When you have made your name in photo-reportage with the Los Angeles Times, where the hell do you go next?
Asia, according to Conrad Lau, who grew up in California in the 1970s suffering racist taunts of "Chink" and "Jap." "Things are better now; MTV has made it cool to be ethnic." But those early experiences left him disorientated, feeling as if he didn't fit into American society. "As a child, you always want to be accepted. So I've spent much of life trying to find a place where I feel at home. So far, Japan seems be it."
Conrad is a freelance photographer, and he came to Tokyo this year shooting from the hip and hoping he could work and live in Asia. He spent a month in an orphanage for children with HIV and AIDS in northern Thailand. "Working part time as a volunteer, I was able to make a unique record of daily life."