
No matter where we go, how far we travel, there will always be a tug to go back home, to a place where we can close our door to the world and be safely alone for a moment, a place where we can hang our laundry to dry.
I like to think that there are special angels assigned for each child that is born to this planet, to guide them, watch over them and shower them with buckets full of joy when life get rough…
Glowing smiles, shiny eyes, boundless energy, these things are not what I expected to see in the children of a war ravaged country like Congo. But children are just incredible, aren’t they? They seem to be plugged into an entirely different power source to to the one we are connected to as adults. They never seem to tire, they can run for hours, the can laugh madly about the silliest things, they can jump, sing and react with no inhibition in a safe circumstance and yes, they are like that even in Congo.
I used to live in New York City and always thought: too many people, too little space, overcrowded, claustrophobic. And then I moved to China.
It is quite difficult to describe in words and even in photos the amount of space people have to fit their lives inside of in a city like Shanghai. It is even more difficult to perceive if you have lived part of your life in a western standard home with a garden and space. I have seen some homes in city lanes, where a whole family lives in one small room with barely any room to move. Sinks and bathrooms are shared outdoors and naturally laundry is hanging in any space that is left over in the lane, on trees, on fences, electric wires, and on light poles of street intersections. Yes, overpopulated for sure…
Almost 1.4 billion humans live in China. This is almost 20% of the whole world population. It baffles the mind to think of it. I come from a tiny country of 4 million so these numbers take a lot of getting used to. There is so little space allotted to the majority of Shanghai’s 18 million residents, that they find themselves needing to extend their space to the street. Washed laundry hangs on pavements all across the city streets, so do lounge chairs and dinner tables in the summer time. This makes street photography such a fantastic exercise in this amazing city where the unusual abounds.