u Xiye, a Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) freshman majoring in Japanese, enjoys capturing the moments of daily life through painting. Her recent painting about the traffic light timing issue at SISU West Gate has caused the public attention.

Wu has painted a cartoon to express her dissatisfaction about the inconvenience caused by the overlong red light timing during peak class hours. The red light lasted for two and a half minutes while the green light was only 38 seconds. She then posted the work on the social platform Red, quickly drawing the attention of SISU students.

This cartoon also caught the attention of the Shanghai Morning Post. What the reporters found on the spot was exactly what Wu had observed. Their report has gained widespread attention, and students later noticed that the green light duration was set to increase during peak hours.

Wu enjoys recording some small moments in her daily life by painting, such as celebrating her teacher’s birthday, her experiences as a home tutor and her autumn outfits. Experiencing repeated delays at the traffic light during peak hours, Wu created a cartoon to express her dissatisfaction and posted it on Red.

Wu also explained that her reason for choosing to post it on Red was simply to hope to raise a public problem unnoticed by her fellow students. “While I did not anticipate that my painting would draw the media’s attention, when the reporter wanted to interview me I readily agreed.” said Wu.

After the green light timing was extended, many students appreciated Wu’s cartoon for expressing and helping solve their inconvenience. But she said that it was due to luck that the matter received attention.

Painting has been a hobby of Wu’s since childhood. However, due to the heavy academic demands in junior and senior high school, her painting skills stagnated during this period. Now she is not very confident in her current painting skills, feeling that her skills cannot match up with her ideas. She also admires those who have been able to stick with their hobbies since childhood.

After entering university, Wu has more time to immerse in painting. So she revives her passion for painting and makes it a long-standing hobby. Although Wu still feels her paintings are not good enough, she is confident that she can express herself by painting. “My personal perspective and choice of colors can fully reflect my emotions and thoughts.” she said.

Wu has also released her personal sticker channels on WeChat——"Xiao Wu Channel" and "Puff Bear Dada". They are very popular among her classmates, which brings her a great sense of achievement. Wu says that she enjoys trying new things and that is why she has the idea of creating her own stickers. Although there is no immediate reward for trying to make stickers, creating out of passion itself is already a happy thing for her.

In addition to painting, Wu has also tried many ways to record her life, such as photography. However, the first time she felt that her record could influence others was that she posted an article on her own WeChat public account during her senior high school.

At the 100-Day Count Down to College Entrance Examination Kick-Off Meeting, Cheng Xihua, a psychological expert who had given over five hundred speeches nationwide, was invited to give a speech. As a listener of this speech, Wu did not agree with Cheng’s viewpoint that success equals making money and the purpose of studying is to make money.

Then she decided to post her doubts in an article on her WeChat public account. Her article spread widely among her classmates and gained nearly 2,000 readings. A reader commented that he also disagreed with what the expert said. “Wu’s article expressed our collective dissatisfaction and I admire her courage to write it down.”

“It is already very good to be able to keep recording in this way and have an impact, even on a small group of people.” said Wu.