Walling the site
I stood completely disoriented in a vast track of demolished land running along Gongping Lu (公平路) and Tangshan Lu (唐山路). I was retracing an old longtang neighborhood but…
construction
Shanghai’s scrapers
The other day, a woman fell out of the sky and missed me by an inch. You think I’m making this up? I was hurriedly striding along the…
The gentleman who does construction
In his paint-speckled work jacket, he had a laizzare-faire air about him that was striking yet charming at the same time. A profile shot was irresistible. Yet at…
Portraits of Strangers #1
In thy face I see the map of honor, truth, and loyalty. – William Shakespeare, King Henry VI There’s no art To find the mind’s construction…
Work’s Momentum
In their hands, these workers carried bricks that once made up houses that are now no more, in neighborhoods that the next generation will have no idea once existed….
The world as their playground
Well detailed here, the area surrounding Shangchuan Huiguan (商船会馆) in Old Town, also known as Merchant Shipping Hall, has been completely flattened and the radius of demolition continues expanding…
Moving out and moving on
It was the same story. The area by Lanyi Dock Road (赖义码头) was half-demolished and residents have more or less emptied out. This family had over 20 people…
Out with the old
It is not uncommon to bump into lone individuals surveying old longtangs that are undergoing demolition – the occasional photographer who quietly weaves in and out of shadowed…
How do you view China?
If I were a romantic, I’d paint a picture of China’s social and economic contrasts. A stalwart worker poised on his bicycle, a mode of transportation that once…
Worn sole, worn soul
Apparently, in shoe factories in China, it takes two hundred pairs of hands to make a running shoe. Cutters stamp sheets of fabric to form soles, stitchers then…