https://www.scmp.com/rss/266866/feed Hong Kong-born writer and photographer Justin travels the world capturing personal stories for the South China Morning Post, National Geographic and others. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Justin Jin Justin Jin Deep in the Jingmai Mountain forests, in China’s Yunnan province, clouds of steam rise from a huge wok in which Yu Jing is roasting tea leaves. That morning, she had climbed high into a tree, pinched off some large leaves then, back on the ground, spread them on a reed mat to lose moisture and wither. Now, as Yu roasts the tea leaves, the nutty aroma fills her home, becoming more intense as the tea warms. Yu gently lifts a tuft of emerald green leaves from the wok with gloved hands. Her young... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3325175/how-stewards-yunnans-ancient-puer-tea-trees-are-keeping-tradition-alive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/culture/article/3325175/how-stewards-yunnans-ancient-puer-tea-trees-are-keeping-tradition-alive?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Sep 2025 03:15:14 +0000 Storm clouds gathered overhead as Angel Chang arrived. Cooks were slaughtering a chicken when a sudden blackout enshrouded the guest house in darkness. From the kitchen, the crescendo of wind and rain met with the unsettling sounds of the screeching bird. “I was in a horror film,” Chang, a vegetarian, says. In that shadowed hall, the silhouette of the young fashion designer from New York could be seen hunched over an iPhone, a beacon connecting her from the rural idyll of Dimen in China to the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3247293/how-us-fashion-designer-teamed-chinese-ethnic-minorities-recreate-their-traditional-clothing?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3247293/how-us-fashion-designer-teamed-chinese-ethnic-minorities-recreate-their-traditional-clothing?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Jan 2024 05:15:09 +0000 Justin Jin Justin Jin When my brother and his wife had their first child recently in Shanghai, they checked into a post-partum centre, where a team of doctors, nutritionists, physical therapists and nurses help mothers recover and babies grow. It felt reassuring, like a medical institution, he said, but with everything else you might fancy, such as a baby swimming pool, delicious meals, a massage room and a spa. What it does not have is a place for meddling grannies, whom the centre promises to keep at bay. I... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3237044/children-no-thanks-its-too-expensive-china-pets-and-partying-are-future-say-millennials-and-beyond?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3237044/children-no-thanks-its-too-expensive-china-pets-and-partying-are-future-say-millennials-and-beyond?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Oct 2023 00:15:10 +0000 It’s November 2020 and my phone rings in Brussels. It’s my brother in Shanghai. He’s calling to tell me our father has cancer and I need to get there quickly to help make medical decisions. But the world is engulfed by a pandemic, and I’m sitting in a contaminated continent that tops China’s unwanted list. To get on one of the few exorbitantly priced flights, I have to pass two Covid-19 tests. One will draw a sample from my nose and the other from my blood, with both needed to be taken within 48... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3117363/my-trip-through-chinas-extreme-covid-19-quarantine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3117363/my-trip-through-chinas-extreme-covid-19-quarantine?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Jan 2021 18:30:14 +0000 As the story goes, a lonely Chinese princess was to be married to a man with whom she was not in love. On refusing, her father pushed her into the Yangtze River, where she drowned. The waters, however, took pity on Princess Baiji and reincarnated her as a dolphin, and for millennia, the so-called Goddess of the Yangtze pulsed her slender body through the river’s currents. Over the past four decades, however, the goddess was again betrayed. As China crested an eco­nomic wave, the baiji, or “white... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3083297/if-chinas-finless-porpoise-doomed-so-mighty?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3083297/if-chinas-finless-porpoise-doomed-so-mighty?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 May 2020 06:00:17 +0000 In the world’s most crowded social media galaxy, where internet stars burn out as fast as they form, Nai Nai was on her way to stardom. A slender migrant relatively new to Shanghai, Nai Nai was a live-streamer. In simpler times, before the coronavirus, she constantly walked around China’s most glamorous city with a mobile phone on a selfie stick, broadcasting to a country that led the world in real-time content. But a cascade of mishaps and heartbreak forced her to give up live streaming, just... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3079244/when-rising-star-chinas-live-streamers-fell-love?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3079244/when-rising-star-chinas-live-streamers-fell-love?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Apr 2020 06:00:16 +0000 For generations, Li Rui's family picked vegetables on his family's plot in Liaocheng, Shandong province. When I met him in 2013, the 60-year-old farmer was returning to the same land to harvest scrap metal. He bent down to pocket bits of twisted wire, screws and whatever else he could sell for a few fen a kilo. The land, appropriated by government authorities to make way for a phalanx of condominiums, yielded construction waste instead of food. Without a skill, Li had become one of millions of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1934172/photographs-human-impacts-chinas-new-urbanisation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1934172/photographs-human-impacts-chinas-new-urbanisation?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 08 Apr 2016 08:00:30 +0000 The old iron key turns on the third attempt and 50-year-old Wu Yuemeng pushes the door open with her knee. She motions her daughter into a seldom-used upstairs bedroom that is dominated by a dusty, century-old wooden loom and a metal-banded chest. Wu reaches into the chest and takes out treasures, as her daughter - the cheerful 19-year-old Xia - looks on. She pulls out hand-woven shoes, finely embroidered silk ribbons and fabrics dyed with intriguing patterns - all of which are ethnic Dong... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1421916/stitch-time-years-toil-pay-daughters-special-day?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1421916/stitch-time-years-toil-pay-daughters-special-day?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Feb 2014 14:45:30 +0000 Inside the claustrophobic confines of a shipping container erected in the middle of an icy nowhere, a group of Russians wait out another Arctic storm. Anton bakes blinis. Andrei watches a horror movie for the umpteenth time. Alexei tries to craft a toothpaste holder from an empty tin can. Lisa the dog, who finds company among the 100 men in Camp No2, curls up farthest away from the drafty door. The engineers gathered on this desolate patch of Russian tundra have been hired by a geo-exploration... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1201736/northern-exposure?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1201736/northern-exposure?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000