Hello,
I few months back I was speaking at Columbia University and a professor sitting in on my talk asked me, "What are the labor conditions like in China at the moment?"
It was a tough question. There are, two sides to the story - and Howard W. French, who was moderating, assisted in answering this question based on his wealth of experience in Central America, Asia and Africa. Some ideas that we both generated during that talk are below.
Working conditions in China have caught a lot of headlines the last few weeks because of a spurt of suicides at Foxconn and a workers strike which has shut down Honda for several days. So, what are China's factories really like? I'll split my answer in to two overly simplified categories, the good and bad.
A) The Good
Manufacturing work, although tough, does allow people from the countryside to move off the land and find work opportunities in cities, suburbs and industrial centers that they wouldn't otherwise have the chance to visit. It allows many to earn a living and explore and have "an adventure" in some cases. This might sound naive to some of the most skeptic readers out there; but I've been to textile factories where a lot of the male workers play basketball after work and workers travel off the factory in the evening to meet friends at other factories and go out for dinner. I have met factory workers who make a decent wage and don't complain too much about working hours and who know that the work is hard but they won't be doing this forever - as they just want to save a bit and return back to the countryside and buy a home. These are some of the more positive stories I've heard in the last few years of visiting factories across China.
B) The Negative
While the "sweat-shop" idea is truly a rarity in China, there are many other factors of obtaining employment and maintaining employment that place significant psychological stress on workers. After years of visiting factories in some of China's most industrious locations I have come across some trends and common situations. Some of these situations are looked at below:
1) The Big Move
All migrant workers have to move. By the very nature of their employment, all migrant workers have to leave their homes, break ties with family and friends and move to a distant location; often without promise of employment. Many have to borrow money in order to leave in the first place; this is the first instance of incurring debt - which may happen often.
2) Agents
Once they arrive in manufacturing areas like Dongguan or Shenzhen they end up in "flop houses" which are full of migrants looking for work, they are not nice places. Some times weeks are spent in places like this while looking for employment at "job fairs" or through "private agents". Job fairs are difficult and exploitative in nature,and ofter jobs at very low salaries because they know that often jobs are in demand. The "private agents" on the other hand often charge potential migrant workers 3-6 months of their future salary to obtain jobs at highly sought after manufacturing companies. Assuming a migrant uses an agent, they may be borrowing money to cover living experience before employment and then have to pay back their "fee's" for up to six months after their first day of work. This is another cause of indebtedness.
3) Work Conditions
The work conditions are grueling, there is no doubt about it. But, with that being said they are humane; and in many cases conditions have improved ten-fold over what working conditions were like in the 1990s. While workers have to work for long hours performing the same tasks again and again, it is understandable that the pressure on the worker can mount and that they become isolated and feeling as though their work is meaningless and that their life is worthless - but this is the minority I feel. Workers safety is still an issue at many factories and many workers do get hurt and killed on the job. This continues to happen and is also a serious issue but I don't believe it is the cause of worker unrest, suicide and strikes.
4) Living Conditions
The living conditions for many migrant workers are not great, and much of the reasons for this are out of their control. For example, migrant workers are often forced to rent accommodation from the factory they work for at inflated rates, many workers are forced to eat at factory cafeteria at inflated rates and purchase snacks and food from company shops at inflated rates; thereby eroding spending power and savings. Yet another form of indebtedness. Social lives vary greatly, many find friends and engage in happy social lives, others fall through the cracks and live in isolation, often feeling estranged; it is these people who can often end up taking their own lives or getting themselves hurt on the job.
5) The Trap
A lot of you out there must just be thinking, why not just quit the job and move back home. It is just not that easy. Many migrant workers feel trapped in their employment for many reasons, the first is often family pressure. Many migrants borrow money and leave home with promises to deliver wealth to the family - but that is more often fantasy than fact. Also remember that for a migrant worker to obtain employment often they are already in debt to various people before their first day of work; and to complicate matters, often workers have their salaries held for at least three months by factories, so they are continuously owed three months salary. This is seen as an insurance policy for the company, forcing workers to return to work after the "Chinese New Year Holiday" where many workers return home and never come back to the factory. All of these pressures build up, and it's easy to see how a young 17, 18, 19 year old migrant, who is not very well educated, could become overwhelmed by negative feelings and hopelessness.
6) The Solution
To be honest, there is no solution. The problem is not always the job, but the system around finding and maintaining employment. There are too many middle-men and too many people out their making huge profits off of China's migrant classes. Basketball courts, swimming pools, better housing, better food, increase in salaries may not help the situation much. It is the infrastructure around finding employment and holding employment are improved.
Expect more suicides and more workers strikes. Sad but true. But that's just my two cents.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Friday, June 25, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: Honda Workers Strike, and the NYT
Hello.
A few days back there was a workers strike at a Honda car manufacturing plant in southern China. This occurred in late May. Of course thousands of news stories rushed to cover the news, and there was much mis-represented of what was really happening on the ground.
Enter Keith Bradsher and David Barboza. If you don't know who they are, all you need to know is that they are two of the best. Keith and David, both whom I've worked with and have a lot of respect for, are Business correspondents for the New York Times. And they co-wrote an article towards the end of May that I believe cut through and delivered the hard facts about what was happening at the Honda plant in southern China; a story that delivered news and facts that went well beyond that of the other publications.
A few points to keep in mind:
1) Yes, there is a workers union in China. It is considered to be an arm of the Communist Party and is mainly in charge of watching over workers not bargaining with companies for better working conditions. There are no explicit rules about striking.
2) It's true. Nothing in China is allowed to happen without the blessing of The Party. This strike may have first occurred on whim, but it continued because people high up in the food chain thought it was a decent move. Reasons why might include: that it is time for China's manufacturing migrants to earn more income and become part of the consumer economy; that it is time for China's manufacturing class to obtain better working conditions and better workers rights; that China needs to maintain awareness that the gap is growing between the rich and poor; the recent suicides at Foxconn might end up driving home the point that migrant workers in the manufacturing industry are vulnerable and need further employment protection through government regulation; and lastly that Honda is a Japanese company. Had this strike occurred at a GM or VW Joint Venture you can bet it would have been shut down in a matter of moments. There is a still a lot of personal, and government driven, anti-Japanese feelings throughout China.
3) The most interesting point is that this was allowed to carry on for several days. Meaning that there was debate amongst the top leaders about how to address the situation. We are seeing this more often in China; where the leadership is forced to make quick decisions about situations occurring (riots in Tibet / Xinjiang, or workers strikes) and the government goes very quiet, and local officials go in to hiding until they get their directions from higher up the food chain. One of the common mis-conceptions is that the Communist Party is a homogeneous one party entity where people all agree on the same basic plan for country development; well, that couldn't be further from the truth. The "Party" is a mix-mash of people with a mix-mash of ideas and ideals. A friend of mine who has a lot of government dealings told me that for every person in the government leadership who wants China to develop in to a modern economic global powerhouse, there is another person who wants to drive China back in to the Communist dark ages of the 1960s. While I don't know if that's exactly true, it does pose an interesting argument and can be used as a basis for understanding some of the "ying and yang" policy moves that the Chinese leadership continues to pull out of their hat.
The story by Keith and David is below. The link to the original story online is just below. Enjoy the read.
LINK to Original STORY.
________________________________________
May 28, 2010
Strike in China Highlights Gap in Workers’ Pay
By KEITH BRADSHER and DAVID BARBOZA
FOSHAN, China — After years of being pushed to work 12-hour days, six days a week on monotonous low-wage assembly line tasks, China’s workers are starting to push back.
A strike at an enormous Honda transmission factory here in southeastern China has suddenly and unexpectedly turned into a symbol of this nation’s struggle with income inequality, rising inflation and soaring property prices that have put home ownership beyond the reach of all but the most affluent.
And perhaps most remarkably, Chinese authorities let the strike happen — up to a point.
In the kind of scene that more often plays out at strikes in America than at labor actions in China, print and television reporters from state-controlled media across the country have started covering the walkout here, even waiting outside the nearly deserted front gate on Thursday and Friday in hope of any news. All the Chinese reporters disappeared on Saturday morning, however, as the government, apparently nervous, suddenly imposed without explanation a blanket ban on domestic media coverage of the strike.
A worker at a factory dormitory said on Saturday afternoon that the strike continued, and police were nowhere in sight at the factory or the dormitory. The authorities have been leery of letting the media report on labor disputes, fearing that it could encourage workers elsewhere to rebel. The new permissiveness, however temporary, coincides with growing sentiment among some officials and economists that Chinese workers deserve higher wages for their role in the country’s global export machine.
And without higher incomes, hundreds of millions of Chinese will be unable to play their part in the domestic consumer spending boom on which this nation hopes to base its next round of economic growth.
“This is all because there is a major political debate going on about how to deal with the nation’s growing income gap, and the need to do something about wages,” said Andreas Lauffs, a lawyer at Baker & McKenzie who specializes in Chinese labor issues.
If wages do rise, that could bring higher prices for Western consumers for goods as diverse as toys at Wal-Mart and iPads from Apple.
The Chinese media may also have found it a little easier, politically, to cover this strike because Honda is a Japanese company, and anti-Japanese sentiment still simmers in China as a legacy of World War II. Certainly, the strike is hitting Honda hard, as the resulting shortage of transmissions and other engine parts has forced the company to halt production at all four of its assembly plants in China.
Honda has an annual capacity of 650,000 cars and minivans in China, like Jazz subcompacts for export to Europe and Accord sedans for the Chinese market. Because Honda’s prices in China are similar to what it charges in the United States, the cars tend to be far out of reach financially for most of the workers who make them.
A Honda spokeswoman declined to discuss specific issues in the strike negotiations.
The intense media coverage may evoke historical memories of the 1980 shipyard strike in Gdansk, Poland, that gave rise to the Solidarity movement and paved the way for the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. But the reality here is much different.
Instead of tens of thousands of grizzled and angry shipyard workers, the Honda strike involves about 1,900 mostly cheerful young people. And the employees interviewed say their goal is more money, not a larger political agenda.
“If they give us 800 renminbi a month, we’ll go back to work right away,” said one young man, describing a pay increase that would add about $117 a month to an average pay that is now around $150 monthly. He said he had read on the Internet of considerably higher wages at other factories in China and expected Honda to match them with an immediate pay increase.
Many workers at other factories in southeastern China already earn $300 a month, but they do so only through considerable overtime. And even that higher income is not enough to embark on the middle-class dream in China of owning a small apartment and subcompact car. Officially, though, the government is discouraging heavy reliance on overtime, and workers here said that Honda was not assigning much.
The strikers said that Honda mainly hired recent graduates of high schools or vocational schools. And so, most are in their late teens or early 20s, representing a new generation of employees, many of whom had not been born when the Chinese authorities suppressed protests by students and workers in Tiananmen Square in 1989 — a watershed event whose 21st anniversary falls next Friday.
The profile of striking workers seems to run more along the lines of slightly bookish would-be engineers — perhaps without the grades or money to attend college — rather than political activists. Besides their low wages, the workers seem focused on issues like the factory’s air-conditioning not being cool enough, and the unfairness of having to rise from their dormitories as early as 5:30 for a 7 a.m. shift.
Workers said that in addition to their pay, they also received free lodging in rooms that slept four to six in bunk beds. They also get free lunches, subsidized breakfasts for the equivalent of 30 cents and dinners for about $1.50.
The striking employees said that some senior workers, known as team leaders, had allied themselves with management. But they insisted that the rank-and-file workers were solidly in favor of walkout — a claim impossible to verify.
Although China is run by the Communist Party and has state-controlled unions, the unions are largely charged with overseeing workers, not bargaining for higher wages or pressing for improved labor conditions. And they are not allowed to strike, although China’s laws do not have explicit prohibitions against doing so.
Workers at the Honda factory dormitory said that the official union at the factory was not representing them but was serving as an intermediary between them and management. Li Jianming, the national spokesman for the All China Federation of Trade Unions, declined to comment.
The workers here have been on strike since May 21, with no resolution in sight. But the strike did not come to broader notice until Thursday and Friday as Japanese media began reporting the shutdown of Honda assembly plants, and as Chinese media and Internet sites were allowed to report extensively on those activities.
The unusually permissive approach of the authorities toward media coverage of the strike follows a decision to tolerate extensive coverage this month of suicides by workers at the Taiwanese-owned Foxconn factory complex in nearby Shenzhen that supplies Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
The official China Daily newspaper ran a lead editorial on Friday that cited the Honda strike as evidence that government inaction on wages might be fueling tensions between workers and employers. The editorial criticized the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security for not moving faster to draft a promised amendment to current wage regulations because of what the newspaper described as opposition from employers.
Zheng Qiao, the associate director of the department of employment relations at the China Institute of Industrial Relations in Beijing, said the strike was a significant development in China’s labor relations history and that “such a large-scale, organized strike will force China’s labor union system to change, to adapt to the market economy.”
Keith Bradsher reported from Foshan, China, and David Barboza from Shanghai. Bao Beibei contributed research.
________________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
A few days back there was a workers strike at a Honda car manufacturing plant in southern China. This occurred in late May. Of course thousands of news stories rushed to cover the news, and there was much mis-represented of what was really happening on the ground.
Enter Keith Bradsher and David Barboza. If you don't know who they are, all you need to know is that they are two of the best. Keith and David, both whom I've worked with and have a lot of respect for, are Business correspondents for the New York Times. And they co-wrote an article towards the end of May that I believe cut through and delivered the hard facts about what was happening at the Honda plant in southern China; a story that delivered news and facts that went well beyond that of the other publications.
A few points to keep in mind:
1) Yes, there is a workers union in China. It is considered to be an arm of the Communist Party and is mainly in charge of watching over workers not bargaining with companies for better working conditions. There are no explicit rules about striking.
2) It's true. Nothing in China is allowed to happen without the blessing of The Party. This strike may have first occurred on whim, but it continued because people high up in the food chain thought it was a decent move. Reasons why might include: that it is time for China's manufacturing migrants to earn more income and become part of the consumer economy; that it is time for China's manufacturing class to obtain better working conditions and better workers rights; that China needs to maintain awareness that the gap is growing between the rich and poor; the recent suicides at Foxconn might end up driving home the point that migrant workers in the manufacturing industry are vulnerable and need further employment protection through government regulation; and lastly that Honda is a Japanese company. Had this strike occurred at a GM or VW Joint Venture you can bet it would have been shut down in a matter of moments. There is a still a lot of personal, and government driven, anti-Japanese feelings throughout China.
3) The most interesting point is that this was allowed to carry on for several days. Meaning that there was debate amongst the top leaders about how to address the situation. We are seeing this more often in China; where the leadership is forced to make quick decisions about situations occurring (riots in Tibet / Xinjiang, or workers strikes) and the government goes very quiet, and local officials go in to hiding until they get their directions from higher up the food chain. One of the common mis-conceptions is that the Communist Party is a homogeneous one party entity where people all agree on the same basic plan for country development; well, that couldn't be further from the truth. The "Party" is a mix-mash of people with a mix-mash of ideas and ideals. A friend of mine who has a lot of government dealings told me that for every person in the government leadership who wants China to develop in to a modern economic global powerhouse, there is another person who wants to drive China back in to the Communist dark ages of the 1960s. While I don't know if that's exactly true, it does pose an interesting argument and can be used as a basis for understanding some of the "ying and yang" policy moves that the Chinese leadership continues to pull out of their hat.
The story by Keith and David is below. The link to the original story online is just below. Enjoy the read.
LINK to Original STORY.
________________________________________
May 28, 2010
Strike in China Highlights Gap in Workers’ Pay
By KEITH BRADSHER and DAVID BARBOZA
FOSHAN, China — After years of being pushed to work 12-hour days, six days a week on monotonous low-wage assembly line tasks, China’s workers are starting to push back.
A strike at an enormous Honda transmission factory here in southeastern China has suddenly and unexpectedly turned into a symbol of this nation’s struggle with income inequality, rising inflation and soaring property prices that have put home ownership beyond the reach of all but the most affluent.
And perhaps most remarkably, Chinese authorities let the strike happen — up to a point.
In the kind of scene that more often plays out at strikes in America than at labor actions in China, print and television reporters from state-controlled media across the country have started covering the walkout here, even waiting outside the nearly deserted front gate on Thursday and Friday in hope of any news. All the Chinese reporters disappeared on Saturday morning, however, as the government, apparently nervous, suddenly imposed without explanation a blanket ban on domestic media coverage of the strike.
A worker at a factory dormitory said on Saturday afternoon that the strike continued, and police were nowhere in sight at the factory or the dormitory. The authorities have been leery of letting the media report on labor disputes, fearing that it could encourage workers elsewhere to rebel. The new permissiveness, however temporary, coincides with growing sentiment among some officials and economists that Chinese workers deserve higher wages for their role in the country’s global export machine.
And without higher incomes, hundreds of millions of Chinese will be unable to play their part in the domestic consumer spending boom on which this nation hopes to base its next round of economic growth.
“This is all because there is a major political debate going on about how to deal with the nation’s growing income gap, and the need to do something about wages,” said Andreas Lauffs, a lawyer at Baker & McKenzie who specializes in Chinese labor issues.
If wages do rise, that could bring higher prices for Western consumers for goods as diverse as toys at Wal-Mart and iPads from Apple.
The Chinese media may also have found it a little easier, politically, to cover this strike because Honda is a Japanese company, and anti-Japanese sentiment still simmers in China as a legacy of World War II. Certainly, the strike is hitting Honda hard, as the resulting shortage of transmissions and other engine parts has forced the company to halt production at all four of its assembly plants in China.
Honda has an annual capacity of 650,000 cars and minivans in China, like Jazz subcompacts for export to Europe and Accord sedans for the Chinese market. Because Honda’s prices in China are similar to what it charges in the United States, the cars tend to be far out of reach financially for most of the workers who make them.
A Honda spokeswoman declined to discuss specific issues in the strike negotiations.
The intense media coverage may evoke historical memories of the 1980 shipyard strike in Gdansk, Poland, that gave rise to the Solidarity movement and paved the way for the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. But the reality here is much different.
Instead of tens of thousands of grizzled and angry shipyard workers, the Honda strike involves about 1,900 mostly cheerful young people. And the employees interviewed say their goal is more money, not a larger political agenda.
“If they give us 800 renminbi a month, we’ll go back to work right away,” said one young man, describing a pay increase that would add about $117 a month to an average pay that is now around $150 monthly. He said he had read on the Internet of considerably higher wages at other factories in China and expected Honda to match them with an immediate pay increase.
Many workers at other factories in southeastern China already earn $300 a month, but they do so only through considerable overtime. And even that higher income is not enough to embark on the middle-class dream in China of owning a small apartment and subcompact car. Officially, though, the government is discouraging heavy reliance on overtime, and workers here said that Honda was not assigning much.
The strikers said that Honda mainly hired recent graduates of high schools or vocational schools. And so, most are in their late teens or early 20s, representing a new generation of employees, many of whom had not been born when the Chinese authorities suppressed protests by students and workers in Tiananmen Square in 1989 — a watershed event whose 21st anniversary falls next Friday.
The profile of striking workers seems to run more along the lines of slightly bookish would-be engineers — perhaps without the grades or money to attend college — rather than political activists. Besides their low wages, the workers seem focused on issues like the factory’s air-conditioning not being cool enough, and the unfairness of having to rise from their dormitories as early as 5:30 for a 7 a.m. shift.
Workers said that in addition to their pay, they also received free lodging in rooms that slept four to six in bunk beds. They also get free lunches, subsidized breakfasts for the equivalent of 30 cents and dinners for about $1.50.
The striking employees said that some senior workers, known as team leaders, had allied themselves with management. But they insisted that the rank-and-file workers were solidly in favor of walkout — a claim impossible to verify.
Although China is run by the Communist Party and has state-controlled unions, the unions are largely charged with overseeing workers, not bargaining for higher wages or pressing for improved labor conditions. And they are not allowed to strike, although China’s laws do not have explicit prohibitions against doing so.
Workers at the Honda factory dormitory said that the official union at the factory was not representing them but was serving as an intermediary between them and management. Li Jianming, the national spokesman for the All China Federation of Trade Unions, declined to comment.
The workers here have been on strike since May 21, with no resolution in sight. But the strike did not come to broader notice until Thursday and Friday as Japanese media began reporting the shutdown of Honda assembly plants, and as Chinese media and Internet sites were allowed to report extensively on those activities.
The unusually permissive approach of the authorities toward media coverage of the strike follows a decision to tolerate extensive coverage this month of suicides by workers at the Taiwanese-owned Foxconn factory complex in nearby Shenzhen that supplies Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
The official China Daily newspaper ran a lead editorial on Friday that cited the Honda strike as evidence that government inaction on wages might be fueling tensions between workers and employers. The editorial criticized the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security for not moving faster to draft a promised amendment to current wage regulations because of what the newspaper described as opposition from employers.
Zheng Qiao, the associate director of the department of employment relations at the China Institute of Industrial Relations in Beijing, said the strike was a significant development in China’s labor relations history and that “such a large-scale, organized strike will force China’s labor union system to change, to adapt to the market economy.”
Keith Bradsher reported from Foshan, China, and David Barboza from Shanghai. Bao Beibei contributed research.
________________________________________
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, January 08, 2010
Ryan Pyle Blog: 2009 Travel Days
Hello.
I like to look back. I like to reflect, and then I like to learn, and move forwards. So over the next few weeks you might see a few blogs in which I reflect back on the difficult and exciting year of 2009. The first blog in this series deals with Travel Days.
I'm a bit of a loser, if that seems harsh then a geek at the very least. I like to keep track of my travel days each year. And 2009 was a monster of a year for travel; at least a monster by my standards. Let's look at the stats.
There were 365 days in 2009. And of those there were roughly 260 work days, meaning generally Monday to Friday, excluding holidays.
Somehow, I logged 141 nights in hotels or around 141 travel days and some 70 plane flights.
Now it would be wrong to assume that all of this was work where I traveled to a location and too pictures, but I can tell you that more than 80% of exactly that.
Work, and rest, took me to cities as diverse as: Shenzhen, Kashgar, Shaoxing, Hong Kong, Toronto, Changsha, Tianjin, Urumqi, Milan, Paris, Dongguan, Chengdu, Xi'an, Beijing, Halifax, New York, Guiyang, London, Taiyuan, Pingyao, Haikou, Sanya, Korle, Lhasa and finally Singapore.
That's a serious bit of travel. I didn't keep statistics for 2008 but I'll be sure to keep my numbers for 2010. Should be an interesting comparison.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I like to look back. I like to reflect, and then I like to learn, and move forwards. So over the next few weeks you might see a few blogs in which I reflect back on the difficult and exciting year of 2009. The first blog in this series deals with Travel Days.
I'm a bit of a loser, if that seems harsh then a geek at the very least. I like to keep track of my travel days each year. And 2009 was a monster of a year for travel; at least a monster by my standards. Let's look at the stats.
There were 365 days in 2009. And of those there were roughly 260 work days, meaning generally Monday to Friday, excluding holidays.
Somehow, I logged 141 nights in hotels or around 141 travel days and some 70 plane flights.
Now it would be wrong to assume that all of this was work where I traveled to a location and too pictures, but I can tell you that more than 80% of exactly that.
Work, and rest, took me to cities as diverse as: Shenzhen, Kashgar, Shaoxing, Hong Kong, Toronto, Changsha, Tianjin, Urumqi, Milan, Paris, Dongguan, Chengdu, Xi'an, Beijing, Halifax, New York, Guiyang, London, Taiyuan, Pingyao, Haikou, Sanya, Korle, Lhasa and finally Singapore.
That's a serious bit of travel. I didn't keep statistics for 2008 but I'll be sure to keep my numbers for 2010. Should be an interesting comparison.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Friday, July 10, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: Work Conditions Getting Worse
Hello.
Much fuss was made last year when China unveiled a series of labor laws that seemed to better protect the average worker. Now an URBAN debate continues to rage on whether the labors laws just protect the unproductive or whether they are really useful, and timely.
But what about the migrant workers? Are they protected under the labor law and have their lives improved? Well, the labor law, see article, seemed to be focused in the right places but no one was expecting a financial crisis - which led to a demand crisis - which led to a Chinese export crisis - which led to a Dongguan crisis - which led to most employers throwing the new labor law out the window. What a series of chain reactions!
LINK: New York Times: Despite Law, Job Conditions Worsen in China
David Barboza for the New York Times writes an interesting feature on the plight of one family, in one factory and how that relates to the industry at large. I photographed the portrait of the family in question under very tense conditions just a few steps away from the factory where their son had been killed.
Having spent so much time in China, I've seen my fair share of factory floors and I had been under the impression that things were improving. Over the years working conditions have improved, even if wages and living conditions haven't. But workers still work too many hours, too much overtime and in poorly lit conditions - which leds to exhaustion and avoidable accidents, sometimes fatal.
My intention for this blog is to raise awareness that the financial crisis is causing cut backs not just in the US and Europe but also on the factory floors of southern China; and those cutbacks have led to more dangerous working conditions the for the most exposed portion of China's population - it's migrant workers. Please do read the article, it's a good one; I am very glad I was able to be a part of it.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, May 25, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: University Unemployment
Hello,
University unemployment across China is a scary thing. Let me explain why in this space. (Picture above, a migrant worker walks through a job market in Dongguan, China)
Graduation has past, and the prospects of finding employment for China's 6.1 million graduates (a number that will increase to 7m next year) is bleak. How bleak is it? Well for starters engineers are applying for jobs at coffee shops and a large amount of students are taking up an offer by the government to work three years in the countryside in a local government position, in turn the government pays off your University fees. After spending a lot of money, time and energy moving to the cities to complete their education, many from this years crop of students are headed back to rural China. But can they be happy with that? Is there a choice?
This downturn in China is severe, don't be mistaken. While the GDP figures might be massaged to look impressive things within the borders are no where near as robust as they were in 2007 and the first half of 2008. But is that such a bad thing? My wife runs a small business in China and in 2007 she was furious at how she would spend her time and energy training new graduates only to have them jump to other companies every 4-6 months, that was possible then as the cities were booming, and people were always in demand. These days are different, she hasn't had an employee leave in over a year now. My reason for bringing this up is that for the last 2 decades no one has seen a bad year, or even a bad month in many cases. Jobs were plentiful and salary increases were regular. Now things have changed. The employed are doing everything they can to keep their jobs and everyone knows people who are looking for work; and looking forward this, I feel, is a healthy experience and it will create an employment pool that respects their jobs, their employers and the economic environment much more than before. When China does emerge from this downturn there are a lot of people, including myself, that believe the country will emerge much stronger than it was before.
Now without looking too far ahead, what about the ranks of the unemployed now? Without being a overly negative about the situation the government is responding well to a crisis which, in their eyes, could lead to civil unrest at some stage. Campuses have occasionally, in the past, been places where emotions run high; be it during the Tiananmen days of the late 80s, to the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in the late 90s, or the Anti-Japanese protests that swept the country in 2005. And government officials know and understand this. That's why they are offering some graduates up to USD7,300 in loans to help them start their own businesses, which could see a mini-boom in entrepreneurial activity in the coming years; but that is optimistic.
After watching so many university graduates before them become soaked up by China's rapidly growing, and increasingly dynamic economy; this years group can't feel but left out in the cold. Where will their fancy titles, name cards, cars, and apartments come from? How will they join the ranks of China's mass consumers if they can't pull in an income?
This is, as a photographer, something that I would like to keenly document. However actually photographing inside a job market is often frowned up as a foreign photographer and I've been kicked out of many before. But those shots you see of thousands of students pushing and shoving through the entrance of a job fair do really occur, and the scene at the job markets will most likely become more intense in the coming months as more and more graduates fight for fewer and fewer resources.
The big question remains as to what the unemployed might do? Will they choose to under-employ themselves in the countryside? Will they begin looking at ways in which their government is failing them and demand change? Only time will tell, I know I'll be watching.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Monday, April 20, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: A Road Less Traveled
Hello,
I often don't write in detail about assignments that I work on, but in this particular case I'll have to break all the rules and open up to you about a recent ridiculous trip while working on my book in Xinjiang, China's mainly Muslim northwestern frontier region.
My project is basically on the region of Xinjiang and the idea is to bring in to light it's incredible history and cultural diversity. In an effort to move away from low hanging fruit in easily accessible oasis towns like Kashgar, Khotan, Aksu, Kuche, Korle, Yining and Urumqi; this trip I opted to push it a bit and go deep in to the Tian Shan Mountain range. With very mixed results. My story is below:
I had been in the region for about four days shooting already, with mixed results as bad weather hampered efforts, when I decided to try driving from one small village in Northwestern Xinjiang to a large city in Southwestern Xinjiang, straight through the Tian Shan mountain range. It took my fixer and I a few hours to find a driver with the gonads to take us; the weather was bad (-10C and snow flurries) and the two 4500m passes might be blocked by snow and ice. We decided to chance it and our driver was motivated by the chance at earning a fee when other drivers were sitting idle.
After looking over the sport utility vehicle I decided that it was fit to take us, I know absolutely nothing about cars, on this 350km journey along a road that barely existed, through the remote Mongolian villages on high plateau of the Tian Shan range.
Upon getting picked up at 8am the next morning (6am Xinjiang time) we set off on our journey in good spirits with tea and fresh nan bread to keep us warm on what was an unseasonably chilly, raining, snow flurried day. That was the first warning we missed.
Not 20km in to our journey I was rummaging through my bag when I looked up and noticed, about 3 seconds too late, that my driver was attempted to drive across a rather angry looking river. Now it's an often occurrence in this part of the world that roads get washed out and SUV's just push right through low/slow rivers. It is something I've become used to over the years, sometimes water seeps in their the doors but usually the interior of the car stays dry and most four wheel drive SUV's can make it across rivers with water below the middle of the car door. On this particular occasion when I looked up and noticed that this river crossing was not a smart move, we were already stuck in the middle of a fast flowing river, after an entire night of rain. My driver noticing there was a problem quickly whipped off his shoes, took off his pants and climbed through his window out on to the hood of the SUV in nothing but his blue underwear, it was a sight for sore eyes. With a wrench in hand he was trying to turn the knob on the wheels, that were now well submerged below icy water, that turned on the four wheel drive option.
Hold it there. Yes, we attempted a horrific river crossing without having the four wheel drive operational.
Once the four wheel drive was "switched on" he hoped back in to the car, shivering from 2C river water, but by now the engine was submerged and the engine was flooded and the battery was dead. We were stuck. I was shocked. Normally on river crossing we stop on the shore, assess the situation, map out the best place to cross and then go for it. This driver, while my attention was elsewhere, just decided to try and barrel through a blistering river without any assessment or consultation. A shocker I know.
So, wondering what I could possibly do to help improve our dire situation I asked our driver what next? Could I help? He shot back with a no, and jumped out of the window virtually naked and waded through waist high ice water to the shore were he flagged down a passing jeep to tow us out. To make a long and painful story short, that didn't work and nether did several of the other options that were tired.
What was I doing during all this? Well I was bailing ice water out of the car as the floors were filling up. We had to cut the tops off our water bottles to make bailers. I also packed up all my camera equipment in preparation for a great escape, and I tried to stay calm. This was by no means a life and death situation, but I didn't want to loose any camera equipment, or film or succumb to frozen testicles; which I have a limited tolerance for. I have done a lot of hiking in China/Tibet and crossing glacial rivers is always a dreaded experience for me, my kryptonite perhaps.
My guide and I, while the driver had disappeared desperately looking for something to pull us out of the river, decided that we had the bailing fairly under control and the water, both inside and outside the car, was no longer rising. So we sat. Made jokes and continued to bail. We laughed about how if we were English explorers in the 1800s we consider this a perfect time for tea; and shared stories about other difficult times we had been in.
All in all we were in a dead, frozen SUV for three hours. Much of the time not knowing exactly what was going on to assist in our rescue. On several occasions we decided to strip and make a dash for it just to end the waiting game, but opted not to risk it in the end because the tide and water level where fairly stable. I basically made the decision that if we weren't taking on water, there was no reason to panic so we just sat there.
Sitting in a car, with a dead battery, in an icy river is actually an incredibly cold experience. I was amazed as how after about 30 minutes I felt like I was sitting in a refrigerator. As I bailed water I realized that the water was near freezing and the outside air temperature was -10C. How long could we last like this? Our answer would come soon enough.
Shortly after we resorted to peeing in juice bottles, and betting on who was doing to have to shit out the window first, a massive bull dozer appeared in the horizon. We were saved. The great thing about China is that you're never more than 5km for a construction site, no matter where in the country you might be. So our driver had paid US$60 to have the bull dozer come over, and pull us out with a steel cable. After just about three hours in the drink, we were saved. What a way to start a journey.
I consider myself to be a fairly tough minded individual, and in fact I am very much in favor of self preservation, but I was a little shaken by our experience in the river; mainly because we had dangerous roads ahead and I had serious questions of our drivers competence, and health, after he spent several long stretches wadding in the frozen river. I was assuming that we would unload our car, switch to another less water logged SUV and head back to town; a day behind schedule. Perhaps have a shower and a hot meal and rethink our route. But my driver wasn't having any of it.
Within ten minutes he had the SUV, that just spent three hours in the icy water, humming away and although he was visably shivering and shacken by the experience he insisted that the show must go on. And so it did.
After our ordeal in the river it took another three hours to arrive in the nasty one street town of Bayan Bulak. For those of you thinking this is a Mongolian oasis please be warned, it's a tourist trap and one of the rusted buildings and bad food variety. With one massive pass behind us, almost an hour of hair raising switch backs, the weather turned evil and shortly we found ourselves driving across the high plateau in the central Tian Shan range in virtual white out conditions. We were clocking a mere 20km per hour.
The next 170km from the town of Bayan Bulak to a remote lake, that I have always wanted to visit, in the mountains took me along the most dangerous road I've ever been on, coupled with the most dangerous weather conditions I've ever seen. White outs, six inches of fresh powder and steep cliff drops on the entire route. Hair raising is not a strong enough term, death defying is perhaps more suitable. And don't forget this was after I'd already spent 3hrs in an icy river. My nerves were shattered, by body exhausted and my moral low. But still we pushed on.
With night beginning to fall we reached the remote lake region where I was able to shoot for a while at dusk. We had planned to sleep there for the night but the blustery winter conditions in mid-April left the guest house operators suggesting we push on for fear of freezing temperatures throughout the night. So with night falling we mounted our trusty SUV, my driver was looking more chipper, he had somehow beaten hypothermia using a combination of car heaters, a Chinese military jacket and a pair of North Face socks I had given him.
There were about 120km between the lake region and the town of Kuche, an oasis town in Xinjiang. Weather there was warm and they had a decent hotel. But our driver indicated that it would take about three hours to make the 140km trip, and that the roads would get worse, but there were no more high passes. Night had fallen and with a glimmer of hope in my drivers eye he suggested we try to make Kuche for a proper nights sleep. I wearily agreed, too exhausted to fight.
For years in China I've tried to avoid, at all costs, driving at night. If my driver is not lacking knowledge of basic safety then surely the trucks and cars that pass us are. Basically it's a crap shoot and the odds are you'll get in an accident. I was in a bad accident in 2005 in a remote region of Anhui province. We were driving at dusk while trying to make it back to the capital city of Hefei; the driver was going too fast and a bicycle swerved out in front of us in a farming district. We zigged and zagged and flew off the road in to a brick house. Luckly no one was hurt and the house was sturdy, the car was a write off. My then writing partner, Howard W. French, suffered a fractured wrist as he braced himself for impact. I ducked and ended up bouncing around in the back seat on impact, I escaped uninjured. Needless to say we were shaken and massive amounts of whisky were needed that night to calm the nerves from a real near miss.
With that story playing over and over again in my mind we headed out in to darkness. Even 40km per hour felt way to fast on dark mountain roads on a route that would have yeilded some stunning views had it not been pitch black. Impossible to sleep I stared out the window in a daze as my body bounced and swayed with the bumps in the road. My back, having been sore most of the day with the rough roads, was now completely numb. I was beyond exhaustion and I had no idea how my driver could continue to concertrate and deliver us to our destination. Very tough man indeed.
Staring out the window as the world passes by you is a strange thing, and even stranger in China where you are liable to pass just about anything out of the ordinary en route. On one pass, two road construction workers were squatting (going to the bathroom) in full view of the road, and our headlights, while seemingly carrying on a rather heated conversation; and at 30km per hour you end up seeing a bit too much detail. As the blackness of the night deepened we had a few near misses of just random people walking along the road, neither road workers nor local tribesman, walking through the complete darkness - and freezing weather. There was a strangeness in the air that night for sure. We had encountered so much that day that I was essentially ready for anything. But I wasn't ready for what happened next.
My breaking point came with about 50km to go to Kuche. After enduring a three hour river drama, bad roads and worse weather, we were about an hour outside of Kuche when we reached a police barricade. Our driver pulled over and received information that we would have to spend the night in our cars as there was a severe sand storm in the valley below and it wasn't safe for car/truck travel. Naturally I wanted to get out of the car and plead with the police officers, I was a mere 50km away from a hot shower and a bit of rest, but alas I had to hide in the back seat of the car with my hat and scarf on; because the road we took through the mountains is closed to foreign travelers we had to be careful of attracting too much attention. Sitting in the back seat I felt as though all the air had been let out of me, as though I was left limp and rendered completely ineffective to everything around me. I was physically and mentally shattered. How was my driver still going strong? Why are us western folks so comparatively weak? I was amazed at his strength, even though I didn't completely agree with all of his decision making; the river crossing standing out as a particular error in judgement.
Just spitting distance from Kuche we were haulted in our most epic journey. Instead of sleeping in our cars, we'd already been in the car 16hrs that day, I opted to put us all up in a little truck stop hotel about 5km back up the mountain. When we organized the rooms and finally put down that night around 1am. Our rooms smelled horrifically and was of the variety that had smashed bugs all over the walls from previous guests who had tired of the mosquitos and other nasties living in the rooms. My pillow and bed sheet smelled of at least 4 distinctly different people, I have a sensitive nose - a real liability in China - leading me to the fact that washing is done just seasonally, if at all.
Nevertheless at one in the morning I could have slept on a bed of nails. We had been on the road since 8am. We spent three hours stuck in an icy river, and the rest of the day drifting from near death experience to near death experience on the worst road I've ever been on. Now when I say that it's important to remember that I've been traveling in China almost exclusively since 2001. I've traveled through Tibet, all of Central Asia and Iran and I've never come across a day of traveling like this; hence my motivation to share it with you in this blog.
Week in and week out things don't always end up like this and in fact every now and then work become a little repetitive or routine like; which is why having a personal project to pursue helps shake things up a bit. Well, I have been shaken, not stirred. And I managed to live to tell the tale.
The next morning we woke up and made the rest of the journey down the valley to the oasis town of Kuche, where I then hoped on a flight to Urumqi, where I am writing this from now. In two hours I fly back home to Shanghai, where my other life picks up again. I reckon I'm living dual lives and I have several personalties going all at the same time. Trying to keep it all together. Never an easy task. I'm headed back to the region in August. More reports coming soon.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
I often don't write in detail about assignments that I work on, but in this particular case I'll have to break all the rules and open up to you about a recent ridiculous trip while working on my book in Xinjiang, China's mainly Muslim northwestern frontier region.
My project is basically on the region of Xinjiang and the idea is to bring in to light it's incredible history and cultural diversity. In an effort to move away from low hanging fruit in easily accessible oasis towns like Kashgar, Khotan, Aksu, Kuche, Korle, Yining and Urumqi; this trip I opted to push it a bit and go deep in to the Tian Shan Mountain range. With very mixed results. My story is below:
I had been in the region for about four days shooting already, with mixed results as bad weather hampered efforts, when I decided to try driving from one small village in Northwestern Xinjiang to a large city in Southwestern Xinjiang, straight through the Tian Shan mountain range. It took my fixer and I a few hours to find a driver with the gonads to take us; the weather was bad (-10C and snow flurries) and the two 4500m passes might be blocked by snow and ice. We decided to chance it and our driver was motivated by the chance at earning a fee when other drivers were sitting idle.
After looking over the sport utility vehicle I decided that it was fit to take us, I know absolutely nothing about cars, on this 350km journey along a road that barely existed, through the remote Mongolian villages on high plateau of the Tian Shan range.
Upon getting picked up at 8am the next morning (6am Xinjiang time) we set off on our journey in good spirits with tea and fresh nan bread to keep us warm on what was an unseasonably chilly, raining, snow flurried day. That was the first warning we missed.
Not 20km in to our journey I was rummaging through my bag when I looked up and noticed, about 3 seconds too late, that my driver was attempted to drive across a rather angry looking river. Now it's an often occurrence in this part of the world that roads get washed out and SUV's just push right through low/slow rivers. It is something I've become used to over the years, sometimes water seeps in their the doors but usually the interior of the car stays dry and most four wheel drive SUV's can make it across rivers with water below the middle of the car door. On this particular occasion when I looked up and noticed that this river crossing was not a smart move, we were already stuck in the middle of a fast flowing river, after an entire night of rain. My driver noticing there was a problem quickly whipped off his shoes, took off his pants and climbed through his window out on to the hood of the SUV in nothing but his blue underwear, it was a sight for sore eyes. With a wrench in hand he was trying to turn the knob on the wheels, that were now well submerged below icy water, that turned on the four wheel drive option.
Hold it there. Yes, we attempted a horrific river crossing without having the four wheel drive operational.
Once the four wheel drive was "switched on" he hoped back in to the car, shivering from 2C river water, but by now the engine was submerged and the engine was flooded and the battery was dead. We were stuck. I was shocked. Normally on river crossing we stop on the shore, assess the situation, map out the best place to cross and then go for it. This driver, while my attention was elsewhere, just decided to try and barrel through a blistering river without any assessment or consultation. A shocker I know.
So, wondering what I could possibly do to help improve our dire situation I asked our driver what next? Could I help? He shot back with a no, and jumped out of the window virtually naked and waded through waist high ice water to the shore were he flagged down a passing jeep to tow us out. To make a long and painful story short, that didn't work and nether did several of the other options that were tired.
What was I doing during all this? Well I was bailing ice water out of the car as the floors were filling up. We had to cut the tops off our water bottles to make bailers. I also packed up all my camera equipment in preparation for a great escape, and I tried to stay calm. This was by no means a life and death situation, but I didn't want to loose any camera equipment, or film or succumb to frozen testicles; which I have a limited tolerance for. I have done a lot of hiking in China/Tibet and crossing glacial rivers is always a dreaded experience for me, my kryptonite perhaps.
My guide and I, while the driver had disappeared desperately looking for something to pull us out of the river, decided that we had the bailing fairly under control and the water, both inside and outside the car, was no longer rising. So we sat. Made jokes and continued to bail. We laughed about how if we were English explorers in the 1800s we consider this a perfect time for tea; and shared stories about other difficult times we had been in.
All in all we were in a dead, frozen SUV for three hours. Much of the time not knowing exactly what was going on to assist in our rescue. On several occasions we decided to strip and make a dash for it just to end the waiting game, but opted not to risk it in the end because the tide and water level where fairly stable. I basically made the decision that if we weren't taking on water, there was no reason to panic so we just sat there.
Sitting in a car, with a dead battery, in an icy river is actually an incredibly cold experience. I was amazed as how after about 30 minutes I felt like I was sitting in a refrigerator. As I bailed water I realized that the water was near freezing and the outside air temperature was -10C. How long could we last like this? Our answer would come soon enough.
Shortly after we resorted to peeing in juice bottles, and betting on who was doing to have to shit out the window first, a massive bull dozer appeared in the horizon. We were saved. The great thing about China is that you're never more than 5km for a construction site, no matter where in the country you might be. So our driver had paid US$60 to have the bull dozer come over, and pull us out with a steel cable. After just about three hours in the drink, we were saved. What a way to start a journey.
I consider myself to be a fairly tough minded individual, and in fact I am very much in favor of self preservation, but I was a little shaken by our experience in the river; mainly because we had dangerous roads ahead and I had serious questions of our drivers competence, and health, after he spent several long stretches wadding in the frozen river. I was assuming that we would unload our car, switch to another less water logged SUV and head back to town; a day behind schedule. Perhaps have a shower and a hot meal and rethink our route. But my driver wasn't having any of it.
Within ten minutes he had the SUV, that just spent three hours in the icy water, humming away and although he was visably shivering and shacken by the experience he insisted that the show must go on. And so it did.
After our ordeal in the river it took another three hours to arrive in the nasty one street town of Bayan Bulak. For those of you thinking this is a Mongolian oasis please be warned, it's a tourist trap and one of the rusted buildings and bad food variety. With one massive pass behind us, almost an hour of hair raising switch backs, the weather turned evil and shortly we found ourselves driving across the high plateau in the central Tian Shan range in virtual white out conditions. We were clocking a mere 20km per hour.
The next 170km from the town of Bayan Bulak to a remote lake, that I have always wanted to visit, in the mountains took me along the most dangerous road I've ever been on, coupled with the most dangerous weather conditions I've ever seen. White outs, six inches of fresh powder and steep cliff drops on the entire route. Hair raising is not a strong enough term, death defying is perhaps more suitable. And don't forget this was after I'd already spent 3hrs in an icy river. My nerves were shattered, by body exhausted and my moral low. But still we pushed on.
With night beginning to fall we reached the remote lake region where I was able to shoot for a while at dusk. We had planned to sleep there for the night but the blustery winter conditions in mid-April left the guest house operators suggesting we push on for fear of freezing temperatures throughout the night. So with night falling we mounted our trusty SUV, my driver was looking more chipper, he had somehow beaten hypothermia using a combination of car heaters, a Chinese military jacket and a pair of North Face socks I had given him.
There were about 120km between the lake region and the town of Kuche, an oasis town in Xinjiang. Weather there was warm and they had a decent hotel. But our driver indicated that it would take about three hours to make the 140km trip, and that the roads would get worse, but there were no more high passes. Night had fallen and with a glimmer of hope in my drivers eye he suggested we try to make Kuche for a proper nights sleep. I wearily agreed, too exhausted to fight.
For years in China I've tried to avoid, at all costs, driving at night. If my driver is not lacking knowledge of basic safety then surely the trucks and cars that pass us are. Basically it's a crap shoot and the odds are you'll get in an accident. I was in a bad accident in 2005 in a remote region of Anhui province. We were driving at dusk while trying to make it back to the capital city of Hefei; the driver was going too fast and a bicycle swerved out in front of us in a farming district. We zigged and zagged and flew off the road in to a brick house. Luckly no one was hurt and the house was sturdy, the car was a write off. My then writing partner, Howard W. French, suffered a fractured wrist as he braced himself for impact. I ducked and ended up bouncing around in the back seat on impact, I escaped uninjured. Needless to say we were shaken and massive amounts of whisky were needed that night to calm the nerves from a real near miss.
With that story playing over and over again in my mind we headed out in to darkness. Even 40km per hour felt way to fast on dark mountain roads on a route that would have yeilded some stunning views had it not been pitch black. Impossible to sleep I stared out the window in a daze as my body bounced and swayed with the bumps in the road. My back, having been sore most of the day with the rough roads, was now completely numb. I was beyond exhaustion and I had no idea how my driver could continue to concertrate and deliver us to our destination. Very tough man indeed.
Staring out the window as the world passes by you is a strange thing, and even stranger in China where you are liable to pass just about anything out of the ordinary en route. On one pass, two road construction workers were squatting (going to the bathroom) in full view of the road, and our headlights, while seemingly carrying on a rather heated conversation; and at 30km per hour you end up seeing a bit too much detail. As the blackness of the night deepened we had a few near misses of just random people walking along the road, neither road workers nor local tribesman, walking through the complete darkness - and freezing weather. There was a strangeness in the air that night for sure. We had encountered so much that day that I was essentially ready for anything. But I wasn't ready for what happened next.
My breaking point came with about 50km to go to Kuche. After enduring a three hour river drama, bad roads and worse weather, we were about an hour outside of Kuche when we reached a police barricade. Our driver pulled over and received information that we would have to spend the night in our cars as there was a severe sand storm in the valley below and it wasn't safe for car/truck travel. Naturally I wanted to get out of the car and plead with the police officers, I was a mere 50km away from a hot shower and a bit of rest, but alas I had to hide in the back seat of the car with my hat and scarf on; because the road we took through the mountains is closed to foreign travelers we had to be careful of attracting too much attention. Sitting in the back seat I felt as though all the air had been let out of me, as though I was left limp and rendered completely ineffective to everything around me. I was physically and mentally shattered. How was my driver still going strong? Why are us western folks so comparatively weak? I was amazed at his strength, even though I didn't completely agree with all of his decision making; the river crossing standing out as a particular error in judgement.
Just spitting distance from Kuche we were haulted in our most epic journey. Instead of sleeping in our cars, we'd already been in the car 16hrs that day, I opted to put us all up in a little truck stop hotel about 5km back up the mountain. When we organized the rooms and finally put down that night around 1am. Our rooms smelled horrifically and was of the variety that had smashed bugs all over the walls from previous guests who had tired of the mosquitos and other nasties living in the rooms. My pillow and bed sheet smelled of at least 4 distinctly different people, I have a sensitive nose - a real liability in China - leading me to the fact that washing is done just seasonally, if at all.
Nevertheless at one in the morning I could have slept on a bed of nails. We had been on the road since 8am. We spent three hours stuck in an icy river, and the rest of the day drifting from near death experience to near death experience on the worst road I've ever been on. Now when I say that it's important to remember that I've been traveling in China almost exclusively since 2001. I've traveled through Tibet, all of Central Asia and Iran and I've never come across a day of traveling like this; hence my motivation to share it with you in this blog.
Week in and week out things don't always end up like this and in fact every now and then work become a little repetitive or routine like; which is why having a personal project to pursue helps shake things up a bit. Well, I have been shaken, not stirred. And I managed to live to tell the tale.
The next morning we woke up and made the rest of the journey down the valley to the oasis town of Kuche, where I then hoped on a flight to Urumqi, where I am writing this from now. In two hours I fly back home to Shanghai, where my other life picks up again. I reckon I'm living dual lives and I have several personalties going all at the same time. Trying to keep it all together. Never an easy task. I'm headed back to the region in August. More reports coming soon.
--
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Ryan Pyle Blog: My Canon 5D Mark II's
Hello,
Well, I've bought in to the Canon 5D Mark II hype. In fact I picked up two bodies a few weeks back, in Shanghai, and I have already put them through their paces on a few assignments already. It's been a great experience. Sadly, I don't have much to add at all regarding their performance that hasn't already been mentioned.
I shoot in RAW format and haven't had any black spots or any other problems to mention. I also bought a couple of those 16 gigabyte SanDisk cards and those are working out well. The quality of the image is incredible: the light, the color, the sharpness are all improvements over my old 5D. Shooting in low light and at night seem to be where the biggest improvements are, over the previous version of the camera. I am able to focus fast and generate strong colors in very little light, which is exciting for much of my documentary work.
I know I'm a self proclaimed "film man" and don't worry, I don't plan on packing away my two workhorses (ie. My Canon EOS 1n's, or my range finders) but the digital kit is always great to have for covering breaking news or shooting a demanding corporate assignment.
As an additional note, I really am a huge fan of the Canon 5D series. The 10D, 20D, 30D's never did it for me as the lack of a full frame drove me crazy. But the 5D is just a quality improvement over the previous series that one can't help get a little excited about what's next. The 5D Mark II's are small, light and compact. They feel great in your hand and are, in my mind, perfect for documentary / journalism work. I even shot with them last week in Shenzhen and in light rain they performed wonderfully.
I'll confess here that I've never used a Nikon system, and most likely never well. But I'm glad there is a two horse race in the industry, because the competition between the two, and lesser rivals like Sony and Fuji, will keep the prices lower for photographers and hopefully the products will continue to improve in the coming years. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with my purchase.
--
Cheers,
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
_______________________________________
Well, I've bought in to the Canon 5D Mark II hype. In fact I picked up two bodies a few weeks back, in Shanghai, and I have already put them through their paces on a few assignments already. It's been a great experience. Sadly, I don't have much to add at all regarding their performance that hasn't already been mentioned.
I shoot in RAW format and haven't had any black spots or any other problems to mention. I also bought a couple of those 16 gigabyte SanDisk cards and those are working out well. The quality of the image is incredible: the light, the color, the sharpness are all improvements over my old 5D. Shooting in low light and at night seem to be where the biggest improvements are, over the previous version of the camera. I am able to focus fast and generate strong colors in very little light, which is exciting for much of my documentary work.
I know I'm a self proclaimed "film man" and don't worry, I don't plan on packing away my two workhorses (ie. My Canon EOS 1n's, or my range finders) but the digital kit is always great to have for covering breaking news or shooting a demanding corporate assignment.
As an additional note, I really am a huge fan of the Canon 5D series. The 10D, 20D, 30D's never did it for me as the lack of a full frame drove me crazy. But the 5D is just a quality improvement over the previous series that one can't help get a little excited about what's next. The 5D Mark II's are small, light and compact. They feel great in your hand and are, in my mind, perfect for documentary / journalism work. I even shot with them last week in Shenzhen and in light rain they performed wonderfully.
I'll confess here that I've never used a Nikon system, and most likely never well. But I'm glad there is a two horse race in the industry, because the competition between the two, and lesser rivals like Sony and Fuji, will keep the prices lower for photographers and hopefully the products will continue to improve in the coming years. Needless to say, I'm very pleased with my purchase.
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Cheers,
Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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