Fear and Loathing in Shijiazhuang

Last week I wrote about the wonderful experience I had when I photographed neighbourhood mah-jong players. I was a bit afraid to approach them, after the experience I’d had when I went to photograph some of the few remaining traditional style houses in Shijiazhuang.

a motor cart driver who didn't mind having his photo taken

I was really excited to do so, as I’d thought that all of them had been torn down to make way for the ubiquitous apartment blocks of modern China. And I was probably just in time, the houses on one side of the street had already been knocked down.

i have no idea what this is, but it looked cool!

Now, a slight diversion. Even when I was just shopping or in the park, people would come up and ask to take photos with me. Normally, people were delighted, if amused, when I took their photograph, and likewise, when I was snapping something that was boringly normal to Chinese eyes but fascinating to mine, there might be laughs or looks of puzzlement from onlookers, but never anything unpleasant.

So, I spuddled off to the old house neighbourhood and started clicking away. Inevitably, I attracted attention, but by this point in my sojourn I was used to being stared at. I asked an elderly woman sitting in front of a house if I could take her photo, and was surprised by how aggressive and unfriendly her response was.

I moved along the street, pretending not to notice the small group of people that had gathered around the photophobic woman. I couldn’t, however, ignore the growing atmosphere of hostility.

the other side of the road

I’d often felt frustrated, sometimes even upset, by my everyday encounters, but this was one of the very few occasions where I felt threatened. It quickly got to the point where I felt seriously uncomfortable, and had to cut my expedition short.

I have no idea why the presence of myself and my camera aroused such animosity – the only reasons I can think of is that either I unluckily stumbled across a group of extreme xenophobes or perhaps they had been screwed over in some sort of property development deal and having a wealthy foreigner wandering around snapping their neighbourhood was salting the wound.