By Aly Song

Living in the metropolis of Shanghai for over 10 years, it makes sense to me that all the luxury malls, high-end goods and soaring skyscrapers are made by the hands of migrant workers. As a result, I pay extra attention to the migrant worker community.

Shortly after the Spring Festival holiday, I had a chance to photograph dozens of migrant workers traveling from home to job interviews at an underwear factory in Shanghai. They were all recruited by an employment agency, a popular business nowadays especially on the coastal area where the labor shortage situation has reached a worsening level.

The interview was the simplest I had ever seen, the only requirement by the factory was “good health”, followed by several questions which altogether lasted about 5 minutes. Afterwards the workers were divided into two groups – experienced and “whiteboard” (without any work experience). The experienced workers were asked to start working right away, while the whiteboard workers needed to attend a training course – by observing the production line and following a veteran for one or two days.

There were two “whiteboard” girls that caught my eye during the assignment. The two shy girls in their 20s were both ethnic Yi minorities from a village in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. You could almost see in their eyes that everything was so new and strange to them. They wouldn’t give me their names, but they told me that it was their first time leaving home for work, and it brought them to a city over 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) away.

Insecurity and uncertainty have long been the key words for Chinese migrant workers, mainly because they left their homes for a strange environment with few friends and usually zero social insurance. A recent hot topic at the ongoing annual National People’s Congress (NPC) was the household registration system (or hukou regime) reform. Through this, migrant workers could finally benefit from government funds on medical services and education for their children, which are given free to urban dwellers. It would, however, take some time for the new policy to carried out. So, what’s the situation now?

Last week, I went to an area near the Shanghai Outer Ring Expressway, the edge of the city center, to look for some pictures to match property stories. A small road with piles of household garbage on both sides caught my attention. Further down the road, after walking past several blocks of old and shabby buildings, I found myself standing in front of dozens of shipping containers, piled up one after another.

At first I thought it must be a post-modern art project, but when I got closer, I saw people inside the containers, and there were beds, tables and fridges.

The containers were rented to migrant workers as dwellings for 500 yuan (80 USD) per month. About 20 people, most of whom make a living by collecting recyclable waste, have lived here for more than two years. A woman complained to me that there was neither running water nor toilets in the containers. It was hot like a fireplace in the summer and cold like an ice cave in the winter, although the rent was quite acceptable.

While I was wandering around the area trying to shoot some more frames with the dusk light, the woman’s husband came back from work on an electric tricycle. After realizing that I was a journalist, he stopped me from taking pictures and threatened me to leave or he would call the police. I didn’t know the specific reason why he wanted me out, but I did understand that their insecurity sometimes prevented them from getting into trouble.

On my way out, the sky turned darker and an elderly woman started to cook outside her container. I sincerely hope that their lives will be free of uncertainty and insecurity soon. The government creating a beneficial policy would be a good start, but people treating them fairly is the key.

By Aly Song

“Right now, buying a house like this would cost me more than 2 million yuan, but the government only offered me 260,015 to move, where could I go?” 67-year-old Luo Baogen said while smoking a cigarette in front of his partially demolished “nail house”, standing alone in the middle of a road in Wenling city, China’s eastern Zhejiang province. “Nail house” refers to the last houses in an area owned by people who refuse to move to make room for new developments.

GALLERY: A HOUSE IN THE ROAD

About 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Shanghai, this house quickly became an Internet hot topic after local news reports bearing dramatic photographs went public last week.

Considering a follow-up story and to have some more pictures of our own, I traveled there with a Reuters TV colleague on Saturday.

GALLERY: A HOUSE IN THE ROAD

It was difficult to believe that such a small city of Wenling was also undergoing great changes like Shanghai. On my train ride, I could see big and small construction sites on both sides of the railway. As soon as I stepped off the train, I could hear many noises of heavy machinery, constant reminders of the fast GDP development in this country.

I knew most of the “nail house” problems were as consequences of economic developments. This one was no exception.

After a brief interview, we learned that Luo Baogen and his wife were farmers who used to live in a quiet village too small to be found on Google map, with a few houses and some crop fields around the area. But just a few years ago, the high-speed railway ran through this village, and the local government decided to take advantage to turn this place into an economic development zone. Negotiation and demolition kicked off. Fast forward to today, and Luo and his wife are the last family refusing to move.

Luo told us he was distressed as feedback from the government changed all the time. He didn’t know what else he could do, so he just waits day after day by his house, puffing on cigarettes.

While we were interviewing Luo, dozens of other villagers came to us to complain about the local government’s behavior, but all of them asked to be off-the-record. In the meantime, an unidentified man kept using a mobile phone to take pictures of us to keep us on record.

I have covered several nail house stories in my photojournalism career, and sometimes, I can feel the same powerlessness and tininess as my interviewees, being in the way of the development of a fast-growing nation.

I sincerely hope that there will be a happy ending for this couple. I believe honest people like them, and many other citizens, deserve better, as they have already given so much to society.

This wasn’t what I expected at all when I arrived at the beach of Qingdao city in China’s eastern Shandong province.

SLIDESHOW: FACE-MASKED SWIMMERS

I was assigned to shoot portraits for a Reuters story on a Chinese airline company. We settled down to plan to board an aircraft with the company CEO, photographing him and other passengers on the plane. So, I booked myself a 24-hour round trip from Shanghai to Qingdao bearing in mind that during the half day in Qingdao I could shoot the green algae along the beaches which appears almost every summer.

However, my plan turned out to be a failure. The weather wasn’t hot enough so there was very little algae. I was about to head back disappointed until I glanced at these women swimming in the ocean. They were wearing full-size masks on their head which looked a lot like wrestler’s masks to me. I could imagine these women coming onto the beach very soon and starting to fight.

I laughed for a while and took some pictures. I discovered that this phenomenon didn’t look strange to the locals at all. Consulting with some other swimmers, they told me that these nylon-fabric masks were invented by a woman about seven years ago and were believed to be good at blocking the sun’s rays. It’s easy to buy one at local swimwear stores as they are now mass produced.

That was how I came across an interesting method for beach-goers to prevent their skin from getting sunburned. I believe that there could be a wider market for these masks because most of the swimmers, especially women, would love to spend as much time as possible on the beach without getting a serious tan. To me, it’s much easier and cooler to put on a mask than to put on lots of sun block cream.

As society in China modernizes, its gay community is less mysterious and increasingly part of the country’s fabric, pursuing dreams and happiness like other citizens.

Before setting out to document this story, I had a somewhat stereotypical image of gay Chinese – that they lived colorful and comfortable lives, with prominent members often active in the fashion and entertainment industries, that they wore exquisite clothes and were in top physical shape. I imagined two men sitting in a bar smoking cigars and drinking wine, possibly discussing fashion trends or gossiping about showbiz stars.

But working on this story for more than three months changed my view. The reality was less romanticized, and reflected many people’s search for love anywhere, same sex or otherwise. In China, when seeking same-sex companionship, one way is to spend 20 yuan (3 U.S. dollars) for entrance to a gay bathhouse to find others sharing the same desire. Or you can pay 7 yuan (a little more than $1) to get into a gay dance club to find someone you like.

It took some time to find the main character of my story. As you might imagine, it’s not easy to find a gay person willing to be photographed intimately, much less by an international photo agency. At first, I was taken to a dance club in Shanghai where gay people meet each other. I was surprised by the scene I found – nearly 300 men, some hugging, some dancing, in a club that completely exuded the 1980s, from the décor to the music. This club attracted mainly elderly gay men, and I was told that the oldest member was more than 90 years old. I saw very few younger people.

It was here that I met Xiao Cao, a middle-aged man dressed casually, his face much brighter than his neck (I found out later that this was because he is fond of wearing makeup). He was single, unemployed, and his main pastime was to dress as a woman and dance in a park. Dressing in drag is not necessarily a strange phenomenon in China, as men usually played women’s roles in Peking operas in times gone by.

Xiao Cao told me that he realized he was gay when he was around 15 years old, in junior high school. At first he didn’t even know what being gay meant, he just found that he liked to hang out with gay people for fun. In those days he said he also had sex with women, but soon found it to be boring.

His monthly income, only 500 yuan ($79), is entirely from government insurance. He lives in an eight-square-meter rented room behind a public toilet. His diet is extremely simple. While he has had many partners, most of them were short-term sexual liaisons. His longest-term companion has been his 2-year-old cat.

There were many aspects of this slice of society that I found were not open. For instance, most of the older gay people I encountered were married, some even had children, and had to keep their homosexual relationships secret. I was also trying to tread a fine line in order to illustrate a true story that is part of our society’s daily life, while making sure that I didn’t hurt anybody.

Many people I came across in the community thought I was one of them, and some tried to start a relationship. I found ways to avoid the advances, such as pretending to take a phone call. But I soon found that they would never have forced me to do anything. Instead, I came to understand that they genuinely cared about me.

After seeing Xiao Cao so many times through my lenses, including sometimes in very intimate circumstances, I could see that he was sharing the most authentic part of who he is. I always felt his honesty and sincerity.

Two years ago Xiao Cao was able to earn a reasonable income by dancing in public. However, the government banned such street performances at the time of the Shanghai Expo in 2010, and they continue to be forbidden. Even so, performing is still what’s most important to him. So he has moved his performances to parks, dancing for audiences for free.

He may not be able to have as good a life as he used to, but one can easily sense how happy he is when he dances to his own tune.

After finding out that I was going to do a story on “Zuo Yue Zi,” or “confinement period” in Mandarin, I realized that although I’m a Chinese man, I knew very little about this tradition. So I asked around and found out how unusual “Zuo Yue Zi” was.

I was told that in general Chinese women lie in bed for the first month after they give birth. Usually the mother-in-law or a skilled elderly woman takes care of the mothers and helps them throughout the month. During this period, the new mothers shall not take a bath, wash their hair and some are not even allowed to brush their teeth. (It is believed that when new mothers go through physical changes after giving birth, their teeth may loosen.) In the past this must have sounded very scary, however, things are different nowadays. This brings us to the modernized luxury “Zuo Yue Zi” center – CareBay.

Walking into the lobby felt like stepping into a five-star hotel. All the employees were in clean and neat clothes; always ready to provide service to clients. The center is able to hold more than 30 new mothers, each living in individual rooms. The new mothers don’t need to do anything here, and they barely even leave their rooms. There are about 120 employees at CareBay including maternity care experts, health consultants, beauticians and nutritionists who look after the new mothers as well as their babies. The cost for a one-month service is between 79,800 yuan ($12,600) and 380,000 yuan ($60,000). This expense covers food, accommodation, slimming exercises and yoga lessons for the mother and nursing services for the child. At CareBay, new mothers can take showers and do some limited exercises three weeks after giving birth. The new babies take sun baths and do swimming exercises on a daily basis, which must be pretty relaxing.

The core value at CareBay maternity center is their diet therapy. A huge team of well-trained doctors and chefs combine traditional Chinese herbal medicines with food to create several unique diet therapy sets. And of course, all these recipes are kept as business secrets.

My biggest difficulty covering this story was that the mothers hated to be photographed. According to the employees, the reasons were three-fold:

1. The women’s bodies are weakened after the delivery and they are afraid that meeting strangers might bring them diseases.

2. Most of the clients in the centre are rich and they don’t want any publicity.

3. Many of them are insecure about their postpartum appearance.

“Zhouqu” in Tibetan means the Bailong River, which runs across the once peaceful county. Surrounded by hills, this small settlement was where just over one week ago, a landslide charged through the main street. 1100 people were killed and more than 600 remain missing – who are presumed dead.

Having returned from covering this disaster, I find it difficult to resume my normal life. I think back over the last 7 days, and I cannot stop feeling how similar the towns of Zhouqu and Beichuan are. (Beichuan was almost entirely destroyed during the 2008 earthquake that left more than 86,000 people dead, and over 12,000 missing). Both these towns are similar in the following respects: landform, residents, architecture, and the arrival of thousands of rescue workers and soldiers. I can say this, because I have now been in both places covering similar disasters. The only difference is, horribly and sadly, the number of victims.

ON THE WAY
As soon as I was told about the disaster on August 8, I began to search for the nearest airport to Zhouqu, of which there are four: Lanzhou in Gansu province, Xining in Qinghai province, Chengdu in Sichuan province and Xi’an in Shaanxi province.

Because the air tickets were in high demand, I couldn’t get to the nearest airport, but was able to get a flight to Xi’an. August 7 was my birthday, so half way to the airport I finished the other half of my birthday cake. In the mad rush to get ready, I had not eaten anything. After arriving in Xi’an, it took 14 hours by car and 2 more hours walking before I reached the mudslide at around 1 p.m. on August 9. However, it seemed that I wasn’t late at all. Most people were still wandering around puzzled and confused by what had just occurred.

AT THE SITE
With machines growling, people crying, shovels and rocks colliding, the sounds of chaos came from everywhere, echoing around the valley.

Rescue troops in different colored uniforms moved in front of me, sirens blared from rescue vehicles, and thick dust blanketed everything that remained and that which was newly arrived – including myself and my cameras.

I stood at the site of the landslide, which was 3,000 meters long and 500 meters wide, consisting of mud and rocks. This massive amount of earth is what engulfed almost 2,000 people. I was shocked and could not believe what I was seeing. It took some time before I took my first picture.

I couldn’t see them, but in my heart I knew people were under the mud. I found myself not feeling as sad about the dead, but for those who had survived because I could see them in front of me – yelling, screaming and crying. I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be to move on after such an event. My eyes were wet with tears.

One of the moments I remember most was the scene of a family burning a packet of instant noodles as an offering to their relatives who had died. It made me realize that this offering, as small as it might be, was probably the only comfort this family could afford to offer their dead.