Well I've been back for about a week now, and just wow.... so much has changed. I'm not really sure where to start bout whatever. It's been 11 years since I've returned to my country of birth, land of the dragon : O and it's just gone through unimaginable levels of change. My initial impression of the whole place was major development across the nation. I mean everywhere you went, there was construction, you hear it in the day time, and you hear it at night when you sleep. The places where I grew up are mostly all gone, torn down to make way for bigger apartments and condos, business offices and what not, and even my old elementary school had its share of change.

It's weird cuz here I am 19 years old now, our family immigrated to Canada when I was 8, and now I hardly recognize anything from where I came from?... And going back to see all of our family relatives, just wow. To me, since I don't really keep in contact with them, seeing them again, or talking to them in person since 11 years is like a giant punch in the nuts. I mean, what would you do if you're suddenly reunited with a part of your family whom you haven't seen in over half your life time?

Also I've done some sight seeing in Shanghai and Nanjing. It was really interesting to see the major changes. The place where I interned at, really taught me a lot. I was fortunate enough to be put right on the development team for a new PS3 game, so I was officially doing work as a concept artist! It was really busy, like we had to do a lot of drawings everyday, meet tight deadlines, and do more work based on feedbacks from our client. Fuck yes it was tedious work, but it was totally worth the experience. I've met so many talented people from all the departments, and they are just so chill and welcoming. I think it was really different for them to work with a North American Chinese like me because we had some trouble with the language barrier (yea I don't read or write Chinese) so that's a problem, but I do speak it! By the time my stay was over, my team and I were pretty close to finishing all the conceptual work for the game! So probably when it's announced I can say stuff about it lol My boss was a great guy, he's also really chill and laid back, and I found out that he used to employ a lot of people, that are now working at Blizzard Entertainment, and he told me that if I intern again with him next summer, he'll help me put together portfolios, recommend me to a lot of north American gaming companies, and he'll even write me up a recommendation to Blizzard. Scary ain't it?

But now, lemme talk about something more serious, and this one specifically goes out to you young kids. Your education, your career choices, your living condition, don't you ever dare take it for granted! I cannot express this enough with what I've seen and heard during my visit. Being in a land of opportunity and freedom, most of today's children are pissing away golden opportunities where kids in other countries dream of having. Now I can't really enforce my opinion on any of you, but at least you'll understand something. Being a nation with such an overwhelming population, basic necessities won't be so convenient to obtain. This is a country where if you're not with the flow, you'll be left behind, and when you're left behind, there won't be a welfare to take care of you. You'll either end up on the streets with no one to give a rats ass about you or dead. That simple. I mean, growing up here in the land of opportunity.

For example: "Yo dude are you gonna hit up math this afternoon? nah man, i'm gonna go hang out with those guys at the park and get my joint going."

"I don't need to get to school ontime, its just highschool, I don really care, I can just pull my marks up next year and just chill this year."

"man my marks are so shitty this year, I think I'll just drop out and work"

In a country where teenage students have the moral conscience to say these things, you don't know how spoiled you are. Things that you take for granted like: easy access to nutritious and fresh food, a clean public bathroom, good air quality, nice climate, freedom to choose your education... (I can go on), these are all a far cry or unheard of to teenagers in China.


You might wonder why did my family come to Canada? Well there's the common stereotype that all Asians immigrate to north America to get rich, which is kind of true. But the real deal is for better opportunity, and for better health care. I was diagnosed at age 1 with a rare disease called 'congenital adrenal hyperplasia' (Wikipedia that shit if you don't know what that is) and pretty much every summer, when the weather gets to around 40C + humidity in Nanjing, I pretty much almost die, not joking at all. Now that my family and I live in this awesome land of freedom, I can say that I truly appreciate a lot of the common things available.

What I'm trying to get is that, you may not feel like this will effect you, or even listen to me like: oh this guy's just talking shit cuz the commies are lame. Well you know by the rate that our economy is going at this rate, all the manual labours are being shifted to foreign countries like China and India, and unless you young people or people without proper education wake up soon, your ass will be blown to poor town in the blink of an eye, because if 11 years can change China like that, think what it will do to you if you're unwilling to make an effort on your own life.

In all, going back to China was a real eye opening experience, I highly recommend people take trips to another place in the world that they don't really know about. China is just the start for me, and plus its my land of birth, so its really my original home. I am definitely going back there next year, because it's just so AWESOME in terms of the experience!

Well that's all for now, and I'll post more art whenever I can!