Yup. That would be me. whazaaaa.

Dickies hoodie, H&M bomber jacket, & Other Stories leather boots, SUPER ‘Drew Mama’ sunglasses.

I was walking down the street the other day, you know, enjoying how the Scottish winds make me feel like Mulan in battle when, suddenly, someone tapped me on the shoulder, scaring the bubbles out of me. ‘Hey, I noticed your braids — do you like reggae?’ It was a guy around my age. I replied ‘No.’ with emphasis on the period, and power-walked on.

Today I want to dedicate this post to just telling you a bit about the history and background of my head-full of snakes, which I’ve been proudly sporting since May. And yes I’m aware I sound like a Stepford wife about to gloat about her recipe for The Perfect Pancake, but allow. It’s time to get #Braiducated.

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I’ve been waiting a while to write this post. In the last few years since starting university, I’ve thought about quitting blogging quite a few times. It just lost its appeal, mainly because, I admit, I cared too much about what others thought of me and I didn’t want to be known as this vain and superficial girl taking photos of herself the whole time. I had KNEON and photography and school, so I just always pushed blogging to the side.

In the last few months, however, I’ve rekindled a connection to this space, mainly because I now have a new direction in mind for my work and I just want to be able to curate it all into a space that makes sense visually. So I think it’s time for me to embrace change and rebrand the shit out of this little safe haven that has been my homepage since I was a 15-year-old noob.

The ‘Banana Finding Home’ story is quite a common one already, so I want to just take it up a notch and solely dedicate this site to documenting a brand new China I’ve gotten to know during this past year. I just want to introduce you to the beauty within the everyday chaos that I’ve seen every single day of living here, and the talented creatives without arrogance I’ve met who are pushing the boundaries on what is expected of the term “Made In China”.

I’ll be saying goodbye to China in a couple of days to head back to Vienna and then Edinburgh to finish my studies, but I want to continue this conversation that I started here, between the modern and the traditional, and between the East and West.

And, between one millennial to another, thank you for reading. I’ll talk to you soon in my next post, which I’ll be writing from good old Wien.

Love always, Vic

p.s. The braids are here to stay.

On Friday, I had a beautiful afternoon shooting, shadowing and talking about life and love with talented jewellery designer friend Hannah Ren. She recently designed a collection of signet rings for girls – with some badass quotes on them. And I just had to shoot something with her. So I visited Hannah at the factory where her designs are produced and we spent a lazy hutong afternoon wandering and shooting and talking about art and process. The photos turned out quite raw and unique to Beijing so I’m excited to show you guys in a later post.

That afternoon was a perfect reminder of why I’m doing all these ADD, OCD, and seemingly unrelated things. Talking with Hannah about her work and just hearing her share a portion of the vast knowledge she’s accumulated over the years, I realized that it’s this type of girltalk I love best. The world always needs more crazy talented people who just want to add some more meaning and beauty to the world, and I feel so so lucky whether one of these people let me in to see how their art is created.