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Categories / Documentary Portraiture /Tags / China / documentary photography / Japan / street photography / Click here to open comments section, click again when done to close / Comments Off

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I was born in Hong Kong. Before Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, Hong Kong was a British colony for 150 years. Brought up in this environment, I have been self-absorbed in an image of being superior in many aspects compared to the Chinese. Until just a few years ago, I was a British under a Chinese skin, deeply immersed in a stereotypical western image. This situation is not a unique to my experience. It applies, more or less, to the majority of the population in Hong Kong till this day.

With this thought within myself, I came to Japan and started a career as a photographer, and to gain experience in snap shots I travelled to Egypt, Hawaii, and to the Americas. However, my self-absorbed image of China has prevented me from taking photos in China. I had a prejudice against China. In 2005, I went to China.

I may have had an ill-natured desire to justify my prejudices against China. During this trip, my consciousness was rejecting what I was feeling inside and with my whole body; an affirmative sensation.

As a photographer, a camera is a weapon to understand this world, and to take images with the camera is the practice of understanding this world. This powerful weapon has completely crushed my biased self-consciousness that has been supporting my prejudice against China. Through my camera, I have faced China.

Then, I have realized that for the first time, in a place outside of Hong Kong, I have encountered a photographic subject that I can emotionally connect to. This was causing my affirmative sensation within my deepest feelings and my body.

Whenever I photograph the Japanese in Japan (or other people in their own country) I do not get emotionally connected with them. I press the shutter, simply for the fun of it.

In 1973, my mother escaped from the Cultural Revolution aftermath to Hong Kong. It was an illegal departure and an illegal entry. It took one week to leave the country with bicycle and on foot, crossing rivers. She was moving from place to place, dark at night, with the need to avoid the eyes of the public.

Back then, Hong Kong did not deport illegal Chinese immigrants. My mother found a job, got married and gave birth to four children. One part of her life began when she left her country.

In 1997, the year of Hong Kong's reversion, I left Hong Kong and came to Japan. Of course, I left the country legally and entered legally, and had a comfortable journey. I came to photography in Japan, and became ambitious as a photographer. For me too, part of my life began after leaving my country. I did not intent to follow my mother's foot steps back then.

But after 10 years, I have a different view of my actions. I am her child, we are connected. To travel around China with my camera means to experience my mother and my roots. I don't speak Chinese. I can not communicate with Chinese, even at an everyday level, such as taking meals. However, I know with my intuition what Chinese perceive when I see them, through my viewfinder, when they cry, get angry, cheer up, feeling low, proud, or humble. That is to say, when an emotional connection comes into existence, I understand the world from within.

When I see these pictures, it feels like there is a self-portrait in front of me. I see clearly my root of emotions, the root of my personality, the root of my value, and at times, the root of my nature as a photographer. It brings me to an understanding of my individuality is based on a platform of all these roots.

Recently, when I stopped over in Hong Kong, my mother said to me: "you shall keep living in Japan." After I have recognized my roots, she might have sensed that I would forever be Chinese wherever I live in the future. The image of an ultimate hometown, just a faint image, an abstract, is lying deep within me. It is what I inherited from my mother. And she from her mother. Good Luck China.