Issue #4: Deadly floods in Henan + China’s Ethnic Russians + Vaginal Plastic Surgery (Mal)practice, and more
Hi there,
It’s Yan, Beimeng, and Charlotte here. This month, we are back with a regular issue of Far & Near, presenting you with a collection of the best visual stories from China in the past few months. Thanks to everyone who signed up since our last Q&A with Will Wu. If you’d like us to interview any specific Chinese artists, let us know.
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Our top picks in this issue:
Deadly floods in Henan
On July 20, in Zhengzhou, Henan province, passengers captured harrowing images and video clips as floodwater rushed into their running subway cars. People stood in chest-deep water, gasping for air while waiting for rescue. The next day, Beimeng traveled to Zhengzhou, with a team of journalists from Sixth Tone / The Paper, to report on the aftermath of the flooding. When she arrived at Shakoulu Station, where the subway flooding took place, she met Ms. Bai, a young woman desperately looking for her missing husband. This video documents Bai’s frustrating and heartbreaking search as she clung to hope that her husband was still alive.
The Zhengzhou subway accident made international headlines, but the torrential rain also caused devastating havoc in Henan province, especially in rural areas. Many photojournalists went to smaller Henan cities and villages that were submerged due to burst dams and documented the aftermath.
China’s Ethnic Russians
In this photo-essay for 在人间, photographer Wang Qing documents the lives of ethnic Russians in Xinjiang, a northwestern region in China. Many of them have been there for generations and intermarried with the region’s other ethnic groups. They arrived from the end of the 19th century onwards as merchants, refugees of the October Revolution, exiles from the USSR, and later as soldiers of the Soviet Red Army. We like Wang’s project because of its diverse elements—portraits, landscapes, archival photos—which richly illustrate the community and the history that brought them there. For more historical background, we recommend writer Ma Te’s write-up of when and how four waves of Russians put down roots in Xinjiang.
View here.
Vaginal Plastic Surgery (Mal)practice
Bleaching, laser vaginal tightening, and labiaplasty are just some of the items available on the menu in China’s medical cosmetology clinics. The rapidly growing business targets women who want to ‘beautify’ their vaginas. Xiao Jiang, a director from DXChannel, visited five clinics and was lectured about the correct smell of an ideal vagina (not garlicky) and the correct size of ideal labia minora, the inner genital lips (not fat). The investigation reveals a fairly new industry profiting off an old scheme— the objectification of women’s bodies.
Other highlights:
The one-of-his-kind performance artist Brother Nut has a new project out this year. He organized a heavy metal band to tour heavy metal pollution sites around China. Last month, under pressure from county-level authorities in Guangdong to not play in public, his team released a widely-shared video of the band performing in their hotel room, a clever reference to John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Bed-ins for Peace” from 1969.
Starry Kong’s You can’t walk this earth forever; someday you will have to fly is a tender and alluring exploration of loss, grief, and depression. See more of her work here.
With no prospect for the future, a 15-year-old high school dropout joined an e-sports training camp in Chengdu that has made a name online for its success in helping teenagers to quit internet addiction. The rule to stay is simple: esports is not an escape from school, but a profession for only the top 0.003% of players. The most moving part of the video, though, is the tender relationship between the “problematic teenager” and his mother, a divorced parent trying her best to support her two children.
What we noticed:
In June, Caixin photojournalist Ding Gang documented the shutdown of Bitcoin mines in Sichuan. One of his photos, of a Tibetan woman carrying disconnected Bitcoin mining machines, went viral for its resemblance to a painting by French painter Jean-François Millet. What happened after was quite meta: People made derivative art of the photo without Ding’s permission and put them on Opensea, a marketplace for NFT art. At the time, one variant went for 2021 ETH, or 7 million dollars.
The celebrated independent photobook publisher Jiazazhi opened a gallery and event space in Shanghai. The first show, “Being an Eccentric”, is on view until Nov. 14.
Who we are:
Yan Cong is taking a break from photojournalism and pursuing a research MA in new media and digital culture in Amsterdam, while keeping her tie with the photojournalism and documentary community back home through this newsletter.
Beimeng Fu is a video journalist based between Beijing and Shanghai. She is a lover of language and documentary.
Ye Charlotte Ming is a journalist and photo editor covering stories about culture, history, and identity. She’s based in Berlin and working on a book about her hometown’s German colonial past.
Writers: Beimeng Fu, Ye Charlotte Ming, and Yan Cong; Copy editor: Krish Raghav
Have a comment or just want to say hello? Drop us a line at yuanjinpj@gmail.com
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