Recently clearing out my Hong Kong flat as my wife and I are empty nesters (our three children now all in the UK), I came across a large plastic bag filled with negatives, around 50 of them, tightly rolled and wrapped in thin tissue paper. The contents of the bag had not seen the light of day since I pressed the shutter of my camera in the heady summer of 1986, when I lived in Beijing and also travelled by steam locomotive to the city of Datong, Shanxi province, famous for the fourth- and fifth-century Yungang Buddhist caves.
不久前從香港的公寓搬出時——我和妻子已是空巢老人了(我們的三個孩子現在都在英國),偶然發現了一個大塑膠袋,裏面裝滿底片,總共約50張,卷得很緊,包在一張薄紙巾中。自從我在令人陶醉的1986年夏天按下快門之後,這些底片就沒見過光。當時我住在北京,也乘坐蒸汽火車去山西省大同市旅行過——大同以建於4至5世紀的雲岡石窟聞名。