Listen above or read the full transcript of James Song’s story below:
I’m Alexa Ashley and this is Eyes Wide. In this episode we get to hear from portrait photographer James Song. Through his work that explores contentment and co-existing with nature, James seeks to instill calmness, confidence, and curiosity. The proceeds from his artwork are channeled to support female education. In this conversation, we hear about his experience growing up in three different countries, overcoming aversion to rigid religiosity, finding a free spirituality, and the possibilities that can happen in nothingness.
Alexa Ashley: To start, what was it like growing up as James?
James Song: It was pretty good. I’m very fortunate to have grown up in a family that is focused on education and broadening my horizons. I grew up traveling with my family. I’ve been to 60 countries. I have lived in 5 countries so far. It’s something you cannot get from a traditional classroom setting education. I feel like I was ahead of a lot of my classmates when I was growing up. In history, culture, everyday life, knowledge—just seeing more.
Alexa Ashley: You grew up in Shoreline?
James Song: I went to a high school in Shoreline. I went there for 2 years. Cool high school. After that I went to Shoreline Community College for 2 years.
Alexa Ashley: Before that?
James Song: I was born in Seattle, but I went to Vancouver to live with my grandparents when I was 3.
Alexa Ashley: Why?
James Song: I think it’s just Chinese culture. I guess my parents think that my grandparents know how to take care of me better.
Alexa Ashley: What was that like?
James Song: I loved it. I loved my grandparents. I feel like I have a generation gap with my parents, but I feel closer to my grandparents. It’s like skipping a generation and I’m more connected to them instead of my own parents. It’s very interesting. Both of my grandparents are professors.
Alexa Ashley: In what?
James Song: My grandpa is a biologist and my grandma is a chemist.
Alexa Ashley: Were they both retired when you were living with them?
James Song: They stopped working when they moved to Vancouver, CA. I think they were pretty old.
Alexa Ashley: Did you like Vancouver?
James Song: Yeah. When I was little, yeah.
Alexa Ashley: Because you were there until…
James Song: Until kindergarten. Then after that I went back to China with my parents.
Alexa Ashley: Super cool, for how long?
James Song: My grandparents stayed in Vancouver for 6 months then China for 6 months.
Alexa Ashley: What part of China?
James Song: Guangzhou. You ever been there?
Alexa Ashley: No.
James Song: It’s the 3rd biggest city in China.
Alexa Ashley: Is it cool?
James Song: It’s one of the mega cities in the world.
Alexa Ashley: So, if you like big cities.
James Song: I grew up in big cities. But now I lived in Tulum and Puerto Escondido, so now I’m rethinking if I prefer living in a big city or in a small town. So, trying to figure that out. My plan is when I move back to China, to live in the outskirts of Guangzhou so I don’t have to be drowned in competition, competitiveness and stress. Have my own space.
Alexa Ashley: After kindergarten, when you moved to China, how long were you there?
James Song: Oh, I was there until the first year of high school.
Alexa Ashley: Oh, ok. That’s a long time.
James Song: I spent half of my life in China and half of my life in the U.S.
Alexa Ashley: What was that like?
James Song: Good question. In China, Chinese culture is 5,000 years old and always evolving and changing. It’s under the Chinese Community Party rule right now. They tried to erase a lot of Chinese culture, burn a lot of books. Stop Chinese medicine from reaching the rest of the internet, and the world. We have our own internet in China, our own ecosystem. Our own Google, YouTube, Twitter, Gmail, everything. So when you’re in China, you cannot get onto Google or YouTube. They don’t want you to see the information they’re trying to hide. So that was strange growing up.
But I was also really rebellious. So I tried to get over the firewall. It’s called the Great Firewall of China that the government uses to block their internet within China from reaching out. There are services called VPNs that you can use to try to bypass their firewall. But they are illegal and being cracked down on recently because of the Hong Kong protests and some sensitive issues, some minority populations in Western China that they don’t want the rest of China or the Chinese population to know about.
Alexa Ashley: Did you get through it?
James Song: When I was little, yeah. It’s like a site with servers around the world, outside of China. So you connect to those servers, and access websites from a different location outside of China.
Alexa Ashley: Did most young people do that?
James Song: Not most, but some. But right now it’s getting more popular. It’s why you see Chinese comments on YouTube. People are trying to use VPN to see the real world. Not the real world but more of the world beyond the censorship.
Alexa Ashley: What was it like after being there for so long and then coming to the states?
James Song: When I was in school, I was a really bad kid.
Alexa Ashley: Bad how?
James Song: Because the subjects are really rigid. We do not get to choose what we want to learn. So the courses are set, and everyone spends the same time in the same classrooms learning the same subjects, doing a lot of homework.
Alexa Ashley: In my mind, it sounds like the States, but I’m not sure of the subjects.
James Song: Ok. Maybe we’ll have 15-16 subjects per semester. So we have Chinese, English, math, P.E., biology, all kinds.
Alexa Ashley: Is each of those things only from the perspective of Chinese culture and history.
James Song: Oh yeah, history is like most of Chinese culture. We touch on world history but we didn’t spend that much time on that. Chinese history is very long, a lot to learn.
Alexa Ashley: In the states we also only focus on US history, but there’s not as much of it there.
James Song: Another thing is entertainment in my childhood. I watched a lot of Japanese animation, but it’s not as popular here in the US, and vice versa.
Alexa Ashley: Can you watch media from other countries?
James Song: Yeah. Well I guess the subject matter is key. Certain topics are banned. And the Chinese government limits how many foreign movies enter China’s market per year. That’s why you see a lot of Hollywood blockbusters right now that are co-produced with a Chinese producer. That’s the way to bypass that. If it’s co-produced, it doesn't count as a foreign film.
That makes a lot of Hollywood movies more tailored for the Chinese audience because they put in money and have a say in the production; what to produce, what not to produce. In a way, the Chinese corporations or Chinese government are using their standard to create movies in Hollywood now.
Alexa Ashley: Did you have a favorite Japanese filmmaker or director or movie?
James Song: Yeah, Miyazaki.
Alexa Ashley: He’s amazing.
James Song: So I don’t know a lot of names in English because they’re not popular and no one talks about them.
Alexa Ashley: Do you have a favorite movie of his?
James Song: Yeah, (Castle) in the Sky. I saw it when I was in 3rd grade, in class.
Alexa Ashley: What part of it made an impact on you?
James Song: Just, it was the first Miyazaki animation I had seen. It opened my mind, broadened my imagination.
Alexa Ashley: He’s amazing. All the visuals. Always has aspects of magic.
James Song: And it’s relatable because the characters are real. It’s heartwarming to watch them. Back then I didn’t know what the movie was actually about, I was just there for the excitement and enjoyment. Spirited Away.
Alexa Ashley: All of his films have air travel.
James Song: Nature too, yeah. I love the subjects in his films. The balance between civilization and nature. Magic and reality.
Alexa Ashley: I loved (My Neighbor) Totoro. So amazing. You said that his characters are relatable and real. I feel like you have that presence of being super real, down to earth and open.
James Song: I’m honored.
Alexa Ashley: Do you feel like you’ve always been that way, or is it something you developed?
James Song: Yeah. The reason I called myself a rebel is because growing up in China it was really strict, and people don’t like anything different. Growing up, I loved to be different. I didn’t care what other people think—didn’t care about authority, didn’t care about what is right. Most things in life—there’s no black and white, or right and wrong. The way you dress...there’s a wrong way to dress and a wrong way to speak. I didn’t care about that.
Alexa Ashley: When do you feel like that started for you?
James Song: Maybe, it’s because I traveled around the world. I cannot be limited by one voice. One country cannot limit my actions. Because I’ve seen so many countries. So many right ways, so many wrong ways.
Alexa Ashley: Many different perspectives.
James Song: Exactly. So many ways to live, so why do I need to reduce to one country or way of living?
Alexa Ashley: Right, or one person’s idea of how you should live.
James Song: Exactly. And it’s not like the people in China are the most happy people on Earth, you know.
Alexa Ashley: You look at what they’re saying to do and then look at how…
James Song: You should behave like this so you can be like us!
Alexa Ashley: I don’t want to be like you.
James Song: Yeah, maybe that’s the reason.
Alexa Ashley: In my life I tend to notice that the more people ask you to subscribe to a certain way, the more unhappy they are. Have you found that to be true in your life?
James Song: Yeah, well, you don’t have the freedom to explore. Your choices are very limited. You don’t have the confidence to explore because you’re always judging things by right or wrong. If you grow up in that mindset, you don’t look beyond right or wrong. And that’s very boring. The black or white. I want to live a colorful life.
Alexa Ashley: Yeah, clearly (James is wearing a very colorful outfit).
James Song: Moving to Tulum (Mexico) has broadened my horizons on a spiritual level. Because I grew up in different countries with different religions and beliefs. Even in China, Chinese people are not allowed to be religious because of the government. Technically, if you are a communist you should not be religious. Technically, everyone is an atheist in China.
But since China has such a long history, we have a lot of Paganism. We have Buddhist influence, we have Christian influence too. It’s really weird—in China there’s only one town that is Christian. And it’s my town—this tiny town where my family is from. And it’s where they started the revolution.
Alexa Ashley: Did you grow up in a certain spirituality?
James Song: My parents tried to enforce their beliefs on me. But since I’ve traveled so much—so many religions and beliefs—I didn’t want to settle on any one religion. So I have different family members believing in different things. And I love my grandparents, they had a big influence on my upbringing.
My grandma, I’m not sure if she’s Buddhist, but when I think about scientists I imagine them all as atheists. But she’s a little bit superstitious. She mentioned Quan Yin. She’s a Chinese goddess—a figure from Buddhism, one of the gods. Somehow, the Chinese adopted this god and used a Chinese image and turned Quan Yin into a female looking god. But in fact it’s a male god in the Buddhist culture. It’s one of the main gods but not the top one. So it’s like “why are you worshipping this sidekick of one of the main gods?”
Alexa Ashley: What do you think it is?
James Song: Quan Yin is known for being merciful and loving. So she gives blessings, and she’s really forgiving, and about the big picture. She uses love to impact others, she doesn’t punish. She tries to influence you by being good to you. That’s worth being worshipped, yeah?
Alexa Ashley: So that’s the spirituality of your grandma, who you were only with until kindergarten?
James Song: Yeah so I spent a couple of years with them. And then in kindergarten I was living with them. They moved back to China with me.
Alexa Ashley: And then later when you were living with your parents, then what?
James Song: So my dad’s side is from the town that is the only place in China with Christians. So he is Christian. But, he chose to donate money to Buddhist temples too. And my mom got baptized in San Francisco when she was going to university in the US. So she’s Christian, but she looks down on my dad for being both Christian and Buddhist.
Alexa Ashley: Pick a side, right?
James Song: Yeah, exactly.
Alexa Ashley: So they tried to raise you Christian.
James Song: Yeah, but church-going wasn’t a thing in China. There weren’t many churches in China. So, I didn’t grow up in churches. But my mom would read the bible to me before bed. You know, like bedtime stories, along with other books like Harry Potter.
Alexa Ashley: It’s a little bit like Harry Potter, just as terrifying.
James Song: Yeah. So she tries to make it serious. But I put religion on the same level as fiction.
Alexa Ashley: From the very beginning?
James Song: Yeah, yeah. Somehow, my brother took it very seriously. And he’s Christian now. So, I’m not sure because we have a very similar upbringing. He’s traveled to almost as many countries as I have, because we traveled as a family.
Alexa Ashley: Is he as rebellious as you?
James Song: No, no. So I guess that’s part of the personality too. The internal. His personality is the opposite of mine—which is having a lot of friends, super easy to connect with everyone. I’m really comfortable meeting strangers, opening up myself and being open to change and ideas. I find meeting new people fascinating, but he’s the opposite.
Alexa Ashley: Interesting, and he had the same kind of upbringing. Is he older or younger?
James Song: Younger. Yeah he keeps more to himself.
Alexa Ashley: When did you start getting into photography?
James Song: Since I dropped my grandma’s camera.
Alexa Ashley: Yeah? When you were in kindergarten?
James Song: Yeah, kindergarten. I was a troublemaker, you know? Always adventurous, do different things. I tried to use her camera. I didn’t know I couldn't drop it, you know. So I got punished for dropping the camera. The damage wasn’t that big, but they like to take care of their stuff. I learned from that. I take care of my gear carefully, even nowadays. You won’t see any scratches on my camera even though I use them so often.
Alexa Ashley: Wow. So what was that journey like from when you dropped the camera to now with photography?
James Song: In the beginning it was forbidden because my grandma got mad at me. So, just taking pictures around the house or going to the park. From that, I got into photography in high school. I took a film class in Hillcrest, the high school in Shoreline.
Alexa Ashley: So was there a gap between kindergarten and high school?
James Song: I had phones with cameras. So, that’s what I used for my traveling. I traveled fairly frequently during vacations, school breaks. We usually go to two–three countries per vacation. So I had a lot of pictures on my phone.
Alexa Ashley: I’m wondering how your style has developed since you first started.
James Song: In the beginning it was just capturing what is instead of what could be. My style now is more planned and like a fairy tale. I realized that an artist needs to have their own style. A recognizable style, just like Picasso. When you look at Picasso’s work you recognize it. The uniqueness is what makes them so iconic. I’m trying to have my own style right now. I started my new style after I moved to Tulum. So Tulum has influenced me in that.
Alexa Ashley: I noticed that most of the work you’re sharing now is based in nature, particularly in water. Is that true?
James Song: Yeah, it’s true. Water is interesting.
Alexa Ashley: What interests you about it?
James Song: Water is life. And I feel like it’s mysterious. It’s like another realm, you know. We don’t live in water. It’s pretty magical. There could be some healing powers in water. And how much of the body is water, 90%?
Alexa Ashley: Something like that.
James Song: I feel like we have a strong connection. Hanging out with my 90%. But, I don’t feel like water is something I have to have for my style. Nature is something I have to have.
Alexa Ashley: Why?
James Song: I want to preserve what I see. Because it could be destroyed. Nature can be destroyed in a day. Someone wants to develop the land, turn it into an apartment complex. It’ll be gone, all the trees will be gone. Everything will be covered.
Alexa Ashley: Is it something about the fragility that draws you?
James Song: Yeah, yeah. And I also want to raise awareness, to show the beauty of nature. So people living in cities can start to see it and realize that living in the city is not the right way of human development. I want to open up their minds to what it’s like to be outside the city. Make it more fantastic and something they didn’t imagine.
Especially when people are living in China—people that live in the city look down on people living outside of the city, and they don’t like to go outside of the city. So I feel like they are forgetting what we are as a species. We’re humans, you know, not urban animals.
Alexa Ashley: What was your first experience either living in nature or connecting with nature?
James Song: I went on a leadership program trip in high school back in Seattle, a two-week long program. So we learned about nature for one week, and then we went into the backcountry for a week. It was life changing for sure. In the north Cascades, I had never been there. Mt. Baker. We hiked over the mountain and across the border to Canada, because there’s no border there, just nature, you know. Again, it opened up my mind. Borders are imaginary. Countries are..the concept of nations is imaginary, you know? No one actually owns the land, right? Yeah, it was just animals. Wow, you can just cross two countries without knowing it. There’s no line, it’s totally imaginary.
Alexa Ashley: That’s super important to realize most lines are imaginary.
James Song: Yeah, human constructs, right? I was reading a book on the rise of sapiens.
Alexa Ashley: Is it called Sapiens?
James Song: Yeah, have you read it? It’s amazing. Talking about the human species from the perspective of another species. Just looking at the human behavior and describing how we describe other animals. You know like, what a business is, what are companies. It’s not a real thing. When you think about companies, what do you think of? An office? Computers? Product? Software? A company is just a human imagination that we all share and believe this thing exists. Humans trust in each other that “if I do this for you, you do this for me.” Right? So if I work for you, you give me money. And it’s this imaginary relationship. Very interesting.
Alexa Ashley: Right. What do you feel like isn’t imaginary?
James Song: Good question, what is not imaginary? What is real? Wow, this is really deep! I have done DMT so...in Tulum actually. So what is real? That is...I don’t know. I don’t think anything is real, for reals.
Alexa Ashley: That’s real, nothing is real.
James Song: Yeah. It’s the only certainty.
Alexa Ashley: Do you consider yourself spiritual at all? Or what does it mean to you: spirituality?
James Song: Religious people like to rely on a higher power to help them or to solve their problems. But I like to rely on myself, or people that I know in life. In real life. So I’d rather do that than go to a church or say a prayer. But, when I’m feeling down I do like to think about myself. Think about my higher self, what I can be. A radiant energy source of some kind. Because this body is not going to last for that long. I can’t explain if there’s a soul or not, but I do believe there’s a consciousness that we choose to let be what it is. Like why some people decide to do this, not that. Wait, what’s the question? Oh, spirituality, yeah.
Alexa Ashley: Yeah, what does spirituality mean to you?
James Song: So, it opened up my mind when I first tried acid at a music festival. I was looking at people but I was looking into their eyes. Your soul is not on the outside. So I was trying to look into their eyes to look into their soul. What defines me as a person? It’s so easy to look at people and judge by their looks. So, I was like “what if I didn’t look like this.” What is this consciousness? What is this soul? How do I see myself, you know? In the mirror or looking in my eyes. What is this thought that’s in my mind? What is this voice that I hear when I talk to myself?
Alexa Ashley: Have you come to any conclusions in those?
James Song: Um, not yet. But, has it made me connect with people on a different level, like soul to soul? Instead of just relating on what we can see and the superficial, physical world. So, psychedelics changed my life. Mind altering.
Alexa Ashley: What do you feel like DMT showed you?
James Song: It showed me love. Yeah. I actually smoked it here in Tulum with a friend of mine. His name is Dylan. He’s a shaman. And my friend Claridad. So her name is “Divine Clarity.” So she was playing live music and singing on my spiritual journey. It was amazing. And it was a great opportunity to have my first time with someone I trust and appreciate.
Alexa Ashley: What did love look like in that experience?
James Song: Very colorful and bright. So I did it twice in that session. The first time it was pretty dark, because I did not know what to expect. And there was someone who was doing the ceremony with me and was letting her demons out right next to me. I could still hear everything. So I was affected by her energy and I saw some dark things during my first journey. But I’ve trained myself so much in life that I’m not bothered by anything anymore, because I don’t feel like anything is real. Nothing can actually harm me. What’s the worst thing that can happen to me—it’s death. And I don’t actually fear it, you know. I’m living my best life, and it’s another phase. So OK, if there are dark spirits that try to harm me, or scare me, but in the end I’ll become a spirit too, so I don’t think that’s going to affect me. And I’m a loving person too, so, it’s like Quan Yin, I try to affect them with my love. I acknowledge the energy, and I experienced a fraction of what she experienced. But I didn’t let it affect me. Then the shaman asked me if I wanted to do it again.
Alexa Ashley: I was wondering how you got up the courage to do it again.
James Song: Right? I was like “Again!”
Alexa Ashley: What made you want to? More demons please.
James Song: Oh, maybe it’s from my friend Claridad. She smoked it, then she closed her eyes and started singing and dancing. Because when I was on it, I passed out. I just lay flat down on the mat. Then I heard a loud sound like “boom” on the back of my head. And that’s all I could hear, and I was like “Wow, what is this?” Then I saw that she was singing and dancing and I realized…
Alexa Ashley: Oh, this can be a different experience.
James Song: Yeah wow, and she’s a loving person. Nothing but love. She encouraged me to do it a second time.
Alexa Ashley: You’re glad that you did?
James Song: Yeah, really glad. So I found myself a comfortable spot and found a huge cushion, big one. I was hugging it. I smoked it (DMT), grabbed it and ran to the spot. The cushion was pretty heavy too, so it felt like someone was on top of me.
Alexa Ashley: Oh, was that nice?
James Song: Yeah. Because babies like to be tucked in because they feel like they’re being hugged. So I feel like it’s the same mechanism there. That’s how I felt love. Like a motherly love from my second trip. As soon as I closed my eyes, I saw bright pink, and it started morphing into red. I saw nothing but solid colors, no fractals at all in the beginning. It was solid color. Everything pink. Maybe it’s because it’s my favorite color! I just felt really blissful and joyous.
After that I saw red turning into orange turning into yellow. And that’s when the fractals came in. Super bright, vibrant colors. Intricate patterns. I cannot describe in words. And very different from my first experience still. In my first experience I felt I was being transcended into a void in the universe, complete darkness. Emptiness. Yeah, so that was my first experience. But it made me realize that there’s so much I cannot experience. So much I don’t know about. So I have to keep my mind open and use my past experience to just “I don’t know.” I felt like I could see the universe, I could see everything that’s happening in the universe without using my eyes. I could hear everything in the universe without using my ears. Yeah, and I was in the void. In the middle of nowhere. I could not see anything around me. But at the same time I could know anything that's happening. It was like an omniscient experience. All present. That was mind opening.
Alexa Ashley: How do you feel like it changed the way you live in real life?
James Song: I felt like the DMT trip lasted more than 15 minutes. I felt like I was on it for 3 months after the experience. Slowly coming down when I was in Oaxaca. Yeah, I just felt like I was so full of love and purpose. I can spread my energy and positivity anywhere I go. Before, the things that make me have an automatic response—something unpleasant that happened to me—I’ll be more emotional or affected by anger or jealousy or disappointment over hurt feelings.
Sometimes I’ll even say something that’s not correct. I’ve been working on it throughout the years. I don’t even respond to mean comments on Facebook or anything. After the trip I feel like I have to rethink every time, every response that I have instead of going to my usual response. I realize that everyone is dealing with their own thing, their own lives. We have different realities and no one is 100% happy. But I know I can say something or do something to change their minds, to break their mold.
Some people when they are in depression it’s hard to get out of it. Someone has a shitty day, it’s not just one day, it’s a few different tiny events over time. So I want to remind them that not everyone is mean to them, even though they let out their toxic emotions on me. I don’t mind because I understand where they’re coming from and try to bring the energy around them. I felt like I was treating people with love more, even more than before. Just putting myself in their shoes.
