Technological development has offered the possibility for many of us to move in faster, cheaper and easier ways around the world, and the option to leave our hometown or birthplace has become common for many people. Ten years ago, the author left his well-known Hong Kong to study abroad in the unknown territory of Taiwan; being forced to leave a place he was accustomed to live in has however given the chance to the writer to reflect more about his hometown.

When living somewhere else, every time we go back to our native place the memories of our growing up are confronted with the gap between what we remember and what we see, the fictional past and the concrete present. The acknowledgment of this gap leads to a sentiment of loss, but it is also the motivation for the writer to embark on a journey to record or shoot the changes in his hometown and grasp the existence of that gap between memories and reality. The documentation of reality provides the base for this work, which revolves around the concept of hometown and that of the present times.

In order to have a deeper understanding of the meaning of hometown, the second chapter of this thesis uses theories and approaches from geography and philosophy of spaces to explore the concept of hometown. In the third chapter, it presents the forms and the style in which this work is presented. The following fourth chapter analyzes how the concept of hometown influences the human experiences as well as the feelings of loss, interaction and movement as they are presented in the author’s work.