Dune is a colossal book, not just by its influence on science fiction as a genre, but also its rich detail and underlying themes of survival, evolution, ecology, religion, politics, and power. For this it deserves credit, but as a story itself it failed to grip me. A minor obstacle was its pacing, often slow yet sometimes so fast across plot twist that I wondered if I accidentally skipped a page. But the biggest hurdle is that Dune feels highly cliche, which is ungrateful to say because I do realise this is the spaceship that launched all these science fiction typicalities, influencing the likes of Ender’s Game and Star Wars.
I know I take too many photos, and I know I should remove some for brevity. But it feels to me that each of these views is worth capturing, as if to store it in a jar for storage. When I no longer live in China, I want to look back on these trips, to […]
We’re in Majin Village (马金镇) in Zhejiang, a day before the Chinese New Year starts. Everyone’s busy doing some final shopping or getting a haircut before the festival — and the weather reaching 22 °C in February helps bring people outside. Meat, spices, offerings, flowers, yoghurt, cookies, barbeque, trinkets, posters, vegetables, soap, new shoes — […]
It’s a foggy morning in Xixinan Village 西溪南村, a village near Huangshan. I’m tired of sleepless nights with a 5-month old baby, but I equally want to take this opportunity to take some photos, so I’m outside the door at 06:30. Watertowns like this are usually crowded during the day, but deserted this early. Xinanxi […]
After Zaotai Village, we’re driving around the Huangshan (黄山) area, which is surrounded by dozens of historical towns, and we’re trying to pick the least touristified ones. Today we’re in Yuliang (渔梁村), a village dating back to the Sui Dynasty (1500 years ago). What was a mere settlement started to become really wealthy around 600 […]
