China
Cakewalk
by Malcolm Parker on May 14, 2013
It must be Friday. Two colleagues are making rounds of the cubicles. They carry thin cardboard boxes, limply open, full of slices of spongy and creamy cake wrapped in cellophane. A friend with a camera follows. You take a piece of cake and you have your picture taken with the cake giver.
It’s the cake giver’s last day at work and this is the tradition. It’s been a few weeks …
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Advances In China’s Counterfeiting Industries
by Nick Glossop on March 27, 2013
Some retailers are buying counterfeits and mixing it in with legitimate product.
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Gogo gobi
by Malcolm Parker on March 23, 2013
The images of China people know are of crowded metropolises, constant construction and factories. It’s too easy to forget that this massive country contains some vast regions of wilderness, from lush jungles to desolate sands, and they are stunningly beautiful.
I have been to Xinjiang, the western-most and largest province, where the people look like they should be in a Emir Kusturica film, not a Zhang Yimou one, and where, on an excursion …
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Eyes of Asia
by Marc J Chalifoux on October 3, 2012
This entry in the Frames Per Second series is a set of images that are close-up portraits highlighting eyes as the predominant detail. Thus, the only caption will be the location where the image was created.
Dalat, Vietnam
Puri, India
Kathmandu, Nepal…
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Mired in Muk
by Malcolm Parker on September 18, 2012
Crowd noise is the same in any language, a cottony roar, and is my background this afternoon. Hundreds of soldiers and police have cordoned off an area of Tian He road, a major east-west corridor, in Guangzhou’s downtown. It’s 9.18 day. 81 years ago Japanese set off a bomb on their own railway near what was Mukden, now Shenyang, in northern China, blaming it on Chinese dissidents and using it as …
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Asia in the Twenty First Century
by Marc J Chalifoux on September 11, 2012
The 21st century is foretold to be Asia’s century. To mention its diversity as a landmass or collection of cultures sounds like a trite understatement once it has been experienced firsthand. These images aim to represent the past, present, and future of a continent that will likely have a direct impact on all of our lives in the coming decades.
The Himalaya, with Mount Everest as a centre point, viewed …
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Calling Kurt Russell
by Malcolm Parker on September 3, 2012
Chinese authorities have denied that they are building a stargate in Guangzhou, insisting that the odd building was planned as a companion to the provincial museum, which was modeled on a lacquer box. ”It’s all about the fengshui.”
An anonymous Chinese official asked this reporter “Whatever happened to Jaye Davidson, I thought she was really hot. Do you have Kurt Russell’s number?”…
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Vignettes From the Other China 四
by Marc J Chalifoux on August 27, 2012
As a former Japanese colony (1895-1945), the Taiwanese population still retains many cultural, social, and linguistic ties to their former rulers. Popular games, comics, and toys are among the more overt expressions of those connections.
The Core Pacific City, otherwise known as the Living Mall (京華城), is a monument to the high end, luxury-branded, one-stop shopping experience that seems to represent the best of western culture to the average Taiwanese …
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On the Romney/Ryan Storefront
by Malcolm Parker on August 26, 2012
In a small but signicant step, Team Mitt has put healthcare policy to practice, opening its first store for GOP approved health products. I had to go early this morning for a shot without teeming hordes, but I managed to browse yesterday. Some of the big sellers were
The Bible: GOP approved, expurgated version. All the hate, none of the love or kindness.
Mittamorphoil – An essential oil derived from …
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Visual Inventory
by Malcolm Parker on August 9, 2012
This photo of a family, its yurt* and possessions is from a photo project begun in 2005 by Huang Qingjun and Ma Hongjie. They travel around the country and photograph families outside their homes with all their possessions. Simple and lovely. The tone of the photos (the processed ones at the start, not the others at the end) reminds me of Alec Soth’s fantastic book, Sleeping by the Mississippi ** and …
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Vignettes From the Other China 三
by Marc J Chalifoux on August 4, 2012
Riot police mobilize in front of the presidential palace in April 2004 when it becomes clear that Kuomintang (KMT) supporters do not accept the results of the recent election.
Revelers stand at point-blank range before a large bank of “bee-hive” bottle rockets on the final day of the annual lantern festival in Yenshui (鹽水區). It is considered auspicious to be struck by live fireworks at this time of year.…
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Earth Moving
by Malcolm Parker on June 24, 2012
At night the trucks come out. Forbidden before 7pm, yellow dump trucks come rattling out of pits.
Tires are washed as they leave and tracks of mud and clumps of clay trail down the pavement like sentences in Braille, telling of towers to be where there are holes.
Wide shouldered, they barge down the roads, preserving their momentum at all costs. Every night, up in apartments in buildings which …
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