Tornados and Drag Queens
from Yuanjin PhotoBeing a photojournalist involves reacting to breaking news, a dedication to long-term projects, and everything in between. This month’s showcase of work by Chinese photographers published in Chinese media underscores this range of angles: from...
Visualizing China’s Aid to Africa
Families, Weddings, and Beekeepers
from Yuanjin PhotoThis month’s Depth of Field column brings the stories of Chinese adoption; the marriage ceremony of Hu Mingliang and Sun Wenlin, a gay couple who filed the first civil rights marriage lawsuit to be accepted by a Chinese court (...
Meet ‘Depth of Field’: The Month’s Best Chinese Photojournalism
from Yuanjin PhotoWelcome to ChinaFile’s inaugural “Depth of Field” column. In collaboration with Yuanjin Photo, an independent photo blog published by photographers Yan Cong and Ye Ming on the Chinese social media platform WeChat, we will...
Finding the Women at China’s Big Meetings
Each March, some 5,000 delegates from across China gather in Beijing for the annual meetings of the National People’s Congress (NPC),...
Drinking the Northwest Wind
Like so many of Mao’s pronouncements, it sounded simple. “The South has a lot of water; the North lacks water. So if it can be done, borrowing a little...
The Chinese Road to Paris 2015
from Chinese DoodlesBeginning on November 30, Paris will host the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (COP21). Whatever progress is made toward the parties’ agreement on a path forward will depend in large...
All The Chairman’s Statues
from Chinese DoodlesMao Zedong, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the founding supremo of its People’s Republic, is not a man who has retreated from history quietly. During the last decade of his life, during the Cultural Revolution he unleashed in part to...
The Last Days of the 6 RMB Hotel
from Tencent QQBeginning in 1981 when it opened its doors in the Chinese city of Wuxi in Jiangsu province, the Big Paddy’s Edge Inn attracted some of the city’s most colorful characters. The inn’s proprietor, Gu Qimei, charged a rock-bottom nightly fee of 6...
A Miner’s China Dream
Over the four years I have known him, He Quangui, a gold miner from Shaanxi, has told me many times he wants to travel with me back to Beijing. It’s not just me he wants to visit. He dreams of going to the Chinese leadership’s compound,...
Migrant Hair
This photo series of Chinese hairdressers was made in the spring of 2012, in the city center of Chengdu in Sichuan province. There, some 16 percent of the city’s...
Wealthy Chinese Are Fleeing the Country Like Mad
from SohuLast year, Chinese millionaires maxed out the quota for EB-5 visas under the U.S.’s Immigrant Investor Program,...
Think Renting in Your City is Bad? Try Beijing
from SohuCompared with the numbers of a few years ago, first and second tier cities in China have an oversupply of stock on the housing market...
Down to the Countryside
Is Studying Abroad Worth the Cost?
from Sohu
China’s Fallen Mighty [Graphic]
Over the past thirty-eight years, twelve of China’s top leaders have been purged. This infographic and the bios of these leaders explain how and why these mighty men fell. ...
Who Really Benefits from Poverty Alleviation in China?
from SohuA series of reports issued by China's National Audit Office highlights problems in 19 counties that have received funding from national poverty alleviation programs....
Silent Spring on the Huangpu River
This past July, Shanghai’s Huangpu River—known for more than...
The Hong Kong Protests in Pictures
As thousands of people remain on the streets of Hong Kong, even after local police tried to disperse their protests with hoses and tear gas, here is a collection of images of how the protests—that are calling for greater democracy in Hong Kong—...
A History of China and U.S. Leaders Meeting Through The Years
When the first U.S. President visited China, he was no longer president. Ulysses S. Grant traveled in Asia in 1879. The Qing empire was embroiled in a dispute with Japan over territorial claims to the Ryuku Islands and wanted the U.S. to mediate...
Collecting Insanity
Chinese Dreamers
A dream, in the truest sense, is a solo act. It can’t be created by committee or replicated en masse. Try as you might, you can’t compel your neighbor to conjure up the reverie that you envision. And therein lies the latent,...
Learn English, Chinese Style
from SohuSoccer on the Silk Road
from Tencent QQAs the World Cup draws to a close, we present a photo essay by Chinese photographer Zhang Xinmin exploring the game of soccer along the Silk Road in Xinjiang, where it has a special place in Uighur education and culture. China’s forays into...
The Problem with Chinese Gas Prices
from SohuCairo in Chinese
When Shen Yitong left her home in China to study French at Cairo University in 2008, she didn’t know that she would come to think of Egypt as a second home, or that she would see revolution come upon the country so suddenly. Her parents came from...
Staying Afloat
China’s Fake Urbanization
from Sohu
Sunflower Protestors Open Up
On March 18 some 200 Taiwanese, mostly college students, stormed the offices of Taiwan’s legislature, beginning a protest over a proposed trade...
Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright
from EG365The greatest unsolved mystery in China right now is not the disappearance of Malaysian airliner MH370 but the fate...
First Comes Love, Then Comes...the Photo Shoot
from Institute for Artist ManagementThe wedding banquet comes later. For many Chinese couples, married life really begins in the photo studio where, basted in glitter and hair gel, the brides dressed for a debut at La Scala or night out with Fabio, they gaze upon sets so tufted and...
Small Part, Big Screen
Every morning outside the imposing gate of the Beijing Film Studio, a throng gathers to try to find a way inside. These aren’t fans, exactly. Look at their faces, the practiced way they crane their necks or square their shoulders when the man...
To Save or Not to Save
from SohuChina is known for saving money, and as the country has become wealthier, the household saving rate has increased. China’s personal saving rate has risen...
Markups, Kickbacks, and Sellouts: What’s Wrong with China’s Medical System
from SohuAs the United States haltingly moves to implement the Affordable Care Act, China claims it has already achieved...