Caixin Photo Galleries offer a selection of the day's most important news photos and cultural images.
- Foreigners in Beijing in the Spotlight
- The government recently announced a crackdown on foreigners illegally living in Beijing. The Ministry of Public Security said the campaign, part of which involves police stopping foreigners on the street to check their documents, will last until the end of August. The following are images of Beijing's many visitors and expats
- Turning to Aesthetic Traditions
- While the tides of contemporary fashion can change in a matter of clicks on the websites of online retailers in China, traditional dress is reappearing in various parts of modern society. Is it an expression of stylistic adventurousness or an exertion of conservative attitudes? The popularity of several period television series using period clothing has helped the trend.
- Quake Funds Used for Luxury Hospital Wing
- Only a few years after a catastrophic earthquake ripped across Sichuan Province, millions of yuan in funds for reconstruction have surfaced – in the form of a luxury hospital wing. The new wing of the Ziyang City Jianyang People's Hospital opened on May 9 and is being promoted as luxurious as a five-star hotel. Built for 240 million yuan, the building has a floor area of 60,000 square meters and can service up to 1,300 beds. Local officials say only several million yuan in quake reconstruction funds from the 2008 Wenchuan disaster went to the project. However, the use of government aid money for a luxury wing led many Net users to decry it wing as a nonessential public expense
- Rollercoaster Mishap in Shijiazhuang
- A machinery failure caused a popular rollercoaster in Shijiazhuang, capital of the northern province of Hebei, to break down on April 24. Visitors to the Shijiazhuang Botanical Garden were evacuated following a problem with a passenger car’s axle. No riders were injured, park management said
- Photography Feature –Submersion
- Was it the fulfillment of a promise or a displacement of hopes? Standing apart from politically contestable assumptions on the final verdict of the Three Gorges Dam, photographer Liu Ke delves into the subject of mass migration in modern China through irreducibly tranquil settings. The Chengdu-based photographer said the title of his 2007-2009 series, "Still Lake," was inspired by Mao Zedong's poetry. In "Swimming," Mao wrote, "A tall gorge juts out of the still lake/ A goddess deems it a sanctuary / The world is suddenly amazed." Liu said the impoundment of the Yangtze River created lake-type settings. The forced migration and spectacular demolition of homes in the Three Gorges Dam area was all drowned into a quiet lake. Completed in 2006, the construction of the Three Gorges Dam required the relocation of over 1 million people. Liu says he wants his photographs to achieve the same sense of solemnity that the sight of a calm lake is capable of inducing. "We paid such a high price," said Liu, "The cost wasn't only directed at the local environment, regional ecology or climate. It was the human heart." Liu is careful to add he is specifically intent on bringing out the relationship of individual human experience from muted landscapes and human beings as spectators. Lakes, mountains, and cloudless skies serve as a passive foil in the small suggestion of a violent upheaval. The silence becomes the object of observation, the photographs, a site of confrontation. "I work from the experiences and feelings of the heart in the present moment," said Liu. Positioned as yet another giantist project and milestone in engineering as the world's largest hydroelectric power project, the Three Gorges Dam is emblematic of sweeping transformations throughout the country. The dam represents technological advancement, economic development and the potency of state power. Yet in the massive resettlement which began in 1993, villagers forced to leave found work as migrant laborers, or moved to cities. Others became homeless. "What we must understand is this: today's anxieties are rooted in modern developments in society. And the society in which we live distrusts the spiritual, but is instead entirely driven by consumerist desires." By Diana Bates, Photos courtesy of Three Shadows Photography Art
- Gansu Official Ruined Ming Ruins, Say Villagers
- Ming Dynasty-era tombs outside Lanzhou, Gansu Province, have local villagers up in arms over what they say was the exploitation of national treasures for personal gain by a local official. Identified by archeologists as a well-preserved example of a royal Ming Dynasty (1368- 1644) tomb, the site is the resting place for an emperor. Local villagers say the village party secretary illegally built walls cordoning the grounds off and drew up plans to build a private tourism facility on the site. Locals also accuse the party secretary of attempting to extract antiquities from the site, pointing to several deep holes which were dug on the party secretary's orders. The Lanzhou City Cultural Relics Bureau and the local city government have since ordered a halt to work on the site
- Zooming in on the Beijing Auto Show
- The 2012 Beijing Auto Show opened to much anticipation of clean energy car debuts. As the world's largest car market, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said a total of 13.8 million passenger cars were sold in China in 2010. Though car sales in 2011 experienced a slow growth rate, 18 million cars were sold First held in 1990, this year's exhibition features 1,125 vehicles by over 100 manufacturers from 14 countries.
- Gel Capsules Dumped in Roadside Ditch
- Hundreds of thousands of capsules were dumped into a ditch in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, on April 22. Officials say the capsules could be linked to the recent scandal in which factories were found to have produced gelatin capsules from industrial waste. CCTV reported April 15 that nine pharmaceutical companies used industrial gelatin made from leather-factory waste to produce 13 types of capsules. According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, 10 factories were shut down and over 77 million capsules have been seized. Authorities say 53 individuals were detained in connection to the production of the capsules
- China's Quality-Control Problem
- In the latest example of China's long-running problem with food safety and the quality of other products, police recently arrested dozens of people for using an industrial gelatin to make medicine capsules. Police confiscated more than 230 tons of the industrial gelatin in Hebei, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Shandong provinces since the scandal was exposed, Xinhua reports. Unlike gelatin intended for human consumption, the industrial version has chromium 90 times over national standards for the toxic heavy metal. Here is a glimpse at the capsule scandal and other recent problems
- Pyongyang's Rocket Launch Fails
- North Korea launched its Unha-3, a rocket it said was carrying a weather satellite, from its northwest coast about 7:40 am on April 13. Hours later, the North's government admitted the satellite failed to enter orbit. The South Korean defense ministry said the satellite broke into pieces minutes after taking off and fell into the sea. The United States and other countries say the launch was in fact a ballistic missile test. Pyongyang announced the launch a month ago and timed it in part to commemorate the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country's founder
- Village Cooperative Distributes Gold Bars
- A Yangtze River village head distributed 100-gram bars of gold and silver to over 2,800 villagers as part of dividends for the village's cooperative enterprise. On March 17, Jiangyin Village distributed gold instead of cash dividends also as part of the village cooperative's 40th anniversary celebrations. Much like the renowned Huaxi Village, Jiangyin Villagers claim to use a similar socialist model
- Flowering Season Begins in Wuhan
- Striking golden cups were the main attraction at the Wuhan Botanical Garden's tulip section over the Qingming Festival. On April 3, visitors enjoyed the bright yellow blooms located on the garden's roughly 170 acres of grounds
- Photography Feature - Infatuation
- Is fervent devotion ever good for us? Sun Yanchu is willing to admit that even in photography, obsession can be alienating. For him, the need to document human experiences with a camera is described as pure compulsion. But it isn't addictions that draw his attention so much as the realizations that come with the understanding of addiction, mania and passion. The Henan Province-based photographer said of his series “Obsessed” that he found a spiritual quality in the cravings of his subjects. Ancient art, drawings, the works of Jorge Luis Borges and Ranier Werner Fassbinder, old album photo frames and iron boxes -- these are the sum of Sun's current obsessions. While working on the series, Sun said he was influenced by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas and the privileging of subjective perception in romantic poetry. “Life is a spiritual test. Seeking out tragedy is not a deliberate aim of mine while taking photos. But they alternately bring pleasure and sometimes extreme sorrow."-- Text by Diana Bates
- Day for the Dead
- Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day, is on April 4 this year. The traditional Chinese festival is a time for families to remember their deceased relatives and people often go sweep and clear off family gravesites. Burning copies of desirable items is also a tradition, and manufacturers come up with creative sacrifices, such as paper versions of iPads, well-known beverages and expensive cars
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Registration Number: 1101050533
