blog of Joe cz Liao

An ongoing process of self-evaluation led me to submit my pictures to various places and see how they stand under the light.

JPG magazine is a photography magazine that publishes members-submitted photos and essays. I learned about it while at school (as a new form of social media w/ specific purposes) and got my first copy while I was in Boston in 2007.

You are welcome to vote for my work there, only if you think they’re worth it :-)

http://www.jpgmag.com/people/czliao

Also, of course, is my flickr page, where I upload my most updated work and pictures from travel :-) Seriously, there are so many amazing talented people on flickr, like this one, that their work have so often inspired me and humbled me to no end…

My rare trip to Wong Chuk Hang was driven by great expectations, and rewarded with a lift in spirit.

Chester Lau, now a new friend of mine, is an establishing graphic designer / artist young in age but of weighty substances. I learned of him on a design blog about data graphics few days ago. Looking through his flickr photostream, I realized that he is based in Hong Kong, I decided to look him up on facebook. We exchanged a few messages, and decided to meet up.

When I arrived, Chester’s working partner Christie was also there. It took us no time to get into some engaging conversations. Throughout, I listened as carefully as I can to both of them, and expressed my opinions where I thought is either constructive or spices up the conversation, otherwise I just kept nodding and agreed to most things they say wholeheartedly. I felt as though I have found my tribe. They speak of art and design like they speak of life – like I think I do. The abundance of idealism mixed with youth and ambition excites me from the inside.

They belong to a group of freelance creative professionals known as Nomad. Chester and Christie went quite in depth explaining to me the ideas behind the group, why the name and its logo etc. I could not help but notice the unusually high similarities in vision, taste and values between us. I saw clearly some promising potential for creative synergy working with this group of people .

All conditions met, I believe my trips to Wong Chuk Hang will not be rare anymore.

We try to know everything so much that we spread ourselves so thin we end up knowing nothing about everything. Then when we try to know alot about small things, we get so focused that we know too much about nothing.

—A Confession Encountered.

聽別人說話也是一種交流，交流最需要的是真誠。當我和別人交談的時候，我用耳朵、也用目光傾聽。都說眼睛是心靈的窗子，我的「窗子」永遠明亮燦爛。真誠的目光勝似千言萬語．．．

—節錄自一自閉少年之作業。

Translation:

Listening to others is also an exchange, exchange takes sincerity. When I am speaking with others, I listen with my ears, I also listen with my eyes. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, my windows are always sparkling. A sincere look is worth a thousand words…

—from the composition of an autistic child.

Today, I thought I have lost all of my archived projects between 2004 and 2008 forever. The external hard disk that stores them stopped working few days ago. Spent hours trying to look for a backup of that hard disk, which I was quite sure I have, only to find that the backup file of that hard disk appears to be blank in my restoration program…

Between 2004-2008 I started and completed my studies at UCLA. All my essays, artworks, designs, programs etc. were there. Beyond their practical values, there was a high degree of sentimental values as well. The thought of them lost forever worried me.

In my short life, I have had quite a few things of sentimental values that I kept. Over the years, many of them have gone missing (or I have stopped looking them up). In a way I felt completely OK about it. They were tangible physical stuff. They could be lost, but they’re only sitting dustily in dark corners, behind piled up excessive objects, carrying my memory, awaiting to be rediscovered. With digital contents, however, they could be as lost as ‘yesterday’.

Somehow, it seems to be such a tragedy to have lost something of sentimental value. I believe, deep inside our heads, we are all dreaming of that one day when we’re old and not good for many things anymore, we would be sitting on the edge of our beds, pulling out that one old tin box, opening it, and going through the items inside, comforting ourselves with the evidence that we have actually lived. Then, after we leave this world, people who love us would be able to piece our lives together again by going through our belongings. A book may even be written, or a movie, or something. They need this old tin box for their inspirations. Maybe that’s why I’ve always thought that that box is pretty high up on my list of things to grab when the house is on fire.

With the amount of information and materials possessed by an individual today, it is unlikely that the evidence of our lives could be fit into too small of a box. My digital life could hardly fit into my four 500Gs (when I bought my first of them, I thought I’d never need a second); and my physical life, well, let’s say I have some elimination to do.

By the end, I hope that there’re only very limited things that are associated with me. I do not intend to leave behind a whole lot of things that are completely meaningless to my family. As for digital things, considering the way technology is going, it seems quite possible that at the end of my life, they’ll all JUST fit into a small box.

p.s. Luckily, I got the files back, just as the day concludes at mid-night.

More at my flickr.

Working at our full plates, sitting outside of Charlie’s, Jessica and I had a great conversation touching on many subjects.

When we were at ‘relationships’, she shared with me some of her past experiences and her views on them. She made a summarizing metaphor that I wish to share.

“Like watching soccer matches on the TV, sometimes you watch them live, and you don’t know what’s going to happen the next second, and that is exciting and engaging. But then there are times you watch the replay match, for which the result is already known. People still watch them and enjoy the plays performed by the participants, and it’s still fun and enjoyable.”

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My father is a considerably successful person in many aspects.

While we were descending from the base camp, at one point I sought for advice from him on investment. He told me about one of his opportunity some time ago to invest in a company that runs roadside cafes, which turned out to be a success. However, he did not buy the plan, although he saw the potential in it. He considered that the success of the company relied on more cars, especially private transportation, which contradicts with what he sees as the better future.

I asked him whether he had heard of people placing bets on the opponent to their favorite soccer team, so that either they would be thrilled because their favorite team won, or glad because they made some money. He said he has. While others may consider that as ‘diversifying’ their investments – financial and emotional, he considered that as a lack of confidence.

1.
Revisiting the UCLA campus surely recalled a scores of memory. The college life – some call the best time of their lives – was over for me. Not that I haven’t done much in those years, but who doesn’t feel like there was more that could have been done, looking backwards? I started noticing things I never noticed: clubs that I could’ve joined, classes I could’ve taken, and people that I could’ve met.

2.
Crashing the end-of-year party at Caltech was something I did not anticipate myself doing. Looking into the pool of people dancing and enjoying themselves like any other party I had been to, I couldn’t help but also understand that that was probably the pool of people with the highest SAT average in the whole world. We all just wanted to have some fun though, from time to time.

3.
Sitting in one of the many libraries at Stanford, observing people passing by or concentrating on whatever at their hands (while I am distracting myself from what I told myself I would do in the library by ‘observing others’), I wondered whether life would’ve been much different had I studied at this school. Would the prestige of its name make me a different person? Better or worse? Would the student there be that clearly smarter than those that I peered with? Of course these are overly-simplified questions, but then outside the shield of a campus, who doesn’t simplify the product of college education down into the names of institutions? (Some even only TLAs!) Ting told me his company wouldn’t even interview a person not coming out from one of the big-name schools…

4.
The spicy salmon and unagi hand-roll, baked salmon, organic salad, nachos with guacamole, and the mangolicious smoothy were the only food I got to try out of the many many options at Charlie’s–one of the many many restaurant options at the Google campus. The shark fins that comes out from the ground, the T-rex with a flamingo in its mouth, the coffee shop with bean bags, glass conference rooms with cartoonish hand drawings all over the inside of the room (clearly seen from outside) and the bookshelves that stores Legos quite successfully convey what life is like there for me.

5.
I wish I belong to a campus, or have a campus that belongs to me. Soon again, hopefully.

The stars were glimmering among the mist rising from the hot tub that was sitting in the snowfield, while Vivien and her company were relaxing, after a fulfilling day of skiing the Tahoe slopes. Their glasses of wine were chilled by the air, and laughters overheard by the houses around. It was an experience.
A little more →

Back in Kathmandu*, where air is so thick that (stealing from my father) “we need to push them aside to make way”, we are slowly following through the falling action of our journey, after we did what we came for – reaching the Everest Base Camp (EBC, 5,360M) and also Kala Pathan (5,545M) – the peak which is often used as the spot for panoramas of the Himalayan giants (You’re likely to have seen one).

Unlike the Uhuru Peak of Kilimanjaro (5,896M) which York and I summited last March, the “Base Camp” as our goal was quite an anti-climax to a hiking trip, albeit a very reasonable one. Frankly, it was by no means easy for me, I had my share of headaches and short breathes, and that 2 kilometers stretch of rocky road between our campsite and the EBC took us more than two hours each way. After 9 days of trekking, starting from some 3,000M up to our highest point, we had not even ascended half way up to the Everest (8,848M) – the top of the world. It was humbling, and it was a fact. Kala Pathan was the peak we deserve, after some effort. It was the peak from which we, struggling to stand straight in the unforgiving wind, admired the greater peaks at a distance.
A little more →