Depth of Field
02.20.18
When You Give a Kid a Camera
from Yuanjin Photo
This dispatch of photojournalism from China cuts across a broad spectrum of society, from film screenings in Beijing for the visually impaired to an acrobatics school 200 miles south, in Puyang, Henan province, and from children in rural Sichuan to...
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01.23.18China’s Propagandists Wanted a Hero. ‘Frost Boy’ Fit the Bill.
New York Times
His frazzled face, rosy cheeks and icy hair lit up the internet. Now Wang Fuman, the 8-year-old Chinese student known as Frost Boy, is taking on a new role: propaganda star.
Depth of Field
11.20.17
Fake Girlfriends, Chengdu Rappers, and a Chow Chow Making Bank
from Yuanjin Photo
Lonely dog owners in Beijing and a rented girlfriend in Fujian; the last Oroqen hunters in Heilongjiang and homegrown hip hop in Chengdu; young Chinese in an Indian tech hub and Hong Kong apartments only slightly larger than coffins—these are some...
Features
09.08.17
A Drag Queen for the Dearly Departed
In the good old days, about three thousand years ago, people really knew how to mourn the dead. That was back in the Zhou dynasty, when there was no laughing in the dead person’s house, no sighing while eating, and no singing while walking down a...
Depth of Field
01.17.17
House Calls on the Tibetan Plateau, Children of Divorce, Celebrity Secrets
from Yuanjin Photo
In the final galleries of 2016, the publishing juggernaut Tencent again shows its leadership in the documentary photography space, but iFeng’s choice to publish a personal photo gallery by Zhou Xin is also worth a good look, especially since...
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11.28.16China Risks Wasting $490 Billion on New Coal Plant, Say Campaigners
Guardian
Carbon Tracker says many plants running at overcapacity but China reluctant to wean itself off coal, fearing unemployment and unrest
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11.03.16China Land Reform Opens Door to Corporate Farming
Financial Times
Move to bring capital into large-scale agriculture keeps bar on individual ownership
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10.24.16Living in China’s Expanding Deserts
New York Times
People on the edges of the country’s vast seas of sand are being displaced by climate change
Photo Gallery
07.05.16
Li’s Gamble
from Tencent QQ
Li Mingjin, a 38-year-old coal miner, worked hard and was the sole breadwinner for his family. For 19 years, he toiled deep in the belly of the earth beneath Shanxi province. But in November 2014, by the time he was diagnosed with lung cancer, he...
Green Space
05.11.16
The Dark Side of Country Life
The last time we peeked at Lei Hu’s photo blog, Lei was giving us a cheery look at a China that we rarely get to see: the countryside and its beauty. But there’s a dark side to country life in China, as well, and a new blog post from Lei explores...
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04.28.16China Sees Childhood Obesity 'Explosion' in Rural Provinces
CNBC
The study cites three major reasons for the uptick in childhood obesity: cultural background, poor diet and and a lack of physical activity.
Green Space
02.16.16
Gorging on Gadgets
Documentary filmmaker Sue Williams is finishing up her latest documentary about our beloved electronic gadgets, Death By Design. I was involved in the project and traveled with Williams to south China’s Guangdong province, to the the town of Guiyu,...
Photo Gallery
08.26.15
Mao’s Ghost
When Deng Xiaoping ascended to the throne in late 1978 and then began to initiate a whole series of economic and political reforms that soon transformed the face of China, many people blithely assumed that time had come and gone for China’s...
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12.17.14China’s Mountain Hermits Seek a Highway to Heaven
Agence France-Presse
His unheated hut is half way up a mountain with no electricity, and his diet consists mostly of cabbage. But Master Hou says he has found a recipe for joy. "There is no happier way for a person to live on this earth," he declared,...
Earthbound China
12.15.14
A Map of China’s Back-to-the-Land Efforts
In our short film “Down to the Countryside,” Sun Yunfan and I follow Ou Ning, an artist and curator who moved from Beijing to the village of Bishan in rural Anhui province in 2013, where he experiments with preserving and revitalizing local heritage...
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10.21.14Unrest in China Leaves 22 Dead Following Xinjiang Attack
Financial Times
A new ethnic clash in the restive region of Xinjiang, on China’s central Asian frontier, saw 22 people killed after Uighur assailants attacked Han Chinese merchants at a wholesale food market near the border with Kyrgyzstan.
Excerpts
05.29.13
Every Thousand Years
There are no guardrails on the road to Qixin. And there is only one other way to the top of the mountain—a four-hour hike. It was February, and the ice and snow from Guizhou’s winter storms had recently melted, leaving the famously treacherous cliff...
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06.26.12Interview with Chen Guangcheng
New York Review of Books
The Chinese legal activist Chen Guangcheng arrived in the United States last month following top-level negotiations between US and Chinese officials. Several weeks earlier, Chen had dramatically escaped from house arrest in his village in northeast...
My First Trip
01.22.11Finding the Truth about Rural China
In May 1978, at age 40, accompanied by three colleagues who had already been to China, I made my first trip to the PRC. I was a critical and independent member of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the American Civil Liberties Union. I...