My trip and residency to China coincided with significant relationship problems. The distance, already present, grew more vast the moment I set foot in a foreign country.
Due to lack of communication, I was wrapped in a blanket of silence. Slowly… my blank room and the echo of nothingness became a sanctuary of thought; my dreams and emotional state a glittering subterranean subconscious. I was spinning a precious cocoon, a psychological sanctuary.
I forced myself to have a routine of getting out, trying new food and visiting new places to eat. The process itself was cathartic: not only is it hard to face people in a depressed state, but it is also even more difficult to do so in a foreign language. This whole procedure, including having to figure out and read a Chinese menu, converse in Chinese and make decisions in an unknown world, is not dissimilar to the process of personal growth and venturing into uncharted emotional territory.
It felt like I was eating my angst and sadness. The ingestion of my pain resulted in the sanctification and purgation of my emotions, in turn causing a renewal and restoration. Out of the pain and sadness, there was an awakening and personal and artistic growth.
![[Hyper-]Catastrophe Theory ［超］灾变论 Shun 舜](http://theuntitled.cn/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/shunp-440x625.jpg)
