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Hi, Reader!

Welcome back to my newsletter!

IPA Three Years

Three years in a row, my work has been awarded at the International Photography Awards, one of the most prestigious photo contests in the world. This year's winning entry is the photo series "Four Seasons on Plates", a project that takes me three years to complete: autumn 2023, summer in 2024, winter and spring in 2025. Each image pairs a seasonal plant with plates or bowls and a set of chopsticks, together telling a quiet, unique story. See them all here.​

Also advancing to the final stage of judging were Mount Fuji No.1, and the "Shibuya Stories" photo series — both of which I first shared with you in these newsletters.

The Fall Show Season

My fall show season kickoffs with Gracie Square show in Upper East Side, Manhattan on Sept 6-7. Then, Ludwig's Corner in Glenmoore, PA on Sept 13-14;Anderson Park in Montclair, NJ on Sept 20-21; and the much-anticipated Armonk show on Sept 27-28. I would be delighted to see you at one of these shows and share my new work with you.

Chong Qing Jungle

The title of this newsletter, "Chong Qing Jungle" came from a Wong Kar-wai film, about love stories unfolding in the dark, crime-ridden building of Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong. The "jungle", of course, is the concrete one. What the movie implies resonate with every mega city, including Hong Kong, Chong Qing and beyond.

The Chong Qing in reality is a hilly and fractured terrain cut apart by two rivers. Once-isolated towns have been glued together with the center by numerous bridges, tunnels, elevated highways and overpasses. The central government heavily subsidized infrastructure investments here, partly to resettle those displaced by the Three Gorges Dam project, the largest power station in the world. They did a fantastic job conquering all the engineering challenges, and they maintain the infrastructure with great care too. There isn’t a single pothole on the road. At least, I haven’t seen any—definitely the best among the cities I have visited.

For street photography, Chong Qing is a paradise. The city unfolds in layers—high and low, rich and poor. It is hailed as China’s most “cyberpunk” metropolis, and yet you can still find old, quirky neighborhoods. Going there is like going through a time tunnel back to the 90's.

When Chong Qing absorbed surrounding municipalities and became a centrally administered city like Beijing and Shanghai, it has the highest income inequality in China. Nearly 30 years later, the disparities remain visible. Friends of mine once invested in Chong Qing real estate, only to sell with barely any gains after several years. The same kind of money invested in Beijing might have ballooned into handsome sums. With lower local incomes, sprawling geography, and overbuilding, Chong Qing has been a graveyard for property speculation.

Amid all the glass and concrete, I stumbled upon something unexpected: the old craft of cotton-bowing. Its purpose is to fluff used cotton to refurbish quilts. Since we've become rich, thanks to smart leadership, the old craft is no longer needed—we just discard old quilts and buy new ones. But in a small corner of Chong Qing, the craft still survives. The following photos belong to a series I titled "Master Huang, the last of his kind". Certainly not entirely true, but who knows—maybe one day every Chongqingnese will become rich, including Master Huang and his wife.

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(To be continued)

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It turns out my report from Chong Qing is too long for a single newsletter, so stay tuned for the next episode. I hope you enjoyed reading it—see you at the next one!

Sincerely,

Zili

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