The photographer, 'Jam dbyangs skyabs, is from a pastoral community in a northeastern Tibetan region. He embarked on a journey that led him to an unfamiliar but much anticipated "dream world," Xi'an, a large metropolis in Shaanxi Province. 'Jam dbyangs skyabs found photography that helped him explore the world and began travelling between his changing traditional world and a Chinese city also in flux. Old people, children, workers, cleaners, beggars, and animals all became subjects of attention. 'Jam dbyangs skyabs interprets photographs he has taken in his home community (45) and in metropolitan Xi'an (147) through his memories of his past. The images invoke nostalgia for his past while contemplating the rapidly changing world of his "home." He worries and questions the loss of traditions and the impact of modernity. In eloquently commenting on his own bewilderment, readers encounter a familiar quandary: how do we decode our past and what meaning does it have in our own, ever-changing eternal present?