The "insignificant and ordinary people" depicted in the book are simple, warm, and familiar.... Many more of these overseas drifters were simply seduced by the crystal-ball like illusionary splendour and decided to cast their only dice in a life-gamble with the greatest courage and vision for their future.... Most of the characters portrayed in the book belong to this group which has sadly and anonymously passed away, paving the way as a bottom stratum beneath the successful legends of many other overseas Chinese.
Fortunately, there is a photographer like Pok Chi Lau who has chosen to seek and record them, and to study their life stories. Since 1976, he journeyed all across North America, up to the southern Mexican border, to systematically photograph the nearly forgotten lives and environments of these "ordinary people". He endeavoured to understand the reasons for their departure from home, and to bear witness to the cruel and pitiless side of history, while listening to countless stories of their dignified lives.
"Dreams of the Golden Mountain" has utilized two expressive languages: the language of photography and the language of words. They are independent but mutually complementary. The former is expansive and demonstrative; while the latter is descriptive and inviting. Every photograph has been scanned carefully in the publishing process. If the reader can also study them carefully like a scanner, he will surely be able to imagine himself in the same place and time, and see more of the minute details, and feel more of the immensity of the barren tragedy?!
... Pok Chi Lau through his recent works has expressed his deep concern in the significance of the meaning of "Dream of the Golden Mountain" (a symbol for the good life). He criticized the illusionary nature of the kind of materialistic craving, ... and expressed his yearning of the Chinese people to enjoy a richer spiritual culture.... [H]e raised the question of the mixing of the races in the next generation, perhaps implying that a new culture and new hopes for the future shall be based on a harmonious multicultural and multi-racial society?
After the first draft was finalized and the day after Pok Chi Lau's departure form Paris, the following news hit the headlines: fifty eight illegal immigrants who have mainly come from the Fujian province in China were found dead due to heat and suffocation inside a cargo container which was meant for shipping tomatoes in the Netherlands while on its way to Dover, England. A photograph by Lau instantly came to my mind: the one which we have chosen to put opposite the book's index page - a jar of 'snake tequila' (made by soaking some snakes in tequila fore a long time). Let the readers try to close their eyes and meditate, placing themselves in a position to sprinkle this ceremonial wine into the sky in a libation ritual to pacify countless naïve spirits from the past, present, and perhaps unfortunately, also the future!
We
have chosen to use an out-of-focus headshot of a Eurasian girl as the last photograph
in this book. It represents the state of ambiguity of the new individual's racial
and cultural identity, and also symbolizes the unlimited opportunities in the
future. Here we end our journey revisiting the 'Golden Mountain'.
(p. 8-10)