Asia Society: Hutongs

Click Link Below For Movie

I always have the highest of hopes for the Asia Society's web site, but it always manages to underwhelm me. Its web site seems somehow anchored in the nineties, with timid multimedia features, and its navigation is confusing. It almost seems to me as if I ventured in a government web site, with dry, clinical and unimaginative display of its many events.

Having said that, it has featured an interesting collection of videos on the Hutongs, the traditional narrow streets or alleys, most commonly associated with Beijing. Hutongs are alleys formed by lines of traditional courtyard residences. Many have been demolished to make way for high rise buildings, and the few remaining are threatened.

Hutongs were created during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) when Kublai Khan founded Beijing as the capital. All closed courtyards were built in a neat layout, and the hutongs were originally all 30 feet in width, allowing plenty of sunshine. During the dynasties, small hutongs were formed within the existing ones, making them overly crowded.

Don't miss the still photographs slideshow of old hutongs!

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Robert Gauthier: China Journal

Photo  Robert Gauthier-All Rights Reserved- Courtesy Los Angeles Times

As I'm still "suffering" from the afterglow (albeit, and regrettably, only a second-hand one) of the momentous events in Cairo, and from the visual overload of my 2 weeks photo expedition in Gujarat, it was about time to feature photographic work from a different part of the world...

The Los Angeles Times' Framework featured Robert Gauthier's Behind The Lens: A Photographers China journal.

I find similar behind the scene journal entries by photographers and photojournalists very interesting, as these provide insight as to what worked, what didn't and what went through their minds as they go about doing their business....whether it was jubilation at getting a "money shot"...or the disappointment at not getting what was expected.

Gauthier writes:

"Heres the money shot, I thought. As a photojournalist, I try to anticipate moments that help illustrate the thesis of the story. In my minds eye, I pictured Li, arriving home after months away. Children scrambling into his arms, a loving wifes long embrace, tears of happiness streaming from everyones face.

Zonk! Instead, a hesitant father politely introduces his reluctant wife as the children stay outside. We all stand awkwardly in a dimly lighted living room. Li nowhere near his wife. No Norman Rockwell moment here. This is how stories like these generally go. You have to expect the unexpected."

We have all experienced this very same feeling. We build our expectations up; partly because we are wishful thinkers when it comes to our photography, and imagine the "perfect" scenes before we get to them...and partly because we frequently misinterpret how other people react.

Yes, indeed. We have to expect the unexpected...and be realistic in our expectations. I know...that last bit of advice is silly. We can never do that.

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In Focus Does Lantern Festival

Photo  Jason Lee-Courtesy In Focus-All Rights Reserved

The new photo blog In Focus by Alan Taylor for The Atlantic featured about 33 photographs of the festivities on the occasion of the Lunar New Year. The Lantern Festival (known as Yuan Xiao Jie) was observed yesterday in China and wherever there are Chinese communities. It's the last day of the Chinese Lunar New Year festivities.

The blurb accompanying the photographs informs us that it's the most important annual celebration in China, and welcomes the Year of the Rabbit...which is a year of caution and calm.

Calm and caution? I guess the Arab nations revolting for their freedom are unconcerned with the Year of the Rabbit!!

I sense In Focus will soon be one of the favored destinations for those of us who appreciate photojournalism at its best...especially as I just noticed that it offers two choices for its image size: 1024 or 1280 pixels! Nice touch...very nice touch!

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France Television: Portraits Of A New World

Here's a superb multimedia presentation guaranteed to knock your socks off.

It's part of a collection of 24 multimedia documentaries produced by France Televisions. Portraits Of A New World is a narrative of the world of the 21st century, and the upheavals which transform and influence our destinies.

Unfortunately, it's only in French with no subtitles, which sadly reduces its internationalization and its appreciation by non-French speaking audience.

Having said that, take a look nevertheless at Journal of A Concubine which, in my view, is the segment that most beautifully merges the techniques of photojournalism and videojournalism.

In the era of pre-Communist China, wives and concubines lived under the same roof; in full sight and knowledge of everyone. The practice was legal and widely accepted. In 1949, it was made illegal by Mao as being a relic of feudalism, but has reappeared with a modern twist in the 1990s with the economic resurgence of China. Concubines are now viewed as a sign of wealth especially in business circles.

This being a French production, the nuanced difference between concubines and mistresses is explained. The latter do not expect gifts nor monetary rewards. Concubines do.

Seen on the incomparable Duckrabbit

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Hamid Sardar: Mongolia

Hamid Sardar-Afkhami is a photographer and a scholar of Tibetan and Mongol languages with a Ph.D. from Harvard University. After moving to Nepal in the late 1980s and exploring Tibet and the Himalayas for more than a decade, he traveled to Outer Mongolia, and determined to document its nomadic culture by setting a mobile studio ger camp in Mongolia. With his arsenal of cameras and different formats, he mounts yearly expeditions into the Mongolian outback to document her nomadic traditions.

Apart from the two movie documentaries (these are not short, and run for almost an hour), take a look at Hamid's photographic gallery titled Dark Heavens, which has color and platinum portfolios.

Photo  Hamid Sardar-All Rights Reserved

Impressive, huh? Especially since Hamid is able to combine the two imagery disciplines so well.

I was introduced to Hamid Sardar's work and website through The Empty Quarter Gallery newsletter.

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Bruno Barbey: Shanghai World Expo

Not entirely travel photography related but Magnum In Motion is featuring an audio slideshow of Bruno Barbey's photographs of the construction of Shanghai's World Expo construction site and parts of its old city.

Shanghai saw the opening of the 2010 World Expo today, starting an event to herald the Chinese financial hub's return as a major world city after the spartan industrialism following the 1949 communist revolution.

According to the news reports here in the UK, no expense was spared and like the 2008 Olympics, the World Expo will showcase China's immense economic and geopolitical importance; almost bragging its power and influence.

I haven't been to Shanghai yet, but it's quite obvious the degree by which China has developed, and is continuing to develop its main cities. It's in stark contrast with the crumbling infrastructure of many large cities in the United States.

China is spending over $4.0 billion on the Expo itself, and many billions more on other improvements for this city of 20 million people. While in the United States, we are faced with economic difficulties caused by the mismanagement of the Bush Administration, the spectacle of hypocritical Tea Baggers and a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

It's depressing.

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Ryan Pyle: Chinese Turkestan

Here's a feature by photographer Ryan Pyle on Chinese Turkestan, which touches on the Uyghur people and their efforts to preserve their cultural and religious practices in China.

Chinese Turkestan is now known as Xinjiang, and is an autonomous region of mainland China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

Its major ethnic groups include Uyghur, Han, Kazakh, Hui, Kyrgyz and Mongol.It also has a documented history of at least 2,500 years, and a succession of different peoples and empires vying for control over the territory.

Ryan Pyle obtained a degree in International Politics from the University of Toronto, moved to China permanently in 2002 and began taking freelance assignments in 2003. He became a regular contributor to The New York Times covering China, where he documented issues such as rural health care, illegal land seizures, bird flu and environmental degradation. He also has published magazine work, such as the Sunday Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, Fortune, TIME, Outside, Forbes and Newsweek.

Normally, the Muslim call to prayer is melodious but the one chosen for this piece's soundtrack is not, so perhaps you may want to turn the audio off.

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Ryan Pyle: Chinese Turkestan

Here's a feature by photographer Ryan Pyle on Chinese Turkestan, which touches on the Uyghur people and their efforts to preserve their cultural and religious practices in China.

Chinese Turkestan is now known as Xinjiang, and is an autonomous region of mainland China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

Its major ethnic groups include Uyghur, Han, Kazakh, Hui, Kyrgyz and Mongol.It also has a documented history of at least 2,500 years, and a succession of different peoples and empires vying for control over the territory.

Ryan Pyle obtained a degree in International Politics from the University of Toronto, moved to China permanently in 2002 and began taking freelance assignments in 2003. He became a regular contributor to The New York Times covering China, where he documented issues such as rural health care, illegal land seizures, bird flu and environmental degradation. He also has published magazine work, such as the Sunday Times Magazine, Der Spiegel, Fortune, TIME, Outside, Forbes and Newsweek.

Normally, the Muslim call to prayer is melodious but the one chosen for this piece's soundtrack is not, so perhaps you may want to turn the audio off.

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Alfredo Bini: Monlan Festival

Alfredo Bini has always taken photographs, and found his own personal form of expression in reportage photography. He concentrates on documenting stories of social relevance, and hopes that his images increases public awareness on these issues.

I thought of featuring Alfredo's work of the Monlan festival at the time when China is publicly positioning the Panchen Lama as the legitimate representative of Tibetan Buddhism, and to undermine the popularity of Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama.

Monlam is also known as The Great Prayer Festival, falls on 4th-11th day of the 1st Tibetan month. It is greatest religious festival in Tibet, when thousands of monks gather to perform religious rituals at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.

Alfredo's reportage "Water and Land in Sahel the case of Burkina Faso", won the title of "Runner-Up" in the "Travel Photo Of The Year", run by The Independent and Wanderlust, and has won 2nd place in the IPA Awards (NYC) for the Political category as well as 2 mentions of honor in the Environmental and Feature Story categories.

His Transmigrations reportage has been published as cover story by the Corriere della Sera Magazine and Alias (Il Manifesto), and has also been published by the BBC and Avvenire.

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China's Tibet: Desmond Kavanaugh

China's Tibet from Desmond Kavanagh on Vimeo.

This is hardly a travel feature, but is more of a statement against the encroaching Sinification of Tibet. Desmond Kavanaugh is an a Dublin-based photographer, who produced a documentary made of still images titled China's Tibet.

The collection of photographs is an exploration of the effects of Chinese occupation and development on the ancient culture and land of Tibet as it is pulled into the 21st century by one of the worlds fastest growing economies.

As Desmond writes: "This new Tibet is powered and connected, and is a haven for Han Chinese migrants attracted by Government subsidies. The documentary focuses on the issues of militarization, immigration, construction, propaganda and and repression of culture all set against the backdrop of the stunning plateau."

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Best Multimedia: Journey To End of Coal

Here's one of the best multimedia web documentary I've seen so far, and it's titled Journey to the end of Coal, developed by two French multimedia companies, Honkytonk and 31Septembre.

It's an interactive web documentary set in China, and documents the sacrifices that millions of Chinese coal miners are making everyday, risking their lives and spoiling their land to satisfy their own countrys appetite for economic growth.

I was amazed at how this web documentary has crossed over to television visual territory, and how well the interactivity of this web documentary is done, which adds an altogether exciting feature to the experience. You have to see it to be blown over as I am. It gives you the opportunity of experiencing what an investigative photojournalist goes through and faces on a similar assignment!

In short: one of the best I've seen so far, and one that totally justifies the 1.5 million page views it received so far.

However, set aside enough time to experience it..this is not the type of multimedia that can be rushed through.

Via Innovative Interactivity.

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Justin Jin: 100Eyes Magazine

Justin Jin worked for more than than a decade as an independent photojournalist with leading magazines and newspapers, specializing in documenting people in hidden, harsh and sensitive situations, such as authoritarianism in Russia, exploitation in China or illegal immigration in Europe.

Based for the last four years in Moscow, Justin is doing reportage and
corporate assignments in Russia, China and beyond. While some of his projects are commissioned, others are self-initiated.

The beautifully produced 100Eyes Magazine features Justin Jin's edgy photo essay Made In China-Blues After Midnight which documents how workers in Chinese factories toil through the night scrubbing, spraying and tearing trousers to create the rugged look of blue jeans so favored by consumers all over the world.

Justin Jin's website is here.

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Shiho Fukada: The End of Kashgar?

 Shiho Fukada/NYTimes-All Rights Reserved
One of my favorite photographers/photojournalists is Shiho Fukada, and she returns to the pages of The New York Times with photographs of Kashgar made into an audio slideshow titled A City and People At a Crossroads with the narration of Michael Wines (also author of the accompanying article To Protect an Ancient City).

Kashgar is a important hub on the Old Silk Road, a vibrant Islamic centre within Chinese territory, where over a thousand years ago, traders from all over Asia, sold and bought their goods on its streets. It is the largest oasis city in Chinese Central Asia and 90% of its population of over 3,000,,000 are Uygur. Kashgars Old City, is the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in central Asia, as wrote the architect and historian George Michell.

The article questions whether the Chinese government's policy to demolish the Old City and replace it with modern buildings is really because of its fear of earthquakes, or motivated by the desire to dilute the Uygur's identity by moving them elsewhere.

Some lovely photographs by Fukada of the Old City, especially the first one in the slideshow.

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Chinese New Year

Photo ©REUTERS/Bazuki Muhammad-All Rights Reserved
I've been remiss in acknowledging the Chinese Lunar New Year which was just heralded a few days ago, and which is being observed by ethnic Chinese and others around the world...so Gong Xi Fa Cai!

The above photograph is courtesy The Big Picture blog of The Boston Globe, and is of a Chinese man reciting prayers at a temple in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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Ryan Pyle: Gongga Shan

Photographs © Ryan Pyle-All Rights Reserved
Born in Canada, Ryan Pyle obtained a degree in International Politics from the University of Toronto and subsequently fled to China on an exploratory mission. In 2002 he settled in China permanently (currently in Shanghai, China), and began taking freelance assignments in 2004. He then became a regular contributor to the New York Times covering China, Time, Newsweek, Outside Magazine, Sunday Times Magazine, Fortune and Der Spiegel.

Ryan recently produced a photo essay on Gongga Shan or Gongga Mountain, which was included as an Honorable Mention in the awards at the Banff Mountain Culture Awards.

The photo essay was produced during an arduous journey through China's remote Sichuan province; departing from the Chinese town of Kangding, Ryan and his writing partner walked 4 days (at an average altitude of 4000m) to reach the remote Tibetan Gongga Mountain Monastery. It was very much a journey from Han China to Tibetan China at a time when relations between the two have been severely strained.

Here's an excerpt: "I had first learned about Minya Konka, or Gongga Shan, from naturalist Joseph Rock. His work in eastern Tibet, now western Sichuan, was pioneering and when he first laid eyes on Minya Konka he believed he had found the largest mountain in the world. He wasn't far off. Minya Konka stands an impressive 7556m and towers above the rest of the range. It's a sight beyond words. The Minya Konka Tibetan Monastery rests at the base of the mountain. My journey to the monastery began on foot in the town of Laoyulin, just outside of Kangding. From there the four-day, 120-km trek to the monastery had taken its toll, walking at an average altitude of about 4000 m. But this is the way many of the pilgrims make the journey to this remote monastery, and it was important to follow in their footsteps to understand the significance of the temple and its role in the community. Each morning at the monastery one monk prays alone in the main prayer hall. It was a damp and cold morning and there was a lovely light coming in from the single window; my only concern was to do justice to the moment."

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Gemma Thorpe: Footsteps in the Gobi

Photograph  Gemma Thorpe-All Rights Reserved
Gemma Thorpe is a British freelance documentary photographer currently based in Beijing, who specializes in social and environmental issues. Having studied Geography at Sheffield University before turning to photography full-time, Gemma initially studying at Leeds College of Art and Design and then in 2007 for an MA in International Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, completed in Dalian, NE China.

She has exhibited in the United Kingdom and in China, and has published work in the UK and Europe. Her website has a number of galleries, most of which are of China but I was drawn to two of her projects: Shamanism in Korea and Footsteps In The Gobi.

The latter is a Soundslides feature of Emma's photograph made while crossing the Gobi desert, retracing the travels of Mildred Cable who was the first Englishwoman to cross the desert. From 1923 to 1936, Mildred and two friends, sisters Francesca and Eva French, traveled back and forth across the route that has become known as the Silk Road.

The Gobi Desert is the largest desert region in Asia, and covers parts of northern and northwestern China, and of southern Mongolia. It's also the 6th largest desert in the world, and is the location of several important cities along the legendary Silk Road.

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Wang-Fu Chun: Natives of NE China

© Wang-Fu Chun/Zone Zero-All Rights Reserved

Wang-Fu Chun is a freelance photographer, who moved to Beijing from Harbin in 2002. He has photographed the following topics, "Chinese On The Train" , "People of Northeastern China", "Northeast Tiger" and "Chinese Stream Locomotive", and was a winner at the 17th China Photographic Art Exhibition and a winner of the 3rd Gold Statue for Chinese photography.

Via Zone Zero, here's Wang-Fu Chun's Natives of Northeast China, an ethnographic gallery beautifully embellished with Chinese calligraphy.

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David Gray: South West China

Photograph © David Gray/Reuters-All Rights Reserved
David Gray is a photographer with Reuters, and has published his audio slideshow of South West China on its blog. These are photographs of rarely frequented regions of China.

I'm not a fan of the Ken Burns effect, and although I found it somewhat overused in this slideshow...it doesn't take anything away from the quality of the photography.

David Gray's South West China

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Justin Guariglia: Planet Shanghai

Justin Guariglia's latest book, Planet Shanghai, is his attempt to preserve the city's unique culture, traditions and its people. The ICP will be having a book signing event with Justin Guariglia on Friday, May 23 (6:00 pm - 7:30 pm) at its store on 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street, NYC.

Here are some samples from Planet Shanghai

From the New Yorker magazine:

It�s amazing how much you can accomplish in Shanghai while wearing pajamas. In recent years, Shanghai newspapers have worried that this sartorial habit will give the city a slovenly image, but it seems that many natives see little divide between public and private space. Justin Guariglia, an American photographer who lived in Asia for nearly a decade, captures the city in its most informal moments. His book includes dozens of portraits of pajama�d Shanghainese: visiting the supermarket, riding motorcycles, walking dogs, playing mah-jongg, going to McDonald�s, smoking cigarettes. Guariglia works close to the ground; he shoots the undersides of bridges and the sheen of vegetables at the market, and includes no fewer than sixteen pages of footwear, a common Chinese obsession. His search for street style uncovers moments of unexpected beauty: a rainbow pile of scrap wire, a heart-shaped decoration on an anti-theft gate, a boarded-up door crisscrossed with lines as straight and true as a calligrapher�s best brushwork.

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Michael Wolf: Hong Kong

Photograph © Michael Wolf-All Rights Reserved
Michael Wolf is a German photographer who studied at UC Berkley and at the University of Essen. He has been living and working as a photographer and author in China for ten years.

In addition to a wide spectrum of publications for international magazines, three books by him on China have been published, and he has been deeply involved with the topic of vernacular culture for many years. His most recent work deals with the issue of the cultural identity of the city of Hong Kong.

There are many galleries to explore on Michael's website, but the one that intrigued me most is the 100x100 project, in which he photographed 100 residents in their flats (100 rooms each 100 square feet in area) in Hong Kong's oldest public housing estate. Each of these photographs tells us a story...about the persons inhabiting the tiny space, their taste in furnishings, and even their income level.

Hong Kong's oldest (Shek Kip Mei Estate) public housing estate was the one photographed by Michael Wolf, and its buildings were condemned in 2006 and torn down.

Michael Wolf's 100x100

Michael Wolf's Website

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