Phantom Digital Files

> September 2007. Jiugulou Dajie, Beijing.

I'm sure I'm not the first to experience the sudden and inexplicable loss of digital images, but it still hurts. It hurts bad. I clutch to their memory for days, unable to shake the feeling that if I could turn on and off the camera in just the right way, they will somehow reappear on the memory stick. In the end, I realise I am powerless to change the situation. Thus, I would like to dedicate this post in memory of the latest images to fall victim to one of technology's mysteries:

1. Images of Hohhot city, where one main avenue is lined with mammoth, recently-erected buildings topped with what look like papier-mache versions of Mongolian-style rooftops and brightly colored Mongolian motifs stenciled onto the sides of these large, white box structures.

2. Two strapping young Muslim men underneath a bare lightbulb, a tall stack of flour sacks in the corner behind them, as they throw and roll dough into shape.

3. A bowl of pickled vegetables that look like maggots.

4. A picture of my leg, with a stranger's leg and arm pressed against me on the long distance bus taking me from Hohhot to the grasslands camp. Throughout the ride, his elbow had a way of finding my hip bone and using it as an armrest. That's called physical intimacy.

5. Image taken from within a dining ger on the Gegentala Grassland of Inner Mongolia. Bright orange velveteen draped from top like a circus tent, down to the horizon of windows running along the circumference of the tent. Through the windows you see sleeping gers huddled together outside, tinted blue by the light of dusk.

6. Image of the humble table spread of the first night's meal: standard white ceramic dishware, large plastic blue thermos full of salty and bitter tea, a hunk of lamp served cut-as-you-eat, sweet corn and kidney beans, stir-fried garlic stems and lamb, steamed rolls.

7. Image of silky-haired goats and filthy woolen lambs grazing in a Restricted Grazing area of the grasslands. The government has begun sectioning off the grasslands and prohibiting grazing in certain areas to protect growth of the actual grass. Possibly unfair, considering that the Han-driven tourism industry is probably disrupting the ecosystem more than the centuries' old nomadic practice. I guess the government sees tourism as better for the economy than preserving a way of life that lives in harmony with nature. (I totally bought into the Mongolian Way).

8. The high, blue sky squatting right on top of a field as far as the eye can see (visibility in the grasslands is excellent). The silhouette of five people stand on the line between heaven and earth, waiting for the bus. Imagine a bus stop in the Nevada desert, except with grass.

9. Old guy riding a motorcycle to heard the sheep and goats.

10. Image of the dreamy Mongolian herdsman who works summers at the camp as a night watchman. Charisma snuck out from within a navy police jacket, the "Police" patch struggling to stay attached, as he stood with his feet apart, resting his weight on his right hip. He squinted towards the West, looking out from underneath dark thick brows and tousled hair with a white felt ger situated behind him. He was planning to spend the winter months singing in Hohhot bars after the autumn grazing concludes.

11. Picture of the gate to the Forbidden City at midnight from across Chang An Jie (possible translation: "Avenue of Lasting Peace") , roughly 20 carlanes wide.

12. Picture of the Museum of the Revolution and the Museum of Chinese History with a Beijing Olympic Countdown LED screen placed smack on top of the wide steps leading to a columned front terrace. Screen sponsored by Rolex.

13. Picture taken from over the shoulder of man flying kite over Tiananmen Square. The length of his kite stretched over a hundred meters into the night sky. People sat nearby watching the kite's mesmerizing languid sway.