I traveled to various cities when I first visited China. In time, I decided that staying in one place for a while and taking photographs in that location might be a more rewarding approach. Upon arriving in a particular town, I felt somehow overwhelmed by the environment and all I could do was just stand and stare. It was hard to believe that this town was only a few hours train ride away from the illuminating cityscape of Hong Kong. I felt I’d been thrown into a long lost small town, hidden and mysterious.

Time dragged on and I was debating whether the best course of action would be to simply leave - I was just hanging around in the same place without making much progress. Then a rush of relief and buoyed up energy came to me, and was a promise of creativity. I then started to take photographs of this town and I have been coming back to this place to do the same over the past few years.

The obscurity of this town and my own presence inside it created a sense of blankness or unconsciousness but this also brought me a moment of clarity.
Standing in this space with its mass of humanity, and its array of disparate spaces and objects, I felt a curious sense of warmth and serenity. From a profound inter connectedness of people, place and history; I witnessed the coalescence of warm light and deep shadow particular to this locale.