The night in 2003 I spent walking around Dong Shan in the rain and wet heat was perhaps the night Guangzhou first transfixed me and had that irrational effect on me I’ve only really otherwise had in Zürich and Vienna. Dong Shan was also the first part of the city I consciously photographed, in fact one of the first places I photographed at all once in possession of my first digital camera.

It’s always strange to look at photographs taken by another person of a place I recall most clearly through my own photographs, the original memories evaporated or elusive. Ou Ning photographed the walk from near 东山口 Dong Shan Kou to 山河大街 Shanhe Dajie, posted on his blog today. Places that are so familiar through four years of living on and off in the city, places I’ve photographed even, that sometimes look different as the surrounding landscape erupts with tiles and pre-assembled Guangzhou real-estate frenzy.