Re:Development
China, Business as Usual (Zhou Chang Ying Yeh)
Introduction
China was until recently a third world nation which is now in a rapidly transforming itself into a very cosmopolitan
country. In many ways China now represents what is occurring to numerous developing third world nations. I wanted to
investigate what is visually occurring to the fiber of a society with such dramatic changes.
I had expected to find old world buildings and manually tilled fields and I found huge and growing cities. Yes, there
were still the fields, but tilled by tractors, not oxen. In Shanghai, the old world structures that were not rapidly
disappearing were designated as tourist zones. The ancient structures here would remain, but in a very new context,
for both the Chinese and international visitors. For the Chinese, it appears that they have a glimpse of perhaps what
was already rapidly beginning to fade away.
I had anticipated the new and exotic, but found industrial parks and cosmopolitan cities not unlike those in the United
States and Europe. I had traveled far, but not as far as I thought I would.
But I have to admit, as much as I would like to think I was open to the evolving landscape of this country, I had brought
my own ideas of what it meant to create an urban landscape photograph in China. And including a construction crane,
or any construction for that matter, was not part of my idea of urban landscape photographs.
Even during my second visit, I was still being head strong as to what I perceived constituted an urban landscape
photograph in Eastern China. But I was also becoming more open to what I was looking at and what I was seeing.
Between these first two trips, I had undertaken another photographic series in Southern California regarding the
transformation of a regional urban landscape. I was learning the visualization of change.
On my third trip to Eastern China, it all started to connect. The rapidly evolving Chinese urban landscape was a result
the tremendous amount of demolition and construction. My growing understandings of the changes in the physical
infrastructure, allowing me to emotional connect with the cultural changes. In retrospect, I had started to perceive this
on my previous visits, but the connection had not fully developed.
There is no doubt that China as a nation is growing by leaps and bounds, fueled by its new economic clout and in part
to its totalitarian dictates. I have had only a glimpse of the magnitude of this transformation. China is concurrently
bringing in new business, and creating the necessary technical infrastructure to support it, while trying to sustain the
existing business. Not unlike a store owner trying to keep his business going while the city digs up the entire road in
front of his storefront. He is constantly trying to let everyone know, that with all of this going on, he is still open during
construction and it is business as usual.
I was a witness of this duality, an attempt to keep a sense of normalcy, while seemingly the world around is in a major
state of flux and change. The amount of change has to be extremely threatening, wiping out entire neighborhoods,
but yet, for many, this new world is a vast improvement over what was before.
There is an ongoing pervasive amount of development within a previous developed country. This new landscape is
taking shape as it builds on the old bones of the previous culture. For densely populated areas, this evolution of the
land is not a new concept, but the pace in China is intense.
Likewise, if you were to talk to those in South America who are responsible for bulldozing down the huge forests, to
them the immediate financial gain is enormous and very beneficial. But from a larger perspective, the non-reversible
changes to the environmental landscape are huge and will probably have a long term impact, of which we still don’t
fully understand.
The traces of the developmental changes are very subtle and sometimes extremely blatant. The evidence can be
implied or it can overwhelm you. It is an odd duality, much like the Chinese culture itself.
From a larger perspective, we can see that there is a non-reversible physical cultural loss in the process of the
changes in China. Much of the structural infrastructure for the society is changing. From the narrow, close nit villages
to the impersonal towering structures. But for the Chinese who lives in one of these doomed villages, they have no
say, but to move and get out of the way when told to do so. The Chinese people seem to live and survive within these
boundaries.
While photographing the evolving urban and industrial landscape, I am exploring China’s complexity; the physical
landscape that reflects the cultural, society and the economic undercurrents.
Best regards, Douglas Stockdale
2008