IT all began when Stephen Stine first read the American literary classic The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck, ''a simplistic but truthful'' novel all about China.
''After that, the next step was when I started to study Asia and the Eastern religions at college. China, then for me, was a mystical country,'' said the 31-year-old journalist and amateur photographer.
''I can't explain where it came from but I'm intrigued by the Orient.'' The ''it'' refers to his growing profound interest in the Far East - its land, people, diverse cultures and religions - which drew him to the most remote parts of China and has resulted in a major photographic exhibition to be staged as part of the Hongkong Fringe Festival.
In summer 1989, having sold everything he owned, the former philosophy and China studies student was finally ready to leave home for Beijing.
But unfortunately, it was just a few days before the June 4 massacre in Tiananmen Square.
So Stine put down his camera and spent most of the next two years working in Hongkong as a correspondent for The Asian Wall Street Journal before finally heading off on his voyage to China and along the Silk Road.
