Small things, mostly (the meet)

We were back in Saigon talking about our photos.

Earlier, We braved the impending typhoon and met in Danang to share one photo each from our travels and talk about the stories behind the photos.  Our stories included tales of getting kidnapped in Mumbai, hitchhiking in Central Asia, scoring free stays in posh hotels, meeting the cutest bookseller in the world, hiking along the China-Vietnam border and more.

“Small things, mostly” is a “personal ethnography” meet that we run in a couple of cities across South East Asia. The idea is to learn about the world via each other’s observations.

I stumbled upon using “photos” as trigger to encourage people to share stories.  Photos are intensely personal. And there is often a backstory on why we shoot a photos, more so, where we are traveling. People may be shy to talk impromptu, but ask them to show a photo, and you can never stop them from reliving nostalgia.  It is always interesting, the range of threads we draw out of what seems like a simple activity.

Kuala Lumpur

Saigon

Singapore

Phnom Penh

Sometimes we do not have a room with projector. No worries. We just sit around and show photos on our phones, and talk.

Links:
An earlier note on nostalgia as a glue to connect with people
Also, learning from photos