I believe hometown is a collapse — a place that sends you into endless departure and eternal return.

The death of a family member awakened emotions I had long forgotten, yet that remained deeply important. When a place becomes empty, a hometown loses certain gazes—those of the deceased, and my own.

In their absence, what remains is a fullness of solitude and silent murmurs. In Chinese mourning rituals, the body of the deceased remains with the family for seven days before cremation. During that week, memories I had forgotten for nearly twenty years gradually resurfaced.

In the two years that followed, I carried a camera while moving between leaving and returning to my hometown. Drifting along winding routes through mountains and valleys, I followed wordless traces inscribed within my body, gathering fragments of myself that seemed to remain there.

I seem to hear a warm voice from my hometown, “Welcome home.” Some things return only after I have drifted very far away.