Insomnia
Sometimes I can’t sleep at night, I toss and turn, alarm bells and laughter going off in the street. Honking cars in my dreams. I can’t get no peace. So I get up and get dressed and toss on my shoes and walk through Hongpailou. Sometime I remember to bring my camera. These shots were [...]
Gibbering again
My vision of myself rarely coincides with the vision others have of me. When people think highly of me, I hear the sniveling thief gibber inside; when people think low of me, I feel the warrior stir. But not just in reaction to what others think. It’s almost as if praise comes exactly then, when [...]
Before I die
Factories will have no workers, just a few people making sure the machines are well-oiled Doctors will never touch a knife, only input the data into a computer Disease will be the scourge of the underclass, everyone else will have their genes regularly realigned Drivers will look up at floating highways, and the tolls will [...]
Pragmatic above all things
I know a girl named Color who stopped me on the street one day and said, I am different from every other Chinese girl out there. I think deep, she said, and I question everything. Everybody thinks I am weird and I have few friends. I say strange stuff like, Why would you do that? [...]
Silk Roads and Great Walls
What we today call the Chongqing Model and the Guangdong Model are just new names for an ancient struggle. Since the first brick was laid on the Great Wall and the first caravan set out across the desert, this country has been riven by the need to communicate with the outside world and the fear [...]
What the people say