somewhere between

Raised on both sides of the Pacific in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US, I’m neither fully American nor fully Chinese, but rather somewhere between. Arriving in mainland China has always been an odd sort of homecoming, feeling at once entirely familiar yet altogether foreign.

Returning from China I am always curious to discover where I trained my lens. For me, temples, lanterns, and other typically Chinese scenes on which many may focus recede into the background. Instead, as someone engaged with the culture but not necessarily with the people, I become an impartial observer. I see vignettes of a changing China, landmarks disappearing, culture and lives and lifestyles torn down in great swaths to make room for the generic and new. I see the pains that accompany modernization: pollution, overcrowding, inflation, disparity. But amongst all this I also see how life goes on for the Chinese people, standing hard amongst the hectic change, living in the balance, somewhere between.