On July 1, 2018, I was on a plane returning to Berlin, where I now live and strive to be a filmmaker and writer, from Shenzhen, where I grew up and try to reclaim my roots after some ten years in America. A question kept repeating itself in my head, “What have I seen in China?” This question never touched me as it touched me then, returning to a new home after a work trip in a place I also called home. For I’d never had the chance to observe China with a writer’s eyes, nor had I ever claimed for myself the freedom of a creative vagabond. So I decided to document my creative endeavors between the two cities for a year—what I see, what I hear, what my friends do, and how we imagine and create together. There, high up in the sky, lost in thought, my year of magical thinking began.

2018年7月1日，我坐在从深圳回柏林的飞机上。柏林是我的新家，我作为文化人入世之地，但傲娇的它替我保管着一颗出世的魂；深圳算我半个老家，我长大的地方，十年的留洋又把我带回了这片躁动的土地，重新扎根。在飞机上，我的脑海中一直重复着一个问题，“在国内我到底目睹到了什么？”这个问题从来没有这么促动过我，也许是因为这是我第一次回国工作，再从中国的家回到海外另一个我叫家的地方。在此之前，我从来没有以作者的目光观察过中国，也没有为自己争取过作为文化游子生活的自由。就在这次回柏林的航班上，我决定以博客的方式记录未来一年我在两地观察创作的日子，我的所见所闻、我与艺术家小伙伴们的日常、我们如何一起想象与创作。在无垠蓝空中，我无意中打开了奇想之年之门。

*Photograph by Reelika Ramot, made for my documentary project Berlin Transgression (2018)
*图片作者是爱沙尼亚摄影师Reelika Ramot, 本图为我2018年完成的纪录片《柏林边界》的电影剧照。