alaungphaya
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Reminds me of Star Wars.
extreme poor Chinese with daily income less than $0.5
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Reminds me of Star Wars.
BBC News - Chinese families' worldly goods in Huang Qingjun's pictures
Chinese families' worldly goods in Huang Qingjun's pictures
By Angus FosterBBC News, Beijing
Amid China's tumultuous dash to become rich, one man's photographs of families posing with their worldly goods will soon seem like records from a distant era.
Huang Qingjun has spent nearly a decade travelling to remote parts of China to persuade people who have sometimes never been photographed to carry outside all their household possessions and pose for him.
The results offer glimpses of the utilitarian lives of millions of ordinary Chinese who, at first glance, appear not to have been swept up by the same modernisation that has seen hundreds of millions of others leave for the cities.
But seen more closely, they also show the enormous social change that has come in a generation. So the photo of an elderly couple of farmers outside their mud house reveals a satellite dish, DVD player and phone.
"People's lives have changed enormously. Maybe their incomes haven't been affected as much as in the cities, but their thinking has," says Huang, 42, who was born in the oil-frontier town of Daqing and now lives in Beijing.
“Start Quote
Most people thought what I was proposing was not normal”
Huang Qingjun
Huang took his first pictures as a teenager, inspired by an uncle in an era when the obvious hobbies for the young were calligraphy and singing. His first proper camera, bought when he was 18, was the most valuable item in the family home.
The idea for the series about people's material goods, now called Jiadang (Family Stuff), came in 2003 with some photos he took for the magazine Chinese National Geography. But the project didn't really get under way until three years later, when Huang started travelling around China looking for suitable places and people.
"Most people thought what I was proposing was not normal. When I explained I wanted to set up a photo, that it would involve taking everything out of their house and setting it up outside, that took quite a lot of explaining," he says.
"But almost all of them, when they realised what I was trying to do, they understood the point."
One advantage of travelling to remote, poor areas was that people didn't have many possessions.
"They're not like people from the city, who have so much stuff that if you asked them to do it they'd reply it was too much effort," he says.
Some of the projects took a couple of days, others several months as he waited for one couple to move house. Their home, like millions of others, had been slated for demolition to make way for tower blocks or offices. As they sit on their bed, the wall behind them is marked with the Chinese character chai, meaning "tear down."
But it was a happy day, because the couple had received the compensation they had asked for.
Huang's project has taken him to 14 of China's 33 provinces, giving him an unusually broad perspective of how the country is changing. He is optimistic about the process, and where it will lead.
Four Big Things
"In lots of Chinese villages, the government has delivered roads and connected them with electricity. This has been a huge change. If you've a road, you can move about. If you've got electricity you can have TV, you get the news and ideas about what the outside world is thinking.
- Phrase dating from 1950s for most sought-after goods for newly married couples: sewing machine, bicycle, watch, radio
- It's since come to refer to whatever is most fashionable at the time
- By 1980s the four big things were: TV, washing machine, rice cooker, fridge
- Now consumer goods flood China's cities, it tends to be used to describe people's aspirations for the latest thing
"The biggest problems in rural areas now are how people can get better education for their children, and healthcare," he says.
Many photos appear to capture something that is about to be lost. Families camp as if about to move on. They are framed by houses that have just been expensively renovated or are about to be pulled down. The preponderance of cooking utensils, the paucity of clothes and items of leisure suggest a lifestyle that is about to be upended.
Most families have already acquired a TV, a few have washing machines. The pedal-driven sewing machine which in their parents' generation was every housewife's dream - known as one of the "four big things" - is pushed to the back of a few pictures.
A newly renovated house and a washing machine show the real change in a small Guizhou village.
1/7
It can't be long before the consumer goods, brand names and luxury goods that have been voraciously snapped up by China's urban middle class begin to sneak in to the pictures. A BMW car and flat-screen TV can already be seen in his portrait of film director Zhang Yuan, outside his home in Beijing.
Chinese spending habits
The Family Stuff pictures have not been widely seen outside China, though some have been shown at exhibitions in Paris and New York.
- Government has tried in recent years to boost consumer spending with discount vouchers on appliances, furniture and cars
- Many aspire to material goods, but a 2010 survey found they were more concerned with saving for education, healthcare and retirement
Next year marks the 10th anniversary of the first photograph, and Huang plans to mark it by returning to the places he visited - or those that are still recognisable - to see what has changed.
"In the last 10 years, China has seen such a fast rate of growth, I want to go back and see what the effects have been on their lives," he says.
He also hopes to broaden the project's range, including people from a wider range of backgrounds, like entrepreneurs and government officials. He's even thinking about asking Jack Ma, an internet entrepreneur and one of China's richest men.
"Those pictures probably couldn't manage to contain all of their possessions. But it could include the things they use every day.
"From the possessions each family uses in their daily lives, you get a good sense of the real levels of life for China's people."
just wondering how those Herdsman get electricity access.
The grassfield is so big and ppl are so sparsely located......
why?
alaungphaya
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GR!FF!N
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thats why I'm laughing..in $.5 dollar,even in India,you can't buy food for yourself,forget about others. Home,TV and other accessories are dream for them.and may I remind you,in Asia,cost of living in India is most cheap.hell,even beggars in India earn more than that.
you know,in India,sometimes,BPL card holders are millionaires.thats why I posted about corruption.if you're kind enough to point of cost of living in China,I'd show you why you can't buy a tv if you earn $.5 dollars only.
powastick
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Its plausible, because of subsistence agriculture. Second Hand obsolete CRT TV might only cost 10-20 bucks. I have seen those poor folks. They don't need money for food. Their meager earning for other stuff like clothing and soap. In Papua New Guinea, people there were asking for beer instead of money for a job. 'We'll work for beer' they said. That is all they need money for.
ChineseTiger1986
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This only shows that the poors in India are much poorer than the poors in China.
I think esolve wanted to compare the poor in China with the middle income from india.
HeadHunter
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Seriously what a shame india still wants to brag about their space program and want to compete with Pakistan on a military/nuclear technology but at home hundreds die from starvation and poverty on daily basis.
j20
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内蒙古牧民的电力来源主要是太阳能电池还有小型风力发电机
事实上他们比山区农民还有一些普通市民的收入要高的多
有个笑话：A君是内蒙古人，他来到S市上学，他对同学说：“我家里很穷，为了给我学费家里卖了一头牛。”他的同学们很同情他，纷纷给他捐款。又到了另一个学期他又说：“我家里很穷，为了给我学费家里卖了一头牛。”他的同学就郁闷问他：“你家里有几头牛？”他说：“五百头。”
The power source of herdsmen in Inner Mongolia is mainly solar cell and small wind generator
In fact they than the mountain farmers and some ordinary people's income is much higher
There is a joke: Mr. A was in Inner Mongolia, he came to S school, he said to students: "my family was very poor, in order to give me the tuition home to sell a cow." His classmates are very sympathetic to him, have to give him money. To another term he said: "my family was very poor, in order to give me the tuitionhome to sell a cow." His classmate depressed asked him: "there are a few cowsin your family?" He said: "there are five hundred head of cattle."
meis
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Their children in the cities are making decent money, and they'll sent some money to their old folks in rural or villages to support the oldfags. No one will be starved to death. Well, at least the oldfags aren't eating garbage, unlike the pinoys. They've farm and poultry. They probably eat fresh breads or buns from the market.
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terranMarine
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hard to believe right?
maybe because Chinese like to save income for some big spend or emergency.
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