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We arrived at a strange hour at Phnom Penh airport and used the Visa on Arrival option, where a raggedy man in a makeshift booth rubber stamped our Canadian passports after a short flight. It was late and my dad recalls trying to check into a hotel room that had only one bed, which I refused, after which we tuk tuked around in the middle of the night if I remember correctly trying to find a hotel. I remember the first hotel that I refused - dimly lit but squinting you would see grande architecture from another time, large open hallways and a minimal discreet panel of hotel staff that looked a bit off in trying to get hotel staff at least from a young Canadian perspective in my mind. That would have been in the late 90s, early 2000s. I didn't know my dad well yet but this is one of our memories. Early trips to China, and Hong Kong, really shaping things for me because I didn't have anything like that on my radar during my formative years. Subsequent trips by my dads or my own volition, always with my dad there on arrival sometimes briefly sometimes longer. The long memorable trip in the South of China with my dad there, and actually no memory of a camera as his guide, maybe one the only times. Guangzhuo, after being asked, i described as a boring random Chinese city, mainland, dirty at the time, not much going on. Upon sharing this story with others familiar with the place, discovered it had a blossoming night life scene among locals and settlers. Not to downplay the phone call from Jonathan, part of a family friend group that was really the backbone for a lot of this. Jonathan as the story goes arrived in Hong Kong and adapted to have almost perfect Mandarin Chinese. Began writing for major art world publications and eventually joined Art Basel as a sort of gatekeeper for new artists in that space.
