At the end of 2021, I left Shanghai and the new media industry, where I had lived and worked for eight years, to embark on a gap year, feeling a more liberating force calling to me from deep within. I believe the seed for this was planted when I read…

I. I. Mother’s Hearth Leaving Lijiang Ancient City to the northwest and passing Lashi Lake, we could see the silver-white peaks of the Jade Dragon and Haba snow mountains in the distance as we travelled through the high mountain valleys along the banks of the Jinsha River. Mid-October marks the…