Yesterday, I went by the restaurant where I am showing my photographs and was told an amusing story by one of the owners. He told me of a story of some people who had been eating at the restaurant and were looking at some of the portraits I had taken. It was mostly of a conversation that he overheard from them.

For a bit of background, these portraits are of some people from Japan that I know and there are three of them, hanging side-by-side on the same wall. They are monochrome prints and, in my opinion, really capture their inner personality. The restaurant is a Chinese one with food that is very "Hong Kong" in style with a bakery that sells the best buns ever.

Anyway, this group of Caucasian people sat at a big table situated in front of these photos and they started to talk about how they had seen these people before. Not strange, I thought because they live here. But, as their conversation went on, they seemed convinced that the people in these photos must have been protestors at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and that they must know them from having seen their faces on the news. I literally burst into laughter when he told me this.

Firstly, it is not so hard to believe that Caucasians cannot distinguish between the Japanese and Chinese, although it irritates me. Secondly, why would a Chinese restaurant in a small city in Victoria be hanging photos of people incarcerated for protesting in Tiananmen. A Hong Kong style restaurant at that.

Some people...