Lens on the Dragon
What happens when your life becomes your lecture, and your mistakes become your message? Lens on the Dragon is part memoir, part meditation. It’s an exploration of presence, identity, and survival in a culture that demanded authenticity and obedience at once.
In January 2020, as villages closed their gates in fear, I found myself welcomed into Huangyao Ancient Town in Guangxi.
A chapter from the months when I found myself completely alone on a Chinese college campus during lockdown. Classrooms empty. Streets quiet. The silence that asks hard questions.
About the Book
In Lens on the Dragon, Paul Allen Benavides (Rojo) pulls back the curtain on life as a foreigner in China, where every word, every frame, and every silence carried weight. This memoir is not a condemnation, nor a glossy postcard, but a story of what it meant to live and create under the dragon’s gaze.
As a teacher, traveler, and filmmaker, Rojo discovered that telling stories on YouTube in China was not a neutral act. Each upload was a negotiation between curiosity and caution, between expression and restraint, and sometimes the survival of the truth itself. To film a street scene was to risk exposing what others preferred to keep hidden; to post a video was to test the invisible lines of what could and could not be said.
Yet beyond the pressures of censorship and performance were the daily realities of life: classrooms that emptied overnight during COVID lockdowns, banquets that blurred hospitality and excess, cities alive with contradictions, and rooftops where stillness became a form of meditation. These moments, caught both on camera and in memory, reveal a China far richer and more complicated than headlines ever allow.
The title itself speaks to the heart of this work. The “lens” is both literal, the camera through which Rojo documented his experiences, and metaphorical, the perspective of an outsider learning to see and to listen with humility. The “dragon” is not a caricature, nor a Western monster, but China as it so honorably names itself: ancient, modern, proud, and complex. Together, the words remind us that no single viewpoint can capture a culture, but that each lens adds a necessary layer to the story.
At its core, Lens on the Dragon is a story of mindfulness and media, of culture and contradiction. It is about the privilege and peril of carrying a camera in a country that both welcomes and watches you. Above all, it is one man’s attempt to live honestly in the complexities that live between silence and speech.
Written with humility and clarity, this memoir invites readers to step into the tension of those thin lines and to ask what it means to see, to speak, and to remember under the watchful eyes of the dragon.
“So, what do we lose, I wondered, when we try to document a place that demands authenticity on the surface, but also demands it be seen through an approved, curated lens? What gets left outside the frame? And what do we find within ourselves in the act of trying, again and again, to capture something real?” ~Lens on the Dragon
Winter 2022. Empty gates. My COVID test expired by a few hours. A lifetime dream, gone in seconds. I left with reflection instead of rage. Because sometimes the wall you’re climbing isn’t made of stone, it’s made of seconds.
In a world that demands certainty, Lens on the Dragon explores what it means to choose complexity instead; to stay honest and human in places that ask you to take a side.
About the Author
Paul Allen Benavides, known by many as Rojo, is an American academic based in Da Nang, Vietnam. He teaches Business and Media at Swinburne University of Technology, where his research explores mindfulness in cross-cultural leadership; how presence, empathy, and attention can transform performance inside global organizations.
Beyond the university, Paul’s career has spanned military, luxury hotels, finance, real estate, corporate training, speaking, writing, and creative media. He is the voice behind Walkabout Rojo, a digital platform that brings together travel, cultural critique, and mindful leadership insights for a global audience. His projects also include Walkabout Elevations and Rojo Reads the News, which extend his work into storytelling, commentary, and thought leadership.
Lens on the Dragon is his first book, a memoir that brings together his academic lens, creative practice, and lived experience across borders.
Halfway up Song Mountain, a lingering foot injury stopped me short of the summit, but not the lesson.
In Guzhen, China’s “Lighting Capital of the World,” I discovered that light itself can be a philosophy. Each glow a reflection of intention and spirit.
What Readers are Saying
The reviews are beginning to arrive. Here’s a glimpse of what early readers are saying…
“I’m on page 38, I can’t put it down.”
“It was like every detail carried layers of meaning just under the surface.”
“The questions in here are about all of us, what it costs to speak your own truth, and who gets to decide what truth is.”
“Risky and unforgettable.”
“So much of what we read about China is extreme. It’s either fearmongering or travel fluff. This book is neither. It’s real, and that’s why the world needs it now.”
“I already know I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time.”
“Three years writing it. Seven years living it. We’ve been waiting for a decade to read this.”
“The book examines that the hardest censorship is what happens inside you.”
What’s Coming Next?
November 1: eBook Launch (Now Live!)
Available worldwide on Amazon Kindle for an introductory price.
November 15: Paperback Release (Amazon)
The print edition will launch globally via Amazon. Readers who prefer physical copies can order directly from their regional Amazon store.
Late November: Paperback in Vietnam (Local Distribution)
Limited print-on-demand (POD) copies will be made available in Vietnam for local readers, expats, and travelers. These will be offered through select local cafés, events, and direct order via my website.
January 1: Audiobook Release
Narrated by the author, this edition will be available via Audible and other platforms for those who prefer to listen on the go.
Availability Beyond Amazon
Future plans include listing the book on Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and other platforms once the 90-day KDP Select period ends in early 2026.
“Lens on the Dragon is an honest story about man who went in search of himself in an alien land.
The vivid descriptions of the places to which he travelled are filled with bona fide self-deprecation and the connection between people triumphing over language and ideology. The search for self-identity is woven into the narrative of travelling to different places using the brutal truth of a video camera to document the experience with its unashamed reality.
What struck me was the sprinkling of wisdom and absolute truths from the most unexpected of places. For me one of the most poignant philosophical tidbits came from a local Burger King worker: It's beautiful, if you choose to see as beautiful. [sic]
This was the recurring theme throughout a thoroughly enjoyable read encompassing the scenery, random people and a culture also gone walkabout in search of identity and universal truth in a time of technological change while still stubbornly retaining a solid death-grip on family, history and culture.
The latter portion is less wide-eyed enthusiasm and more about the utilitarian nature by which big business and bureaucracy use and control whatever is necessary to achieve their desires. The introspective story of balancing integrity and opportunity within a framework that is at times apparently nonsensical, often obtuse, while simultaneously secreted beneath the manifold layers of culture and ideology is a tale as old as history but this time underscored by the COVID-19 fiasco. And a harsh jerk into the reality of Chinese life from the comfort of wide-eyed idealism.
Lens on the Dragon is recommended reading not only as a different experience within China from the routine stranger in a strange land tale but also as an inspirational metaphor. It captures an unfiltered snapshot of one of the most pivotal moments in 21st century China and a glimpse beyond.”
~Mr. Randal Foley
