Three decades of documenting China

By 1994 I was increasingly spending time in Beijing, living then in older hutong neighborhoods while daily exploring and recording the city before its major facelift in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics. The city felt as though it ran on a daily routine where much was simple and indeed content, an image helped by the flow of bicycles. The traditional, grey walled alleys I found so unusual to come upon within the midst of a growing city. I could detect a rhythm to the hours and seasons, even a closeness to nature. I truly loved living there and often felt isolated to the modernization appearing particularly around the city’s edges. All so different to the city’s skyline seen today, for example as we look east from the Forbidden City to Beijing’s high-rise CBD.

However, China was not only about cities and rapid change. Much of the country’s remoter borderlands were home to many ethnic nationalities, living in ways so different then to the increasing modern urban norms. 1995 marked the start of many visits to Yunnan with Lijiang an obvious destination. Thankfully my earliest memories of what then was still a remote town came before the destructive 1996 earthquake. Today, of course with the increasing growth of air, rail and highway infrastructure such areas have been opened up, attracting increasing numbers of tourists annually.