I skipped the May update, due to a trip to Hong Kong and China during the first two weeks of May, where I traveled by more modes of transportation than I can recall. It’s been almost ten years since I last travelled to China, and the city in the province of Guangzhou where my grandfather lives has changed dramatically. From a quiet little farming town that was just beginning to see urbanization, it has transformed into a noisy and pollution ridden city. I visited Yangzhou, which is an important city of commerce in Chinese history, with many historic buildings and sites preserved and co-existing with more modern buildings. They even make a point of making newer buildings blend in. Shanghai was every bit the metropolis I expected it to be, and I regret only that most of my time there was spent at the World Expo, instead of exploring its history.

Coming up this month, I have a critique with Aaron Marcus to prepare for, a paper on domain-specific knowledge theories as applied to music that I am excited to write, as well as touching base with the On-Demand Book Service project and reconnecting with the stakeholders. I am slowly but surely able to articulate the difference in conducting ethnographic studies in the context of music information behaviour, as opposed to ethnomusicology. Maybe there’s a blog post for that.

I learned many things on my travels. It reminded me that learning doesn’t happen simply in books, but by engaging with the world, and connecting with people. For now, I’m glad to be back at home, worried about groceries and watering my plants, and not having to debate whether I should do my work while on a train or in the middle of a 17hr trans-atlantic flight. In fact, it’s quite nice on my balcony, where I can work under the shade of trees and the sound of birds. It’s true: you will travel far and wide to look for something, only to find it in the very place that you left for your journeys.