Issue #26: Life of Day Laborers in Beijing + Hexi Corridor Under Climate Challenges, and More
Hi there,
It’s been a while!
Happy holidays to all our readers. We apologize for our silence these past three months. It was a heady time - Yan finished her second master’s in late summer, and Beimeng started exploring new paths after being laid off from her staff job.
Reflecting on 2023, it’s astonishing to think how, exactly one year ago, China was thrown into chaos when the era of “zero-COVID” came to an abrupt, sudden end. Twelve months on, if there’s one silver lining, it’s probably this: many have found unprecedented clarity and purpose in life.
Our task - curating insightful stories from China - also became harder in year gone by. Critical stories have shorter lifespans on China’s increasingly censored internet. We are trying our best to find ways to preserve and present these stories and under-the-radar conversations.
On a brighter note: some of the stories we’ve previously showcased gained well-deserved recognition across various platforms, from a (surprise) appearance on a hit Chinese reality show and top honors at the Golden Horse Awards to showcases at the Paris Internationale. Read till the end to learn more about these “highlights”!
Far & Near is a completely independent and paywall-free newsletter. Currently, only 1.5% of our readers are paying members. With your help, we can continue to produce high-quality stories that celebrate the creativity within China and share remarkable human-centric narratives that often go unnoticed.
Waiting for an Opportunity
Majuqiao, on Beijing’s southeast edge, is the city’s largest surviving day labor market. Each day before dawn, thousands of migrant workers gather here, hoping to be picked up for odd jobs ranging from loading to sorting to cleaning.
Chengdu-based filmmaker Zhu Lingyu wanted their stories told, and she did it the Majuqiao way: handing out flyers on the streets to recruit laborers (complete with a day rate) willing to share their experiences and be photographed in their own environment.
Many of the people Zhu photographs seem down on their luck: one couple gets by solely on supermarket food samples. Another, a young man coping with depression, dreams of finding his fortune abroad. One woman boasts that her daughter owns a lavish villa in Beijing, while an elderly street performer roams with his loudspeaker at night, performing Chaplin and Jackie Chan routines. Despite these circumstances, Zhu says many value the freedom and autonomy day labor gives them, preferring it to factory employment.
China’s post-pandemic economic slowdown has led to a highly competitive market for job seekers across the board, from university graduates to migrant workers. Monthly reporting on youth unemployment numbers was suspended recently, while in Majuqiao, the average day rate is reportedly going down. But this isn’t like Sanhe, the famed Shenzhen gig market of the 2010s that birthed a predecessor of the “lying flat” ethos, becoming a sort-of “utopia” for those who wanted to “live a life without responsibility.” The people in Majuqiao are desperately hanging on to a fading sense of dignity, faced with diminishing returns and a lack of choice. The piece sparked a lot of conversation - Zhu’s original video immediately went viral when it was published by Tencent’s journalism label Solution, but was then pulled off the web within a day.
All of this makes Zhu’s approach of ‘paying’ for the story up for debate. This Yitiao interview with Zhu (archived below) has excerpts, and covers some of the questions around the piece’s ethics. Tell us what you think in the comment.
Climate emergency in Hexi Corridor
China is experiencing a moderately warmer winter this year because of an El Niño phase. In the past 60 years, Gansu province in western China has seen temperature increases higher than the global average according to a new report. Photographer Li Junhui visited the Hexi Corridor in Gansu - west of the Yellow River and south of the Gobi Desert - with a group of climate researchers and environmental specialists. Li’s photo essay, published in Caixin, illustrates some of the challenges posed by climate change when compounded by complex geographies: deforestation and desertification management, preservation of historical relics and local viticulture.
Read the story here (paywalled)
Highlights:
In this section, we are happy to share some exciting new developments in some of the stories we featured in the past two years. If you missed them in our earlier issues, now is the best time to save them to your holiday reading lists!
In Issue 15, we highlighted “Xiaofang,” an ongoing project by artist Hu Yinping, who secretly commissioned and purchased all of her mother’s knitted beanies to honor her labor, otherwise under-compensated. This fall, Hu’s new collection - this time of knitted bikinis - was exhibited in Paris as part of the Paris Internationale.
In Issue 9, we showcased “Goodbye Language,” a video in which the artist randomly stitched together 600 frequently used bureaucratic words into a nonsense announcement, then broadcast through a megaphone into the compound where they lived. It was an ironic critique of last year’s Covid-19 policy. The video, although removed online, has evolved into a short documentary film, “The Memo”, on lockdown life in Shanghai. It won the “Best Documentary Short Film” at the 2023 Golden Horse Awards in November.
In Issue #1, we featured Meilin Gao’s work “When We Two Parted” in which she took unposed photos of 12 divorced couples, paired with their handwritten notes meant as souvenirs to each other. Gao has since appeared in China’s hit divorce-themed reality TV show, “See You Again,” where she is a professional “divorce photographer” who takes portraits of the couples featured in the show.
Who we are:
Yan Cong is a Amsterdam-based photojournalist-turned-researcher interested in digital activism and the environmental impact of digital technologies.
Beimeng Fu is a video journalist currently in transit in New York. She is a lover of languages and documentaries.
Ye Charlotte Ming is a journalist and visual editor covering stories about culture, history, and identity. She’s based in Berlin.
Writers: Beimeng Fu, Yan Cong. Copy editor: Krish Raghav
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I was moved by the interview with Zhu Lingyu and the personal stories depicted in the excerpts.