The last time we’ve been to taiwan was in 2018, just a couple years fresh into our relationship. 7 years later we’re both radically different people with different interests: back then she was not into fabric art, and I did not have a camera.
I try not to be intrusive and take quick snaps, but sometimes they just happen to look up at the same time. Street photography can be controversial – being shy and awkward myself I don’t go into people’s faces, but I still want to take photos that represent the slices of life I experience. To me, there is so much beauty in the mundane.
The thing with getting used to a place is that you stop seeing beauty everywhere. I love travelling because the stark contrast between the foreign place and my home country makes me drunk in the pleasure of constant marvel.
I think what I like about growing 7 years older compared to my 2018 self is that I appreciate a whole lot more of things, and I have expanded my awareness of beauty.
I browsed the photos I took from 2018 and the subjects were quite different. This is why I like making art, taking photos and even writing. They are basically impressions of my different selves. Behind these things lie an interior world that would only exist in that moment, and to browse these things again it is like time travelling back into those selves, except it is like a dream: hazy, vague, and yet the impressions are still there.
My writing from then shows a snapshot of my psyche. That self feels so familiar and yet so foreign. My partner remembered that I was very depressed during that trip, which I don’t consciously remember myself. But I do fondly remember a very warm old couple, and thinking about them now provokes a lump in my throat.
Travelling really makes me less of a misanthrope.