在不太遙遠的很久以前

Too Long Ago, Not Far

When I first took up this Super 8 camera, I knew I was about to leave my home. Too Long Ago, Not Far, shot between 2019 to 2023, alludes to the Huaying Tongyu [華英通語, meaning: interchangeable expressions between Chinese and English, first published in 1867 in New York], the earliest English textbook for Chinese people that uses Cantonese phonetic notation to teach the pronunciation of English words. This seamless editing mode offers me the base to record everything in the city as notations, things that I want to look at over and over again. Perhaps by the time I go back, nothing changes, everything remains the same. As the Chinese saying goes, horse keeps on running, and people keeps on dancing.