1. This series of photographs shows me standing statically in front of the camera, with a photo of someone else’s body lined up against mine wearing traditional Chinese clothes and makeup. I’m wearing traditionally western clothes, which contrast with the formal hanfu, qipao, and miao folk dancing costume.

2. As a first-generation American born Chinese, I felt a disconnection from my cultural roots I was always expected to follow from the beginning. As a toddler, I grew up in China, but when I moved to America, I lost all the fluency I had in Mandarin and by proxy lost the connection I could have had with my roots, my relatives, and my grandparents. I wondered if I were to be that perfect image of myself completely immersed in my roots and fluent in their language, I would be happier not feeling so left out. The photos represent what I yearn to be, and the reality is what I am experiencing, a split in my identity, not quite one or the other.