photography project

Guangzhou Photographer Reveals the Lonely Face of Foreigners in China

Posted: 10/10/2014 3:42 pm

foreign face of guangzhou expats

To some, foreigners are magical. They are beyond the rules and context of Chinese culture, making them a subject of fascination in China.

One Guangzhou native named Hai Bin has decided to document the daily comings and goings of foreigners in this set of photographs. All shots are taken in public places, and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether he got permission to take these snaps.

Hai’s voyeurism has made him sympathetic to the plight of the foreigner, drawing up an unflattering comparison to make a conclusion that isn’t without irony:

(These foreigners) have left their native home to come here to Guangzhou, just the same as the migrants who come here to work. They get just as lonely.

Here are more of Hai’s photographs:

Photos: Nandu

h/t: @MissXQ

Tagged: documentaryExpatsphotography projectSecret Camera

Xiaobeilu: Photographic project on Africans in Guangzhou

Posted: 01/18/2014 7:00 am

American photographer and filmmaker Daniel Traub, who has been doing photography projects on China since 1998, has completed a project titled Xiaobeilu on Guangzhou’s African community. Half-Chinese, Traub is fluent in Mandarin and in 2010 approached a Chinese migrant worker named Wu Yongfu about exhibiting some of the portrait photos of African migrants he had been taking and selling on a footbridge in Xiaobeilu. Wu agreed and the portfolio contains both his images and Traub’s originals.

Here is a documentary about the project, presented by Traub himself and uploaded by vice.cn last week.

Traub says on his own website that the project offers insight into several vital issues: China’s growing influence in Africa, immigration from the developing world into China and race relations between China and Africa.

Below are some of the images snapped by Wu and Traub on the footbridge.