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Thomas Bird

My father, Bao Fengchi, was an educated man, who spoke English and wrote books on military strategy in his youth. He rose to become a senior officer in the Northeastern Army under the Fengtian clique, one of many opposing military factions in the warlord period.
In 1928, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek led the Northern Expedition and unified China under the Kuomintang. (The Old Marshal) Zhang Zuolin was killed on his way back to Manchuria and his son, (the Young Marshal) Zhang Xueliang, was made commander of the region.
My father was serving in Shenyang when, in 1931, the Japanese attacked. Zhang did not allow any resistance, letting the people retreat south instead.
That’s essentially how I came to be born a Beijinger of northeastern stock.

Early birds
I was born when my father was almost 50, in 1953. I was the fourth son in my family. Due to my father’s past he was deemed a counter-revolutionary and we grew up poor. I was raised in the hutongs with no material comforts, not even a ball to play with. One of my first memories is of seeing people killing sparrows (part of Mao Zedong’s Four Pests campaign in 1958).
Hong Kong domestic helpers invited to contribute photos for homage to them
My elder brother, Bao Chang, who’d joined the revolution when he was 16, helped exonerate us. He became a cadre after the Communist Party’s victory in 1949. Later, he became a professional writer and was able to support some of my living expenses.
He was knowledgeable, with a firm base in classical Chinese and helped shape my world view as both a lover of books, and something of a rebel.
Photo opportunity
I had read many Russian, French and Chinese classics such as Journey to the West before 1965. After the Cultural Revolution started, in 1966, social order began to fall apart. Many books were banned.

Beijing emptied of anyone older than me as students were all sent down to the countryside to learn from the masses. This led to a shortage of workers in the city so, in 1970, it was decided to start assigning people city jobs. After graduating middle school, I was the last of my school friends to be assigned. Some were sent to a brick factory.
I hoped to be a soldier, but I was sent to work at the Xidan Department Store, a huge commercial block established during the Republic of China that had become a state-owned enterprise in the 1950s.
After some months of training we were assigned a department. Some people went to textiles, others went to work in the canteen. I was sent to the old photo studio, which had been renamed the photo department. I worked there for nine years.

In the dark
The university entrance examination was brought back in 1977 and I started applying, even though I was already past the age when one would usually go to university and I’d missed out on many elements of a normal education.
I failed the first year. In 1978, I failed again. The next year was my last chance to get in, so a friend recommended I apply to Beijing Institute of Finance and Trade as economics was not a popular major back then. I aced the exam.
Within three months of my undergraduate year, a man from the academic affairs office came to me and asked if I’d worked in a photo studio before. As I had, he said the school needed to buy some photography equipment and asked me to help.
I got them the cameras they needed. But as nobody knew how to use them, whenever the school held a meeting, I took the pictures. This way, I got to spend all my spare time in the dark room.

Night and day
The 1980s in China were as different from the 1970s as night is from day. Bookshops filled up with translations of foreign books and people would line up outside. A cultural scene blossomed in Beijing and I made friends with most of the major artists, writers and musicians of the day.
I became a relatively influential photographer. The musician Hou Dejian came to mainland China from Taiwan. In 1984, he was preparing to release an album, New Shoes and Old Shoes. I shot the cover artwork and we became good friends.
I graduated in 1983 and started to teach aesthetics and photography at the University of Science and Technology Beijing. By the end of the decade, I was doing well enough to buy a car when most people just had a bicycle. I remember I’d paid the auto broker and had gone to pick it up from the warehouse in Tianjin Port when things came to a head in Tiananmen in 1989.

German detour
A lot of people started leaving China after that. Some feared the economy would falter. I wasn’t so concerned but decided to leave my job in 1990 and go to Germany, where I had friends.
It was refreshing living in Frankfurt, on the banks of the River Main. Germany made an impression as a developed society that balanced traditional and modern culture well. I even liked the food. I admired day-to-day politeness and how law abiding people were. I especially liked how often people read books in public.
My situation was not as desperate as many Chinese as I had some savings so I had time to enjoy myself. It was in March 1992, when I bought a copy of the European edition of Sing Tao Daily at Frankfurt railway station, that I decided to come home. The cover story concerned Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour. It was clear China wasn’t going to fall apart, and I returned in 1993.

All eyes on China
The 1990s was another miraculous decade in China. Nobody was thinking about politics, they were thinking about making money. As I’d left a prestigious state job I couldn’t return to it, so I ended up working in advertising for a few years.
After China joined the WTO in 2001, the world started to take an interest in what was happening and photography offered an eye into China. I moved into media, working for a time on a photography segment for China Central Television.
The first official photography festival in China, Pingyao International Photography Festival, was also held in 2001. I went to the third session as a member of the media. In 2005, I was invited back as a special guest.

Putting photography on the map
Since the early 2000s, I’ve been able to dedicate myself to the Chinese photography world full time. In 2004, I served as chief curator at Wuyishan International Photography Week and, in 2005, I curated the Guilin International Photography Festival. Since 2006, I’ve been involved in the Lianzhou Foto festival, in Guangdong province, often participating in the planning and selection stages.
In 2009, some people from a small city in Zhejiang province asked me to help them transform a local photography event into an international photography festival. Over the past decade, we’ve successfully put the biennial Lishui Photography Festival on the global art map.

Plastic China
I’ve had the chance to mentor some fine artists over the years including Dai Xiang, Ouyang Xingkai, Li Kejun and Qian Haifeng. The most important of my “discoveries” was Wang Jiuliang, who was still a student at Communication University of China in Beijing when I met him, in 2006.
I helped him complete several works, the most important of which were Beijing Besieged by Waste (2011) and Plastic China (2016). The former is a photographic series of the rubbish dumps in Beijing. It was exhibited at Lianzhou and won the grand prize. It attracted the attention of Premier Wen Jiabao, who promoted a nationwide emphasis on rubbish disposal.
In 2016, Wang’s documentary film Plastic China won an award at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, and also attracted huge attention in China, and influenced the decision to stop processing foreign garbage waste after more than 30 years.

Mind the gap
I think of reading as a kind of kung fu, a form of self-discipline, a practice to master. I began writing in the 1980s. The impetus came from the gap I perceived in quality between Chinese photography and international photography. I hoped to improve the scene through criticism.
I edited Photographing China – Highlights of 50 Years of Chinese Photography in 2006, published the anthology Time of Restlessness in 2008, and the anthology Watching and Rewatching – Contemporary Image Culture in 2009. The most important of these is the last one, which is basically my perspective on the historical, social and cultural role of photography as a medium. It has been quite influential in China.
‘Heartbreaking’: dog’s death the spur for photographer’s pet portraits
Photographic memories
I’ve been lucky. I will be 70 years old in 2023, I’m happily married and both my children are studying and working in the US. When I was born, China was an agricultural country. The home where I lived was only about 800 metres from the ancient city walls, and the countryside was not far from the wall. The transformation of China in my lifetime has been too fast and many problems stem from this, including widespread injustice.
The rise of Chinese contemporary photography has coincided with the rise of China. There have been many excellent photographers who’ve managed to reflect this era in their own, distinctive way, including Li Xiaobin, Jin Bohong, Ren Shulin, An Ge, Hu Wugong, Hou Dengke, Wang Qingsong, Liu Zheng and Wang Jiuliang.
The world’s curiosity about China has aided this growth, but also commercialised it, as some Chinese photographers have pandered to Western tastes. Nowadays, the ubiquity of smartphones highlights photography’s role as the “second language” of human speech and memory.
Yet, as a medium for exploring and questioning trends, photography will continue to have a special part to play in the years ahead, which is what I will dedicate my attention to moving forward.


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Photography

From a youth in the Cultural Revolution to a photographer and critic, one of the best known in China: the life of Bao Kun

Bao Kun is one of mainland China’s most prominent contemporary photography critics. He talks about growing up during the Cultural Revolution in Beijing 
Photo: Liao Pan

Bao Kun in a classroom in Beijing Fengfeng Middle School in 1969. Photo: Bao Kun

Bao Kun (second right) at the Pingyao Photography Festival in 2007. Photo: Bao Kun

Bao Kun in 1978 around the time he was applying for university entrance. Photo: Bao Kun

Bao Kun (second right) with Student Union members at the Beijing Institute of Finance and Trade in 1981. Photo: Bao Kun

In 1989, after the artist Xiao Lu suddenly pulled out a gun and fired shots at her own work at a modern art exhibition, the special police came to the National Art Museum of China. Bao Kun was at the scene. Photo: Bao Kun

Bao Kun (left) during the selection process for the China Photography Awards in 2007. Photo: Bao Kun

Bao Kun (left) at the opening ceremony of the Lianzhou Photography Festival in 2009. Photo: Bao Kun

Bao Kun gives a speech in Foshan, China in 2010. Photo: Bao Kun

Bao Kun (centre) at the Daegu Biennale Portfolio in Korea in 2014. Photo: Bao Kun

Houdini called him a ‘super magician’ and an American pretended to be Chinese to copy his act. Who was Ching Ling Foo?

Ching Ling Foo (left) with American fellow magician Nicola around 1925. Foo took America by storm at the turn of the 20th century and became one of the highest paid entertainers in the country. Photo: Getty Images

Born Zhu Liankui, Ching pursued a passion for illusion ignited by the street-corner performers and card sharps of his childhood. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

Some nights, audiences were stunned when Foo, using a sword or an axe, would behead an assistant. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

An illustration of Foo performing the “sparrow rebirth” Illusion in the 1890s. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

An illustration of Foo in Omaha meeting Leon Herrmann and Adelaide Herrmann and their then assistant William Robinson, who would go on to imitate Foo’s tricks as Chung Ling Soo. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

An illustration of a crowd gathering to see Foo perform at the World’s Fair in Omaha in 1898. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

An illustration of Foo visiting Otto Maurer’s New York magic shop in 1899. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

An illustration of a billboard advertising performances by Ching Ling Foo during his second stint in the United States. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

An illustration of Ching Ling Foo and his troupe in the railway carriage in which they travelled on their second US tour. Illustration: Samuel D Porteous

Who is Tia Ray? Meet the Chinese singer with one of the bestselling singles in the world

Tia Ray, a 37-year-old singer, has weathered many storms to get to where she is. Photo: Tia Ray

Tia garnered mainstream attention from her appearance on The Voice of China in 2012. Photo: Tia Ray

Tia with her Tha KnutZ bandmates in 2011. Photo: Tha KnutZ

Tia performing at the showcase for her chart-topping album. Photo: Tia Ray

Tia is leading the emergence of contemporary R&B in China. Photo: Tia Ray

Tia winning most popular female singer at last year’s Top Chinese Songs awards. Photo: China Media Group

Tia has segued from indie lounge singer to stadium sensation, epitomising China’s diversifying taste in music and the global potential for its artists. Photo: Tia Ray

Tia had her start with Tha KnutZ, a neo-soul/hip hop band she formed with musicians in Beijing. Photo: Tia Ray 

Tia in the studio. Photo: Tia Ray

Tia was first heard outside China when she released Be Apart, which became the seventh bestselling single in the world in 2018. Photo: Tia Ray

Tia says China’s musical landscape has grown from one dominated by pop ballads and traditional folk songs to one that is open to experimentation. Photo: Tia Ray

‘Freedom swimmers’ from China to Hong Kong who braved deadly waters, and police officers assigned to catch and return them, recall dark days

Three illegal immigrants stare at their captors moments after a Marine Police patrol spotted them in Deep Bay, November 11, 1979. Their raft is made of inflatable plastic cushions swen together and covered with plastic bags. 11NOV79 SCMP/ C. Y. Yu

Three “freedom swimmers” from mainland China stare at their captors moments after a marine police patrol spots them in Deep Bay, Hong Kong, on November 11, 1979. Their raft is made of inflatable plastic cushions sewn together and covered with plastic bags.  Photo: C. Y. Yu

Four “freedom swimmers” arrive in Deep Bay, Hong Kong, in November 1979. Photo: C.Y. Yu

“Freedom swimmer” Lee Yat-keung. Photo: SCMP

Tyre tubes and plastic floats left behind by “freedom swimmers” entering Hong Kong from China at Lau Fau Shan in June 1979. Photo: Sunny Lee

Four young “freedom swimmers” on the Hong Kong shore in May 1971. Photo: SCMP

Four “freedom swimmers” from China are led away by police for questioning at Tai Po Kau in May 1971. Photo: Chu Ming-hoi

Les Bird (forefront), with a boatload of illegal immigrants, in Deep Bay in the 1980s. Photo: Courtesy of Les Bird

Ken Cheng Wai-kwan, pictured in Lau Fau Shan, remembers his father feeding illegal immigrants. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Royal Hong Kong Regiment soldiers on the lookout for illegal immigrants at Nimwan in Lau Fau Shan in May 1979. Photo: Sam Chan

Marine police officers in a speedboat pick up a “freedom swimmer” in December 1979.

Philip Li, a former marine police sergeant, and currently chairman and chief instructor of the Hong Kong Ship Art Club, on the To Kwa Wan waterfront. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Two “freedom swimmers” are captured from the waters of Hong Kong in June 1979. Photo: Sunny Lee

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The son of a former Nationalist military officer, Bao Kun was sent to work in the photo section of a Beijing department store, where he spent nine years
Bao became a photographer, shooting the album cover for a famous musician, then a curator, critic and mentor to young photographers, he tells Thomas Bird


Mainland China’s most prominent contemporary photography critic tells Thomas Bird about growing up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution and coming of age in the reform era.


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Profile | From a youth in the Cultural Revolution to a photographer and critic, one of the best known in China: the life of Bao Kun

Early birds