Chairman Mao's Underground City is a pictorial travelogue of a small part of the tunnels that Chairman Mao had built under Beijing to serve as a nuclear fallout shelter. The intrepid urban explorers come across some surprising things. The complex, which was built by hand, could house three hundred thousand people for up to four months and had amenities such as restaurants, cinemas and roller rinks. Here's a short Travel Channel feature on the Underground City.
posted by Kattullus on Nov 29, 2009 - 38 comments

Guy takes a picture of himself every day... as he walks across China. (slyt)
posted by shii on Aug 1, 2009 - 39 comments

Think traveling over the Yuletide season was bad? We're coming hard upon Chunyun, the Chinese "spring migration" when families reunite for the New Year. Enduring largest human migration in the world is a harrowing experience. One railway company has new ticketing strategies, which could turn tickets into collector's items.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Jan 14, 2009 - 8 comments

Fueled by Rice - Five recent grads from the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's Unviersity recently set off from Beijing to bike across Asia and Europe. The goal of their bike trip is to spread international good will on the local level and advocate reducing carbon emissions and living slower-paced, more enjoyable lives. Along the way they will bike through rural areas and play music in villages. As they travel, the group is posting photos, a blog, and will attempt to get a podcast up and running. They've even got the site up in Chinese, though the site seems to be blocked for most folks in China.
posted by pithy comment on Sep 17, 2007 - 11 comments

Wutaishan: Pilgrimage to Five Peak Mountain.
posted by homunculus on Aug 22, 2007 - 4 comments

Chinese On The Train Wang Fuchun's exhibition at the 798 Photo Gallery. Some good stuff in their archives too.
posted by Abiezer on Dec 31, 2006 - 4 comments

China Pictures is a free picture site featuring [thousands of ] pictures throughout China, including pictures of China's major cities and tourist attractions as well as pictures of Chinese people and their daily life. You will find not only pictures of the famous Great Wall of China, the forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors, but also pictures from the unbeaten path as far as Guizhou, Xinjiang, Tibet and other places.
posted by Postroad on Feb 25, 2006 - 7 comments

A Tale of Two Chinas, by photographer James Whitlow Delano. Whole swaths of cities have vanished, to be transformed with developments that have quickly made them look more like Houston, Qatar, or Singapore than the ancient China of our mind's eye. The old hutong, or alleyways, of Beijing that once formed a mosaic of passageways and the siheyuan, or walled courtyard houses, have been largely razed. The old brick rowhouses of Shanghai, are now being leveled and replaced by modern high-rises. Traditional marketplaces, residential neighborhoods, streets where medicine shops or bookstores bunched together, are now either gone or have been rouged up as tourist destinations, part of a new synthetic, virtual version of China's incredible past. The energy fueling this transformation bespeaks a powerful but often blind, unquestioning faith in an inchoate idea of progress that takes one's breath away, often literally. (Unrestrained growth has left China with the dubious honor of having 9 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world). Delano's new book is "Empire: Impressions from China". More inside.
posted by matteo on Feb 17, 2005 - 23 comments

Comparison of life in Piscataway, New Jersey; Kochi, Japan; and Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, China by Ernie French.
posted by tranquileye on Sep 8, 2004 - 11 comments

The Beijing Guide.
posted by hama7 on Jul 3, 2004 - 5 comments

Now here's a business plan... give me some money, and I'll do some traveling and tell you all about it. Gimme a little more, and I'll even send you something back.
posted by COBRA! on May 29, 2003 - 3 comments

China bans Muslims from flights. Don't like America's solution for airline safety? Try this. I wonder if this policy is temporary, and timed for President Bush's imminent visit to the region, or is this China's long-term solution? How will America respond - condemnation or tacit acceptance? Does it actually make Bush's trip safer?
posted by conquistador on Oct 17, 2001 - 13 comments