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Michael Spencer's avatar

I'm very attracted to your ruminations on the concepts of home and Homeland in the postmodern era especially concerning the ancient historical roots of China and its rapid evolution in the last few decades. I went through a phase where I was writing a lot of poetry and the Chinese poets were among my favorite.

I don't have the ability to travel much so living vicariously through others is my primary mechanism for empathy with the wider world. I keep watching documentaries trying to understand what it might feel like to live in a world where you can go from poverty to riches, the country of tradition to big cities, and yet be perpetually misunderstood by the wider world as China has.

We take a piece of home and Homeland with us wherever we go, whether we realize it or not. As such I enjoy autobiographical and travel blogs like people such as you or Jasmine find write from time to time.

As your literary fan, unfortunately I cannot adequately describe the sensation of watching your relationship with words, storytelling and narrative. The image of you crying tears for a dear book suffocates my awareness of the hero's journey of the author. It fills me with longing for things I cannot name, own and belonging I will likely never possess.

At the end of the day it's not the mechanics of the observer that matters, it's that the act is a fundamental activation of mirror neurons. But in the process of identification the reader, I cannot quite reach your level. I know there's futurism hidden in the history, and genius playing hide and seek in the stories.

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White William 白威廉's avatar

this is arresting - and makes me think of my own weird road trip to Datong (you can drive from Beijing in 3hrs but the coal traffic meant the return journey took more like 6)

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