It is interesting to note that Huang Yao, despite having been schooled in the best literati tradition of Chinese culture which involved painting, calligraphy and seal-engraving, was able to infuse innovative local elements of Nanyang or the ‘Southern Seas’ into his Chinese brushworks. Derived from Huang Yao Nanyang series, this work is unusual in the bold use of the full horizontal landscape for the Chinese scroll format in reducing the figures into miniatures and in the play of silhouettes of coconut trees and plants against a watery paddy field and a darkened sky with pockets of red splotches. In reality, children do not slog in the paddy fields but Huang Yao has taken creative licence in showing them helping their hard-working mother.