East is East
I am a child of a mixed marriage. My mother is Taiwanese, of Han Chinese descent; my father is Anglo-Australian. As a high school student I came across Rudyard Kipling's poem The Ballad of East and West, the first line of which states how "East is East and West is West" and the two shall never meet. This line is often quoted to support the idea that Kipling was a racist and a traditionalist supporter of the British Empire, but this is a misunderstanding. The refrain that opens and closes the poem clearly carries its message that when equals meet, the circumstances of race, nationality, and birth don't matter - the people are simply people, and all artificial borders dissolve.
I don't know if in a global sense Kipling's message is true, overly idealistic, or in the unclear area between the two. But I do know that as a child of an Eastern mother and Western father, and having lived my life in Information Age first world countries, from my limited perspective if there was a grand narrative that could explain the experience I've had it would tell the story of an erosion of boundaries. East might be East and West might be West - but Fireworks in Taipei, lunch in Tokyo, and a fashion show in New York all fall beneath the umbrella of the 'urban experience.'
These photographs were taken in the winter months from December 2008 to February 2009 in New York on the East Coast of the United States, on a trip to 'the East' to visit my family in Taiwan, and in Japan on the way between the two. My Western girlfriend came with me, and the pictures I chose tell this three-country story to a large extent through her experiences. Luckily for me, we got to view Taipei, Tokyo, and New York from the observation rooms of skyscrapers. As far back as I can remember I've loved to look down from tall buildings - the view provides a simple means of putting your small life in context. And from far away enough, everybody really does look the same.