Ryan Pyle Blog: The NPAC Photo Essay

Hello.

I recently had some work featured on the National Photographers Association of (NPAC) Canada's website. To be brutally honest I don't know too much about the NPAC. I knew there was an association, much like the American version; but I had never been in touch with them.

Having lived in China for a decade and spending my entire professional career abroad I never found much use in photography associations; but I can acknowledge that they seem to be very worthwhile for a lot of photographers based domestically, and they seem to offer a lot of legal advice and small business advice which I think is really important.

A link to the photo essay is below. The text that accompanies the work is below as well. I was in a particularly gloomy mood when I was writing this. Watch out for the double dip.

NPAC Website LINK
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As we begin 2011 the world is finally showing some signs of economic recovery. Although there is a sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the United States continues to struggle with high unemployment, companies are making money again and banks are behaving more responsibly. As we all look forward to better and brighter times, it’s important that we learn lessons from the behavior that almost caused the end of the financial world as we know it. Not only are banks to blame but we, much of the general public, simply over-consume and spend beyond our means. Do our actions have consequences? The straight answer is yes; especially in places we would never assume.

In October 2008 when Lehman Brothers, the US Investment Bank, went bankrupt the shock-waves were felt around the world. Banks lined up for government hand outs, the public panicked and we all stopped spending. As a result retailers shuttered and global trade came to a screeching halt. For the small factory town of Dongguan, China; that meant that factories that produce goods for US retailers began going under on a daily basis. After years of farmers moving to the coastal cities, like Dongguan, to work in factories, now everyone was heading homes. Factories had gone bankrupt, jobs had evaporated overnight. In the span of about four weeks from October to November 2008 thousands of factories went under and millions of jobs were lost. Entire housing blocks became empty, the streets once bustling now became silent. Those who opted to stay fought harder for fewer jobs. The seen was one of general chaos. These images were taken in November 2008 while on assignment for Newsweek.

Ryan Pyle Bio

Born in Toronto, Canada, Ryan Pyle spent his early years close to home. After obtaining a degree in International Politics from the University of Toronto in 2001, Ryan realized a life long dream and traveled to China on an exploratory mission. In 2002 Pyle moved to China permanently and began taking freelance assignments. In 2004, Ryan Pyle became a regular contributor to the New York Times covering China, more recently he has branched out in to mostly magazine. Ryan Pyle is based in Shanghai, China. Ryan is a reportage style photographer, working almost exclusively in 35mm format range finder cameras. His work drifts between journalism and fine art as he roams through China shedding light on the country and its diverse people.
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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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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.

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Ryan Pyle
Photographer
ryan@ryanpyle.com
Website: www.ryanpyle.com
Archive: http://archive.ryanpyle.com
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