by photographer Mark Leong
2002 FiftyCrows PhotoFund Winner

Since I first came to China in 1989, the country has undergone rapid economic and cultural transformation, and nowhere is this more apparent than among its urban youth. Unbridled capitalism and the loosening of social strictures have freed them to choose their own futures. But lacking the lifelong “iron rice bowl” security that their parents enjoyed under Maoism, they are floating, wondering where to go.

This project documents subcultures that have emerged as these young people try to define themselves in the uncertain, market-driven world of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” In 1995, I began focusing my photography on underground urban youth culture in China, taking pictures of individuals such as punk rockers and computer hackers. I am interested in the underground because that is where change happens. The majority of China’s urban young people will graduate from school, get 9-to-5 jobs, have one child, and spend much of their spare time watching television. But it is on the periphery of society where the youth are free to invent themselves, and in doing so, have the potential to alter and expand the flow of the mainstream. In these individuals I see hope, risk, creativity, willfulness, joy, fear, resourcefulness, anger, confidence, desire, and desperation. But always, there is the sense of moving towards the unknown.