Larry Speck

Although 92% of China's population is the majority Han ethnicity there are a number of minority cultures that are often located in remote areas.  Some of these minority people live in beautiful Zhuang, Yao and Dong villages in the mountains of southern China where time seems to have stood still.  There are often no roads to these villages, and you must hike in an hour or more to get there.  The…

Taking a boat up the Li River from Yangshuo is like taking a big step back into time.  The villages have a slow, ancient way of life cross-bred with electronic media access and a reputation for beauty and authenticity that has brought the likes of Bill Clinton to visit.  There is some kind of compelling force that keeps people in these villages and loyal to a longstanding way of life.  It is hard…

We try so hard in American cities to get an active pedestrian street scene to happen.  In China, with a billion people and 17 million in Shanghai alone, there never seems to be an issue with action on the street day or night.  And, of course, where there are people around, cool things just seem to happen serendipitously.  On Nanjing Dong Lu in downtown Shanghai the mixture of aggressive…