was by yourself. When I was eight years old, I'd saved up enough from my Spring Festival lucky money to buy a foreign art book. I learnt about light and perspective from it. In middle school, I spent my whole time painting and drawing because there was nothing else to do. The art teacher threw me out of his class because I contested his ability.

I left school when I was 17. I'd neglected my studies because I'd spent all my time drawing. Anyway, I didn't expect to go to university because we were poor and my family had no connections. My father had retired due to health reasons, so our work unit got me a job in the factory he'd worked in. I was the lowest level manual worker, doing the same repetitive job every day. I stayed there for two years. During this time, Xinhua Bookstore became my haven and I spent all my free money and time on reading. After that, I managed to get a better job as a designer. I even had an exhibition in 1989 in a local gallery. But I began to feel that living in China's interior was restrictive. People thought I was strange and my family used to give me a hard time. "Why are you always drawing?" they'd complain.

In 1990, I came to Shenzhen with a friend. For our generation it was a place where anyone could follow his or her dreams. I lived for free for almost five years in Shenzhen university dormitories; the security guards must have thought I was a student there. I did various odd jobs, including working as a chef and drawing in a Japanese animation company. The early years were tough and we sometimes ate old apple cores to survive. But I didn't want to go home and admit defeat.

After reform there were a lot of Western influences in China, especially music. We could get cassettes of bands like The Police, Aerosmith and Nirvana that had been rejected abroad as faulty. (Domestic rock artists) Cui Jian and Tang Dynasty were influential, too. Bands started forming in Shenzhen. I discovered I had a good voice and could write songs, even though my guitar ability was limited. I had feeling. I believe that my music is related to my painting - a need to express myself. I earned money in the late-90s and early 2000s primarily as a rock singer in bars and clubs.