Images of China

[TootTaLu]

Yes - I don't think that showing poverty conditions was the intent.

 

I think that set of photos was carefully assembled to portray a very dark and drab poverty stricken China.

The photos are genuine,but the way they were put together was to advertise poor people.

I have made many photos of China that are similar.

 

Just because you see a photo of a young child carrying a sack of empty plastic bottles,or another child sitting on a pile of plastic bags reading a book,that does not mean the child is poverty stricken.

 

A group of young men covered in coal dust with baskets of coal on their backs is a genuine photo of poor living conditions.

 

The photos on the link are very good China photos,but I dont think they were all made by the same person,but some special interest group assembled them to try and get some message across.

[izus]

how quickly i forget about that part of china, thanks

 

Mike you mentioned that you can find the same thing here in the states, i would have to say the percentage is alot greater in china.

 

now i dont know about the favelha in brasil.

[SheLikesME?]

Not that it is much related to today but: I remember this kid in my 6th grade class that never took a bath or cleaned up. He was caked and hair stuck strait out stiff. He was gone for awhile and came back with about half of it gone. You could see skin in blotches. He went to his brother's funeral we all figured. His older brother shot himself in a Russian Roulette bet. So it went in near North Dallas back then. For those that know, it is now a rather nice area around the Hard Rock Café. The school is Travis just down McKinney. Pretty rough place in it's day. Hispanic on one side and black on the other of McKinney. Gunshots almost every weekend.

 

Blue Ridge Mountains, some of Mississippi that I have seen has similar poverty, but that was in the 50s to 80s. It is sure better now, even if a bit rough. Your probably right Izus.

[rogerluli]

I remember driving through Arkansas in 1970. I had never seen poverty like that in the midwest where I grew up...

[david_dawei]

Every year, for vacation, my parents took us down to a forgetting part of Virginia.. since her best friend was raised there and it was dirt cheap to go there, nothing to do (nothing to spend money on), but just relax on the waterfront and catch these "frog fish" which were ugly as hell and you had to drive a knife through their back to get them to relax their razor sharp teeth on the hook.

 

All my childhood memories of this was as that it was like a land forgotten, desolate, backwards illiterate children; boys running around all day barefooted and fishing and girls hiding under a tree playing with dolls, who thought if they kissed a boy they got pregnant... cars rotting in everyone's yard.. like an aftermath to a war... the emptiest place I could envision in the world... and we used to go and live it every summer.

 

I had a chance to go back there some years ago to see it again.. it was with great anticipate that I had hoped to see this in a different light, more advanced since 20 years ago... It was worse than 20 years ago. It is definitely the land time forgot...

[tywy_99]

Every year, for vacation, my parents took us down to a forgetting part of Virginia.. since her best friend was raised there and it was dirt cheap to go there, nothing to do (nothing to spend money on), but just relax on the waterfront and catch these "frog fish" which were ugly as hell and you had to drive a knife through their back to get them to relax their razor sharp teeth on the hook.

 

All my childhood memories of this was as that it was like a land forgotten, desolate, backwards illiterate children; boys running around all day barefooted and fishing and girls hiding under a tree playing with dolls, who thought if they kissed a boy they got pregnant... cars rotting in everyone's yard.. like an aftermath to a war... the emptiest place I could envision in the world... and we used to go and live it every summer.

 

I had a chance to go back there some years ago to see it again.. it was with great anticipate that I had hoped to see this in a different light, more advanced since 20 years ago... It was worse than 20 years ago. It is definitely the land time forgot...

So, you hung out in the housing projects of Norfolk, like Ida barber and JW.

[david_dawei]

Every year, for vacation, my parents took us down to a forgetting part of Virginia.. since her best friend was raised there and it was dirt cheap to go there, nothing to do (nothing to spend money on), but just relax on the waterfront and catch these "frog fish" which were ugly as hell and you had to drive a knife through their back to get them to relax their razor sharp teeth on the hook.

 

All my childhood memories of this was as that it was like a land forgotten, desolate, backwards illiterate children; boys running around all day barefooted and fishing and girls hiding under a tree playing with dolls, who thought if they kissed a boy they got pregnant... cars rotting in everyone's yard.. like an aftermath to a war... the emptiest place I could envision in the world... and we used to go and live it every summer.

 

I had a chance to go back there some years ago to see it again.. it was with great anticipate that I had hoped to see this in a different light, more advanced since 20 years ago... It was worse than 20 years ago. It is definitely the land time forgot...

So, you hung out in the housing projects of Norfolk, like Ida barber and JW.

Tidwells.. .this is truly the land that time forgot...

[david_dawei]

ChinaDaily's 'the common people'...

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2007-02...tent_808625.htm

[SheLikesME?]

Been all over VA. MS had this town that had naked children playing around it all day everyday during the summers when school was out and I visited my cousins. Many yrs later we were all married. I took my 1st wife there and we went by the same house. Color TV inside, a Buick Electra wore out on blocks and a new Caddy in the driveway. But a new set of kids running around the house naked, boys and girls. UNBELIEVABLE what food stamps and welfare did for them.

 

Hey they all had money. Thay always had jobs. But always paid in cash, nothing reported. So since the gov fed them they could get Buicks and Caddy's with the cash they made to keep the union working. Hey it was great!

[izus]

this came from business week magazine

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/05/42/0542_20asibus.jpg

[Dennis143]

this came from business week magazine

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/05/42/0542_20asibus.jpg

Based on this per capita map and an exchange rate of 8RMB to the dollar the incomes average out at:

 

Urban = 24RMB per day

 

Rural = 9RMB per day

[SheLikesME?]

this came from business week magazine

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/05/42/0542_20asibus.jpg

Based on this per capita map and an exchange rate of 8RMB to the dollar the incomes average out at:

 

Urban = 24RMB per day

 

Rural = 9RMB per day

I guess my wife was really kicking down the bucks in Beijing. No wonder she is so upset now.

[rogerluli]

this came from business week magazine

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/05/42/0542_20asibus.jpg

Based on this per capita map and an exchange rate of 8RMB to the dollar the incomes average out at:

 

Urban = 24RMB per day

 

Rural = 9RMB per day

I guess my wife was really kicking down the bucks in Beijing. No wonder she is so upset now.

 

These urban numbers are all very low...When my wife left her job in 2005 in GZ she was making $1000/mo. and her friends still working there now are making more...The income spread in China is huge... Wait it is here too...

[Stone]

this came from business week magazine

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/05/42/0542_20asibus.jpg

Based on this per capita map and an exchange rate of 8RMB to the dollar the incomes average out at:

 

Urban = 24RMB per day

 

Rural = 9RMB per day

 

1. Those numbers dated back to 2003. I wouldn't be surprised if the per capita income there has doubled in 4 four years.

2. Per capita income is lower than the median earning wages, as per capita income includes the children, retired senior citizens, the unemployed people, etc.

3. Taxation is different in two countries: very low income taxes, no property taxes, no sales taxes, etc in China.

4. Purchasing power: At $10K/year, you could live in poverty here. But in China, you could live very well with that kind of income, at the current exchange rate and taxation system.

 

I do not want to refute that idea that there is poverty in China. But 'poverty' has different meanings in two different countries. I remembered once a former Chinese colleague told me that when they went to dine in a restaurant, they had to bring a RMB bill counting machine with them, as there were too many 100 RMB bill to count to pay the restaurant for the meal. I was astonished by the huge waste, and of course income disparity.

[griz326]

I've seen a good number of those sights in China.

 

Because I was a journalist for the first part of my adult life, I saw similar sights - and worse - in the US.

 

IMO, living conditions in China's cities have deteriorated for many with modernization (and dramatically improved for some). Living conditions in rural areas appears similar to what I first saw in China.