The Reborn of Beichuan
ZIJIAN MUThe Sichuan earthquake that struck this mountainous region on May 12, 2008 killed an estimated 90,000 people, including thousands of children. For many families in China, losing one child means losing an only child. The Reborn of Beichuan follows the journey of two families from...
Why Can’t China Make Its Food Safe?—Or Can It?
ALEX WANG, JOHN C. BALZANO, ISABEL HILTON (& authors)The month my wife and I moved to Beijing in 2004, I saw a bag of oatmeal at our local grocery store prominently labeled: “NOT POLLUTED!” How funny that this would be a selling point, we thought.But 7 years later as we prepared to return to the US, what was once a joke had...
Earth Moves, China Rallies
CAIXINRapeseed was ripening in the lush fields ringing the village of Renjia when a local farmer, forced from his home, stepped into the sea of green stalks and pitched a tent.Less than a day earlier, the farmer and each of his more than 3,000 neighbors in Renjia had been rendered...
Moving House: Preserving Huizhou’s Vernacular...
LEAH THOMPSON, SUN YUNFANIn 1996, art historian Nancy Berliner, working with the Peabody Essex Museum, purchased a vacant Qing dynasty merchant’s house from the Huizhou region of China and, piece by piece, moved it to the United States to be meticulously reconstructed at the museum in Massachusetts....
There Goes the Neighborhood
SUN YUNFAN, LEAH THOMPSONWhen, in 1996, art historian Nancy Berliner purchased a late Qing dynasty merchants’ house from Huangcun, a village in Anhui province, it was just one ordinary house among thousands like it in the picturesque Huizhou region of China. It took Berliner seven years to oversee the...
Writing Yunnan a Rubber Check
CHRIS HORTONOur van stopped at a scenic vista on the contour road where verdant mountains undulated southward toward China’s border with Laos. Stepping out to take some photos, I was overcome by an acrid, unpleasant odor. I asked my local travel partner, Xiao Guan, what the stink was.“...
For Many in China, the One Child Policy is Already...
LESLIE T. CHANGBefore getting pregnant with her second child, Lu Qingmin went to the family-planning office to apply for a birth permit. Officials in her husband’s Hunan village where she was living turned her down, but she had the baby anyway. She may eventually be fined $1,600—about what...
Spin of a Crooked Record
CAIXINHundreds of villagers in Hebei province discovered they were victims of identity theft—and in demanding officials find the culprit, they became the recipients of harassment and legal bills. Instead of seeing a shakeout, the villagers watched environmental authorities and local...
In the Footsteps of Pilgrims
MICHAEL YAMASHITAOne of my favorite pictures collected in the book Shangri-La: Along the Tea Road to Lhasa is of six pilgrims coming down an empty stretch of the Chamagudao, the Tea Horse Road. They are going to Lhasa, performing the chak tsal, the Tibetan Buddhist act of prostration. ...
Shangri-La
MICHAEL YAMASHITAThe legendary Chamagudao, the Tea Horse Road, winds through dizzying mountain passes, across famed rivers like the Mekong and the Yangtze, and past monasteries and meadows in a circuitous route from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in western China to the Tibetan capital city of...
Appalachia Comes to Anhui
LEAH THOMPSONThis past fall, my colleague Sun Yunfan and I were preparing to bring Coal+Ice, the documentary photography exhibition we produce for Asia Society, to rural Anhui Province to participate in the Yixian International Photography Festival. Upon hearing that Abigail Washburn, a...
In Longshang
CHIEN-MIN CHUNGBeijing-based photographer Chien-min Chung recently traveled to the village of Longshang, near Lin’an City in Zhejiang near Hangzhou. He was there to rock climb. Longshang, whose surrounding bamboo forests have long been central to the local economy, is now seeing an influx of...