Shanghai Woman

In the summer of 2007, my family and I spend an extended period in China, based in Shanghai. Our stay was an extraordinary experience and China is an extraordinary country. We gained many fond memories and friends.

China truly is an incredible country and many of its places, people, sites, beauty, smells and sorrows will remain burned into my heart and mind. This photograph is one of those memories I will never forgot.

I took this image while walking with my family on a pleasant Sunday afternoon on the "The Bund". The Bund is a very westernized part of Shanghai along the Huangpu River with high-end retail stores and expensive, exquisite restaurants. As you walk Shanghai, you are certain to see great wealth, grand architecture, crowds of tourists, and, unfortunately, poverty to levels in which we are not accustomed to in many parts of the Western world.

This woman was asleep on the steps in the heart of The Bund. I captured the image without her knowledge, otherwise, I could have expected strong objection on her part. This image represents to me the dichotomy of Shanghai and China. On the one hand, you have a very wealthy class of people with an economy growing at a unprecedented pace. On the other hand, the image is a stark reminder the country is largely void of a prosperous middle class and exhibits extreme poverty.

It would not be uncommon to see sites as this woman about Shanghai. In fact, often the sights were far worse. There were numerous occasions where we would see an full amputee, no arms or legs, placed on a old piece of cardboard laying on a hot sidewalk in ninety plus temperatures from morning to night begging for money. These sites broke my heart and I just could not bring myself to even take a photograph of such things.

Economic times are tough and these are unprecedented times for us in the West. Many are suffering. You may be one of them. Yet, despite these times we still live in a society of great hope for the future and prosperity.

I need to remind myself that while times are hard, I have a lot to be thankful for.

How about you?

Cheers,
Dale