Every now and again, my parents relate their childhood experiences to me. They lived in a remote village in Malaysia. Farmers by trade, my grandparents relied on their offspring to manage the household and occasionally plough the fields. Financially humble, my grandparents had no access to modern amenities and tools we take for granted today. [...]

The American southwest desert environment is a total ecosystem that is extremely fragile, easily scarred, and slowly healed… and its resources, including certain rare and endangered species of wildlife, plants, and fishes, and numerous archeological and historic sites, are seriously threatened by air pollution, inadequate Federal management authority, and pressures of increased use, particularly recreational [...]

HMS Royal Oak was a Revenge-class battleship of the British Royal Navy, torpedoed at anchor by the German submarine U-47 on 14 October 1939. Launched in 1914 and completed in 1916, Royal Oak first saw action at the Battle of Jutland. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, coming under accidental [...]

Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything is to be obliterated. Admittedly, there is the primal shock of the deserts and the dazzle of California, but when this is gone the secondary brilliance of the journey begins, that of the excessive, pitiless distance, the infinity of anonymous faces and [...]

I rarely venture out much. I complain that Vancouver lacks a vibrant nightlife, yet deep down, I know that my voluntary incarceration is due to my poor social skills. It seems that, as the years pass, I have lost my humour. Few enjoy the company of a pessimistic, cynical man. I do not blame them. [...]

Dong Cheng, in China, is a village where every commercial activity turns around the reproduction of… famous sculptures. The creators of these “fakes” assume a marginal position and then almost disappear behind the “real” authors that they copy… [But] what is “fake”? Couldn’t we define these people [as] “artists”? Aren’t the hands and the craft [...]

“… For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and [...]

I have a rather poor image of myself. My insatiable desire to tweak all that is around me to deemed perfection long ago deterred me from having my photograph taken (the one of me on this website is just about the only one I have taken in the past few years). The camera could, and [...]

I have only watched a handful of silent films in my life. Although I appreciated the experience of ‘witnessing’ the birth of cinema, I have never been enamoured with the idea. It always lacked a certain spark that could not be conveyed without sound. I could never put the series of motions to the narrative. [...]

I am often in a rush. I do not make eye contact while scurrying to my destination. Few do. The endless throngs of people at the subway station all whiz past me. The endless drone of whirring car engines that permeate my ears, the stench of toxic fumes that engulf my nose – they all [...]