"Super Printer Man" Stephen Chui
“Super Printer Man” Stephen Chui biked across Asia—from Xinjiang through Pakistan to Tibet—armed with a camera and photo printer. He tells Yannie Chan about bandaging a broken arm with chopsticks and why he won’t bike in Hong Kong.
HK Magazine: “Super Printer Man”?
Stephen Chui: A local newspaper gave me the nickname and it stuck! I learned a lot on my first biking trip: but I don’t want to just take, but give back as well. On my latest biking trip, I carried my camera, a portable printer and 400 sheets of photo paper and decided to take portraits of families I met. Most people have cell phones, but having hard copies of photos is not as common.
HK: What do people think of the photos?
SC: They’re very curious about them, and they love the camera. My favorite is a series of photos I took in a Pakistani town. Their happiness really struck me—here we are, with great jobs and Starbucks coffee and much more, but are we happy?
HK: Do you think you’re addicted to these biking trips?
SC: I think I need these trips to stay sane. I need to completely distance myself from my existing life once in a while and think about what I really want and the meaning of life. I first biked from China to Mount Everest in 2011 for four months, and then from Xinjiang to Tibet for five months last year. I’m doing another trip next year, starting at Istanbul and finishing in Iran.
HK: How dangerous can these trips be?
SC: If you don’t reach a checkpoint by the given time, you will be stranded in the middle of nowhere. You get hurt easily as well. I fell off a slope and broke my left arm in Tibet. It took days to get to a hospital, and when I got there and had an X-ray, the doctor didn’t know how to read it! My biking pal had to point out to him where the fracture was—he said it would heal on its own and sent me home. We ended up securing my arm with chopsticks, and I had to return to Hong Kong early.
