Wu Meifei lives in a remote village. His psychological condition causes him great distress; dark thoughts regularly cross his mind. Meifei often considered death as a means of escaping from his troubles. One day, he began tapping an empty matchbox with a pen and the sound immediately calmed him. Tapping the pen on the matchbox also created a series of dots, which gradually became an image. His supervisors describe his assiduous style of drawing like the rhythmic tapping of Buddhist monks on a Muyu (a wooden percussion instrument shaped like a fish). However, in stark contrast to the monks, his tapping remains firmly within his personal experience and intuition. It normally takes Meifei six or seven days to complete a drawing.
