I was cleaning out my mom’s house, we’re selling it, and I came across a tea kettle I got from China. In 1988 I spent the summer in China, it may be hard to believe but it was the era of glasnost and China was similarly opening up, even talking about past tragedies like the Cultural Revolution. This wouldn’t last. In 1989, well, a bad thing happened and we got the China we have today. I was a freshman in high school and I really didn’t understand what I had witnessed until the next year when I was glued to CNN. In China, I had a Nikon Coolpix point and shoot and I took so many pictures, maybe 15 to 20 rolls of pictures from the Forbidden Palace and Tiananmen square (yeah about that) to the Great Wall to the Terra Cotta soldiers to the Yurts of Inner Mongolia to the hustle and bustle of the emerging super city of Shanghai. I went everywhere. We left for Hong Kong back to the states and I dutifully stuffed my film in my checked bag, so the film would not be subjected to the X Ray machine. I would never see that bag or my film ever again. I’m mostly venting, but I bet there were some amazing photos on that film, those pictures documented a China flirting with openness, that seems so far off now. Anyone else lose photos that meant a lot to them?
Oh man, sorry you went through that.
My first trip to Taiwan. I had a blast and loved it. Took tons of photos.
After I got back home, my camera got stolen out of my backpack when I wasn’t looking. I was so pissed off and hurt.
On the bright side, that was another nudge that led me to move to Taiwan. Where I would take many more pictures than I lost. Lived there for several years.
Another time was I spent the day exploring the temples of Sukhothai in Thailand. I had a memory card in my camera. I had a full memory card in my pocket.
When I got back to my guesthouse at the end of the day, I dipped my hand into my pocket to get the full memory card–and nothing!
By then, it was too late and too dark to look for it.
Next day I revisited all the temples and retraced my steps, inspecting the ground everywhere. At the last temple, I finally found the memory card on the ground.
This was during a months-long backpacking trip around Southeast Asia, so there were loads of photos on that memory card.
I was so relieved to get it back.
The funny thing is, I didn’t really realize what I had lost until much, much later. I had pictures of China on the precipice of dramatic, historic change. And I was there at a moment where they had disavowed Mao’s Cultural Revolution and there were halting attempts at being more open, attempts that would end less than a year after I was there. Those pictures would be so awesome to see.