I care deeply about people.
Through my lens, I capture and honor the marvels in the mundane — the struggles, resilience, and joy that constitute humanity. Pieced together, these unique fragments tell an elegant story of what it means to be human.
A ‘Fully-Charged’ Life 给生活加满电
An exhausted delivery worker of Meituan, the largest service and gig platform in China, sits down next to a shared portable charger box owned by the same company, while checking delivery orders on his phone. The advertisement on the box reads: “Meituan Power Bank powers a fully-charged life.”
Learn more about China’s delivery workers and platform economy here.
No Place for Tang Hulu 不欢迎糖葫芦
Three Chengguans (China’s urban management force) evict a street vendor of Tanghulu outside a park in Beijing.
Debates about how street vendors should be regulated have persisted for decades, as they sit at the fault line between two competing goals in Chinese urban governance: authorities aim to maintain visual order and regulated use of public space, while the informal micro-enterprises provide subsistence and mobility for low-income and migrant households. As a result, street vending remains economically essential yet politically marginal. This tension produces a continuous cycle of tolerance and crackdown, leaving vendors operating in chronic uncertainty.
You’re on Your Own, Kid 目送
These dads are dropping off their daughters at college for the first time. Not allowed into the female dorms to move their little girls in, they are sitting right outside, identically anxious, and staring in the same direction at the dorms that will house the next four years of their daughters’ lives.
All or Nothing 一刀穷，一刀富
In Yunnan, “jade betting” (赌石) is a long-standing and culturally distinctive practice built around the mystery of uncut jadeite. Traders and enthusiasts buy rough stones whose true quality is hidden beneath their weathered outer “skin,” relying on experience, instinct, and a bit of luck to predict what lies inside. As flashlights probe stone surfaces, spectators’ hearts are gripped by a collective thrill: the cut reveals brilliant green jade… or nothing at all. More than gambling, jade betting is a craft, a tradition, and a spectacle woven into the region’s economic and social life.
New to Town 初来乍到
Peasant-workers (also known as migrant workers) are a distinct social group in China. They move seasonally between agricultural labor and urban employment in construction, manufacturing, and services, circulating between villages and cities according to shifting labor demand. Their mobility is shaped—and often constrained—by the household registration (户口) system, which limits access to social welfare, education, and labor protections in the cities where they work. Positioned between rural origins and urban economies, they sustain much of China’s development while remaining structurally unprotected, illustrating the broader tensions between migration, institutional barriers, and modernization.
The Old Man and the Dog 老人与狗
Fluffy companions gain popularity as the aging population increases (and the birth rate decline).
Urban Palimpsests 老墙新声
At the edge of a historical courtyard in Kunming, graffiti artists reimagine the old brick walls with saturated colors and stylized text. The stark encounter of tradition and modernity is a testament to the rapid social change that has taken place, and it also reveals how cultural expression adapts to new urban identities. The work of these graffiti artists signals not only aesthetic experimentation but also a claim to cultural voice within a rapidly transforming society.
Corner of Cornucopia
Labubu in Palace
A Family Milestone 全家大事
A college freshman being dropped off by his extended family. Higher education in China is conventionally conceived as a collective family project. Multiple generations invest materially and emotionally in the educational mobility of a single student, and the moment of university entry becomes a public affirmation of that shared aspiration.
The characters in the background write Renmin University’s new institutional mission, since President Xi’s visit in 2022, which is to educate: “Pillars of National Rejuvenation, Pioneers of a Strong Nation (复兴栋梁，强国先锋)”.
A Tribute to Tedium
愿者上钩
吃瓜群众
An Ode to Life