It’s a pho­to­gra­phic sto­ry about bea­ring and giving up on my grand­mo­ther. The­re are two chap­ters. The the­me of the fir­st one is ‘bea­ring’, focu­sing on my grand­mo­the­r’s sister Mao-Mao. The spe­cial kin­ship bet­ween her and Mao-Mao beca­me a bur­den. Mao-Mao got ence­pha­li­tis at ten becau­se of a per­si­stent high fever, which impe­ded her brain deve­lo­p­ment. The­re­fo­re, for deca­des, my grand­ma took care of Mao-Mao until she mar­ried my Gran­d­fa­ther and moved to ano­ther town, but she still visi­ted Mao-Mao eve­ry week sin­ce then. The second chap­ter is about ‘giving up’. The vil­la­ge of my home­to­wn was demo­li­shed, and fami­liar nei­gh­bors moved to cities. Grand­mo­the­r’s hou­se is in a pile of ruins, just like an isle. Eco­no­mic deve­lo­p­ment is like a tide, brin­ging demi­se and rebirth. Grandma’s teeth are bad, some­ti­mes they hurt so much that Grand­ma could not sleep at night. I use two dif­fe­rent degrees of den­tal caries as meta­phors for Mao-Mao and home­to­wn demo­li­tion. Mao-Mao is like a decayed tooth that has not yet rot­ted and rea­ched the pulp. The pro­gress of the tooth ena­mel being ero­ded is like the bur­den Mao-Mao brings to Grandma’s life. This kind of caries can be repai­red, and peo­ple use them more care­ful­ly becau­se of ail­men­ts, but the tooth may con­ti­nue to rot and cau­se pain in the futu­re. Demo­li­tion of my home­to­wn is like a decayed tooth that can only be cured throu­gh root canal treat­ment. The pro­cess of pulp extrac­tion is like the memo­ry of the vil­la­ge destroyed by the demo­li­tion. The treat­ment works for good but as the pain goes away, the teeth never feel the way they used to. I explo­red the inex­tri­ca­ble con­nec­tion bet­ween peo­ple and their loved ones and the land by pho­to­gra­phing the lives of my grand­mo­ther and Mao-Mao and the chan­ges in the land­sca­pe of the vil­la­ge. By doing so, I rea­li­ze the tena­ci­ty, insuf­fe­ra­ble­ness, and lin­ge­ring depres­sion that peo­ple have when they need to make the choi­ces of ‘give up’ and ‘bear’.