Shunde, 1990. In my father’s ancestral village, having a motorcycle meant the ability to seek more opportunities to do business or work on construction sites.
Guangxi, 1989. Ping pong
Taishan, 1990. In the house built and left behind by my mother’s father, my cousin offers food, money and alcohol to the ancestors to let them know I have returned.
Shunde, 1990. Shave at the village barber shop.
Wanxian, 1993. On a bank of the Yangtze River, a child waits for their mother to finish washing their clothes.
Lijiang, 1990. Naxi minority women sell chickens and other farm items at a bus stop.
Taishan, 1995. Fong Ny Geung, 83, my oldest living relative in China.
Shenyang, 1998. Initiation ceremony for new traffic patrol members.
Beijing, 1992. Migrant workers, who float from city to city looking for work, sleep in the train station until they can find jobs as construction workers or security guards.
Yangshuo, 1989. Elementary school
Shenyang, 1998. A woman wears a veil to keep coal dust out of her face in one of the world’s most polluted cities.
Beijing, 1998. Losers at the Beijing Welfare Lottery.
Shanghai, 1997. Workers construct pilings for an elevated highway.
Beijing, 2003. At the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, visitors pay their respects to the dead during the springtime Gravesweeping Festival by cleaning their memorial plaques and decorating them with flowers.
Nanjing, 2000. Ancient city wall.
Shenzhen, 2001. Dang Jianjun, twenty-one, lost both arms in a factory punch press accident on August 13, 1999, at around 2:00 a.m., eight hours into the overnight shift. Thirty-one such accidents a day happened that year in Shenzhen.
Beijing, 1997. Documentary filmmaker Zhao Liang screens one of his experimental videos.
Shenyang, 1998. Pool hall.
Zhejiang, 1997. Tent peep show
Beijing, 1998. Punk bandmates share a puff of hash smoke.
Beijing, 1999. A businessman with no knowledge of rollerblading brought a bunch of rural martial arts students to live in a Beijing skate park, giving them equipment and videos of Western bladers in hopes of developing an exhibition team to hire out for promotional events.
Beijing, 1998. Slackers hang out by a hotel pool, hoping to meet foreign women.
Beijing, 1992. Plainclothes policeman monitors a show by the metal band Tang Dynasty.
Yunnan, 1998. A couple in the hard sleeper compartment on a train from Beijing to Kunming.
Lanzhou, 2002. A drug user breaks open small paper pods of heroin on a crisp 100 yuan note, where he sifts it before smoking .
Beijing, 1996. A traveling dealmaker shows the gun he carries to protect himself on the road.
Shenzhen, 1999. A young woman tries on a rented wedding dress at a photo studio. She is already married, but only now has she saved up enough money to have pictures taken.
Xinjiang, 2002. Harrison Liu films his character’s death scene in the action movie Warriors of Heaven and Earth.
China Obscura