In his photograph Fireworks, Huie subtly uses composition to suggest a subject's emotion.

Huie realized his own perceptions weren't immune from media biases at the project's outset.

"When I was first trying to photograph these people, I was frightened," he says. "But once I got started and became familiar with the neighborhoods, I could approach anyone."

After he'd completed his cross-country trip and was beginning work on organizing the exhibition, Huie says he remembered the other Asian kid he'd avoided in high school.

"I started thinking about that kid in high school and why I'd avoid someone like me," he says. "I realized you are what you see, and as I looked around me, I didn't see anyone that looked like me. I forgot what I looked like."

But while Huie has been able to crack open the shell of the American experience, he thinks many outsiders are never exposed to the realities of life in the US.

"A lot of people are shocked at my photographs," he says. "Their idea of America is Hollywood, but I'm showing them everything, like life in inner-city neighborhoods."

Huie conducted lectures at several of the exhibit's stops in China, including Beijing's Tsinghua University. He recalled one student struggling to reconcile what he saw in Huie's images with what he'd learned about the US through popular culture.

"One person stood up and said, 'But you are showing us images of what America is really like, not the rich paradise we know it is,'" Huie says.

Reconciling such images isn't always easy, as Huie knows firsthand. He says part of his goal in bringing the exhibit to China is to challenge people's assumptions about American society.

"In America, we live in a white culture," he says. "The idea in my photographs is to show the reality. I'm just trying to understand who we are."

Huie has published five books of his work, including Looking For Asian American: An Ethnocentric Tour, Lake Street USA, and Frogtown: Photographs and Conversations in an Urban Neighborhood.

Contact the writer at sundayed@chinadaily.com.cn.