Sandoval, who comes from Los Angeles, has traveled and filmed in over 50 countries across seven continents and now lives in China. “In 2008, tired of my studio work in the U.S, I came to China, thinking I would be here one or two years, but it has turned out to be 16 years!” he said. He hopes his photographs will inspire others to embark on adventures as well.

Sandoval is a professional photographer and learned commercial photography at what was then the Brooks Institute of Photography. With the hope of trying something different for himself, he went to Chengdu in Southwest China to live in October 2008 and has traveled throughout the country since then.

In the beginning, he did editorial work for magazines both in and outside Sichuan, such as Vogue. Then he worked with the Sichuan tourism department to produce travel brochures, and also on ad campaigns for destinations for corporate companies.

To him, Chengdu is the capital of a laid-back lifestyle. He was delighted to see that residents, dressed stylishly or comfortably, strolled in the streets “as slowly as snails”. Almost a “walking encyclopedia” of Chengdu, Sandoval covered every corner of Chengdu and recorded Chengduese and their lives with his camera, listening to the sound of mahjong tiles being shuffled and music from traditional stringed instruments.

He also goes from place to place with his heavy travel kit. The varied culture and vast, beautiful land has kept him in China much longer than he had planned in the beginning. He remembers a wide range of adventures like exploring a local vineyard and local wine in Yinchuan City, a riding performance by a Mongolian ethnic group in the Shuidonggou Horse Riding Show, and then the totally different experience of visiting the Hainan Free Trade Port in the south.

He thinks he has done a lot in “this beautiful and vast country” with his “travel photos”. “I try to show people the beauty of where I go. I try to inspire them to travel and go to places. I’m hoping to do more international work,” he said.

A woman came out of her house and saw three old men sitting in her front yard. She invited them in to have something to eat.

“We do not go into a house together,” they replied.

“Why is that?”she asked.

One of the old men pointed to his friends and explained, “His name is Wealth (财富).” He pointed to the other man and said,“He is Success, and I am Love. Now go in and discuss with your family which one of us you want in your home.”

The woman went in and told her husband what happened. Her husband was very happy. “How nice!” he said. “Let us invite Wealth. Let him come in and fill our home with wealth!”

His wife disagreed. “My dear, why don’t we invite Success?”

There daughter jumped in with her idea. “Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!”

“That’s a good idea,”said the husband to his wife. “Go out and invite Love to be our guest.”

The woman went out and invited Love in. Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other two old men also got up and followed him. Surprised, the lady asked them, “I only invited Love. Why are you coming in?”

The old men replied together, “If you invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would stay outside, but since you invited Love, wherever he goes, we go with him.”

In elementary school, Glenn Cameron was very aware of the challenges faced by his friend, Roger, who was missing a hand. Now he has built an artificial helper for him.

The robotic hand is called “Dexi”. Its each finger can move independently. The strength and speed of the hand’s “muscles” can be controlled. The fingers stop closing when they come across something, allowing the hand to shake hands, for example. He’s also created a digital version of this hand, which responds on a computer screen. The system considered unusual by experts is that it takes electrical signals from a human brain and sends them to a computer. Cameron managed to apply the brain interface (接口) after hundreds of experiments. Wearing a special headset, he can open and close the robotic hand just by thinking. To make the hand close, he “sees” a fist in his head. To open the hand, he thinks about the beep (嘟嘟声).

In fact, Cameron’s first robotic hand was 3D printed from an online robot kit. Realizing the hand was too limited, he decided to build his own. It was quite a challenge, but his new version was better. It’s also cheap, compared to many other robotic hand projects. Mr. Cameron says designing and building the hand is hard and finds programming computers easier. Then came the one Roger is using.

Cameron is working on a hand that can actually be used by a person who’s lost a hand at present. He says the new hand will be simpler, because there won’t be as much space. To make up for this, he’s adding a mini camera and trying to make the hand smarter. He wants to let users think of a task and have the hand do it automatically.

Cameron encourages young people who think they might want to do something demanding and similar: “You just begin working towards it, taking one little step at a time, purposeful and determined, sooner or later you’re going to get to where you long for.”