Over the past few days, I came across several news stories from Alberta and other western Canadian provinces. Heavy rain had turned rodeo grounds into deep mud. Boots disappeared into the earth. Horses splashed through puddles. The crowds, however, didn't leave. They laughed, cheered, and embraced the mud as if it were simply another part of the festival. Watching those scenes reminded me of something unexpected: the traditional Chinese biaoshi (caravan guards). At first glan

Summer has arrived in Montreal once again. Heat wave after heat wave has settled over the city. In my little print shop, ACCO PHOTO, I've noticed a small detail that says a lot about life today. Many young parents who come to photograph their baby's very first passport picture now carry a tiny handheld fan. The babies are often only a few weeks or a few months old. The fan isn't a luxury. It's simply another way of protecting someone who has only just entered the world. A few

For more than thirteen years, I have owned a small print shop in Montreal. Every wedding season, couples come to ACCO PHOTO with their happiest memories. We print wedding photographs. We enlarge portraits onto canvas. We frame family pictures. We produce welcome signs, seating charts, menus, table numbers, and ceremony backdrops. Sometimes we even become a tiny part of a wedding before it begins. Watching so many weddings over the years has led me to ask a simple question: Is

One afternoon, a customer walked into ACCO PHOTO carrying nothing more than a USB drive. Inside it was a photograph. Not of a mountain. Not of a sunset. Not of a family portrait. It was an old wooden wall. Weathered boards covered with peeling paint, rusty farm tools hanging silently, and a single small window looking out onto... who knows what. He wanted to turn this image into a 50 × 90 inch canvas, stretched over a wooden frame. It would become a piece of art large enough

Someone recently made me realize something I hadn't consciously noticed while writing. Nonimportantech begins with a death. Later, a mother develops leukemia. Professor Ali dies, leaving no body behind, no grave for anyone to visit. Pavel's homeland is devastated by ethnic massacres. There are accidents, betrayals, disappearances, wars, and countless forms of loss. On paper, it sounds like an incredibly dark novel. So I asked myself: Have I written a cold story? The answer su

One of the most unexpected cultural discoveries I made after moving to Canada was something surprisingly ordinary: the lunch box. Before immigrating, I had never carried one. Whether I was a student or later working in public institutions in China, meals were usually provided in school or workplace cafeterias. Bringing food from home simply wasn't part of everyday life. Everything changed after I arrived in Canada. As an adult student, I studied at Centre d'éducation des adul

Today, something quietly meaningful happened in my little print shop. A professor of law from the Université de Montréal came in to print a large stack of immigration documents. Judging by the number of papers and the careful way he checked every page, I guessed he was going through an important immigration process himself. While the printer was working, he noticed a copy of my novel, Les Lignes de l’Amitié: Chroniques d’un enfant, de la solitude à la confiance (Les Mondes de

Some days, my little neighborhood print shop feels less like a business and more like a place where stories quietly change hands. People come in to print passports, graduation certificates, wedding invitations, old photographs, or a simple sheet of paper. They leave with paper. Sometimes, they also leave a story behind. Yesterday, an elegant woman came into the shop carrying three photographs of her black cats. She asked us to print them small enough to fit inside a pendant—a

Some days, my little print shop feels less like a business and more like a place where different lives quietly cross paths. A customer I have known for some time came in as usual. He barely speaks. He is one of the most socially anxious people I have ever met. He walked to the public computer and quietly disappeared into his own world online. A few minutes later, another customer arrived. She was elegant, warm, and curious. She asked me to print two professional certificates

Yesterday, I decided to close my shop for Quebec's National Day. After several busy weeks, I was looking forward to a quiet day. No passport photos, no urgent printing jobs, no last-minute banners waiting to be finished. Just time. Time to scan old family photographs. Time to digitize MiniDV tapes for an Italian mother who wanted to preserve her memories. Time to organize documents from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries belonging to a family from Westmount. And above al