Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • People enjoying drinks and conversation at a bar.
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  • People shopping at a mall with cheap goods.
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  • Restored Colonial colonnades edge Lima's Plaza de Armas, bringing many people into the streets of Peru's capital city. The era when the City of Kings was founded by conquistador Francisco Pizarro in 1535, established it as the showplace of Spanish South America.
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  • A water taxi ferries people to and from the airport on an island.
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  • Residents of a remote village  in Kamchatka rush to meet the supply helicopter. Original inhabitants Khailino are indigenous. Dogs run wild in the street and locals on board a motorcycle race to try to get a woman on board to be taken where she can get medical attention. <br />
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In Northern Kamchatka, indigenous Koryak people and Russians came for “Northern money” when the Soviet Union wanted to tame the area. Income paid was eight times more than a similar job in Moscow, so some people figured out how to get all the necessary permits to work. When default happened, no one in the remote outposts received salaries.  People made a living from salmon caviar and created fishing brigades with distribution systems. Living in a very small community of 700 residents, and the temperatures drop to –40° in the winter, everyone works hard to merely survive and are kind to each other.
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  • A bride and groom prepare to take their wedding vows at the Khailino town hall.  The groom wiped sweat off his face just before the “I do” moment.  The group in the background is getting ready to record their footprints as a married couple for posterity in a Russian tradition.
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  • China (Guangzhou) International Automobile Exhibition that began in 2003 is one of the largest international auto shows in China. This event has an exhibition ground measuring 85,000 square meters and it filled eight exhibition halls. Over 370 exhibitors from 20 other countries and regions, took part in this exhibition, which was covered by more than 1,600 news reporters representing upwards of 510 TV and radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and online media at home and abroad. 120,000 people attended.
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  • Guangzhou has huge live reef fish restaurants that have 3 or 400 chinese chefs and live crocodiles on the floor of the mall-like area outside the restaurant. The crocs mouths were taped shut, and they would be meals soon, but people would be walking along, talking on their cell phones, not paying attention and trip over live, hissing, charging crocodiles.
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  • The Yumin Restaurant in Guangzhou is a huge, live reef fish restaurant employing 400 Chinese chefs that has live crocodiles on the floor of the mall-like area. The crocs’ mouths are taped shut, and they will be meals soon, but people just walk by, talking on their cell phones, not paying attention and tripping over live, hissing, charging crocodiles. The pricey, exotic meat—steamed, braised, or stewed—is believed to cure cough and prevent cancer. “People don’t care about the cost,” says manager Wang Jianfei, “they just care about health.”
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  • Dressed up in a suit and bow tie, a young boy patiently waits for cake to be offered while attending a wedding reception in the restored Colonial colonnades edge of Lima's Plaza de Armas.  Well dressed guests mingle at the party towering over the youth.
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  • Models walk down a runway and across stage lights for a high fashion bridal show featuring designer gowns. The cosmopolitan city of Monterrey is modern and industrial attracting young people with money to spend.
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  • Southern Metropolitan News surveys since 1989 cite Guangzhou residents as saying that “love” comes after “money” on the value ladder. In 2008 “love” slipped even lower for most people, according to a survey by the Guangzhou Social Trend and Public Opinion Study Center. The center has conducted a survey each year since 1990. Another finding of the survey is that money has universally meant more than love in the eyes of women in Guangzhou for all years the survey has been given.
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  • The grooms antics amuse the bride during a wedding reception in Khailino in Kamchatka, Russia. It is important to note that some of the theater of this wedding happened because it is Russian tradition. The community has endured great hardship and a people who have adjusted to being really kind to each other to all survive together.
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  • A diner watches people cross El Zócalo, Mexico City's grandiose main square, from the elegant Gran Hotel's rooftop restaurant. Built atop ruins of the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, the zócalo is now surrounded by sprawling Spanish colonial architecture, the most prominent being the Metropolitan Cathedral.
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  • The dancers, wait staff, and performers are all migrant workers from Xinjiang Province in Northwest China. Migrant workers in China are mostly people from impoverished regions who go to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. According to Chinese government statistics, the current number of migrant workers in China is estimated at 120 million (approximately 9% of the population). China has been experiencing the largest mass migration in history. An estimated 230 million Chinese (2010), roughly two-thirds the population of the U.S., have left the countryside and migrated to the cities in recent years. About 13 million more join them every year—an expected 250 million by 2012, and 300 to perhaps 400 million by 2025. Many are farmers and farm workers made obsolete by modern farming practices and factory workers who have been laid off from inefficient state-run factories.
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  • The dancers, wait staff, and performers are all migrant workers from Xinjiang Province in Northwest China. Migrant workers in China are mostly people from impoverished regions who go to more urban and prosperous coastal regions in search of work. According to Chinese government statistics, the current number of migrant workers in China is estimated at 120 million (approximately 9% of the population). China has been experiencing the largest mass migration in history. An estimated 230 million Chinese (2010), roughly equivalent to two-thirds the population of the U.S., have left the countryside and migrated to the cities in recent years. About 13 million more join them every year—and 500 to perhaps 800 million by 2025. Many are farmers and farm workers made obsolete by modern farming practices and factory workers who have been laid off from inefficient state-run factories.
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  • Hauling in salmon from their boats at a fishing camp, coastal people called Nymylan are village dwellers and hang the catch to dry on racks for winter.
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  • Women dance in a Petropavlovsk nightclub, Nebo Night Club. This club is possible in Yelizovo because the owner owns a fish processing plant and enjoys having his own club where young people like to congregate.
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  • Gold mining near the town of Quarantesept in northeastern Congo. Hundreds of people from Congo and Uganda come to work at the mines.<br />
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Villagers in the war-weary Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo scrape for gold in a shaft dug decades ago by a Belgian company. Until recently, armed groups controlled Ituri’s rich mines, using gold to buy weapons.
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  • Aerial photo shows rows of identical houses in Huaxi Village (Farmer’s Village). It is emblematic of the beginning of the massive urbanization of China and of the largest human migration in history from the rural areas of China into the cities. In 2008, these  workers villas in wealthy Huaxi village included some of the industries in the background. Villagers didn't migrate because they changed their model rural farm into a modern industrial city. <br />
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This co-op has been a model farm for 45 years. They were capitalists before it was legal in China. They started factories, but worked in them with no windows in secret. When government officials came to inspect, they sent all the workers out to the fields and disguised the factories. Huaxi became the first and most successful capitalist exploitation of the collective. This model farm became so successful they started selling shares in the 60's. They sold the shares "underground" The residents now buy shares or work for shares to purchase these homes.  When shares were first offered, they went for 2000RMB, now they go for 30,000 RMB. In 2008, 30,000 officials visited this place to see how it runs effectively. There are not many model farms left in China, and none with this wealth. The model farm runs about 80 factories and In 2008, Huaxi was held up by the government as the most successful transition from farmer to the socialist/capitalist world. But more recently, in the face of economic pressures, Huaxi Village has gone bankrupt.
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  • A wedding photo on a bridge with the Pudong skyline in the background.
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  • A BBoy dance group shows the influence of their indigenous background through colorful knitted masks. The Ecuadorian teens work out dance moves and perform on the streets in Quito.
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  • At the A Fun Ti Carnival Restaurant, ethnic dancers, wait staff, performers are all from Xinjiang Province in North West China.
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  • Pople walk by homes that line the unpaved road in a gold mining town in northeastern Congo.
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  • The government has made clear that it will do whatever it takes to keep the swelling middle class happy. Like anyone else, their experiences and those of their families shape members of the comfort class. When their parents talk about the Great Leap Forward (the disastrous Mao campaign in the late 1950s that left 20 to 30 million dead of starvation) and the subsequent chaos of the Cultural Revolution, they mostly tell horror stories that would put anyone off politics forever. One event that the comfort class does remember is the crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989. But to young Chinese, the Tiananmen protests are less a source of inspiration than an admonishment. Continued popular uprisings like Tiananmen, they believe, would have have provoked a counter reaction by conservative forces that would have led to a return to fortress China, meaning no more iPods, overseas shopping trips or snowboarding weekends.
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  • A pedestrian shopping area in downtown Guangzhou at night.
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  • A pedestrian shopping area in downtown Guangzhou at night.
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  • A personal trainer helps a client at the Ozone Fitness Club.
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  • Parents finding a match for their daughter on a singles board.
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  • A teenage girl shopping for lemons and limes with her parents.
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  • A teenage schoolgirl sits in a car reading a comic book.
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  • Models at the 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition.
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  • Models sleep before appearing at a fashion show at a bar venue.
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  • Photographers and a model at an automobile exhibition.
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  • A young woman in the food court of a shopping mall.
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  • Replica of the Great Wall at Huaxi, a model of rural development.
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  • A board where singles post their information to find a partner.
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  • Elysee Yang, owner and designer of Zemo Elysee with a male model.
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  • A personal trainer helps a client at the Ozone Fitness Club.
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  • Workers preparing for a festival take a break.
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  • Commuters in a crowded subway car.
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  • A groom signs a wall with a kiss at the Rose Wedding Festival.
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  • A teenage schoolgirl sits in a car.
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  • Commuters in a subway car.
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  • Shopping for vegetables at a market.
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  • A model and a person in Cultural Revolution costumes at a car show.
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  • Suri women with lip plates.
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  • Banna males prepare for a bull jumping initiation ritual.
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  • Banna males prepare for a bull jumping initiation ritual.
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  • Banna males prepare for a bull jumping initiation ritual and participants are photographed by tourists.
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  • Suri women with lip plates.
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  • Children in the rural countryside outside of Harappa.
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  • A pump channels water from the Omo River.
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  • A mass wedding at the Great Wall of China.
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  • Rose Wedding Festival couples in a motorcade to Century Park.
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  • A young woman with a camera in a pedestrian shopping area.
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  • A model at the 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition.
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  • Drinks at a bar.
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  • A young woman with a camera inside a shopping mall.
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  • A small boy in typical infant split pants urinates from a woman's lap.
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  • The reflection of a woman putting on makeup before a cultural show.
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  • A young woman talking on a cell phone.
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  • A model having her hair done before a fashion show.
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  • A woman with a red flag is hoisted above a crowd at the Midi Festival.
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  • A bride checks out a dining room for her reception.
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  • This is an over the top spa, massage parlor, and hotel in the Suzhou Creek area of Shanghai. Guys walk from the men’s locker room through an aquarium tunnel filled with endangered species to the bath area. From there they can turn left and play ping pong or watch a movie with their family in their bathrobes, or they can turn right and meet their mistresses in a discreet room.
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  • A construction site near Raffles City.
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  • Salsa dancing class.
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  • A photographer takes images of an Indian festival, Vaisakhi, in Barcelona's Rambla de Catalunya area.
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  • Commuters in a subway car.
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  • A model at the 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition.
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  • A model at the 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition.
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  • New products bombard Chinese consumers daily. Just keeping up with the new air freshener and portable camera . . . and . . . and . . . and . . . can be overwhelming.
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  • A photographer on assignment on a crowded train in Mumbai.
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  • A Suri woman with a lip plate.
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  • Arriving for the camel contest in cars, trucks and by camel.
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  • A woman with a nail piercing the area under her lower lip.
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  • A Kara woman prepares food near Lake Diba.
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  • A Banna male becomes a man during a cattle jumping initiation ritual.
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  • A young woman shops at the Carrefours Department Store.
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  • A young woman looking at her cell phone at the Baby Face Club.
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  • A young woman with a latte at Starbucks.
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  • A young woman sits on a barstool in a crowded bar.
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  • A young woman eating Wonton soup.
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  • A young woman shops for shoes.
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  • A young woman shops for shoes.
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  • A woman with a huge mohawk on a cell phone at the Midi Music Festival.
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  • At eyou.com they have a climbing wall and the CEO’s computer (that was used to found the company) is embedded partially into the wall of the conference room. These employees work in a faux-silicon-valley atmosphere. Eyou wants to bring Facebook to China, which brings up some serious issues. Facebook is based on knowing and trusting your community of friends. But many Chinese only feel comfortable using pseudonyms and eyou forces them to be who they are when they talk about issues with their parents, girlfriends or boyfriends.
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  • A dragon dance for promotional purposes on East Nanjing Road.
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  • Office workers at computers.
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  • A drunken woman showing her emotions.
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  • Cosmetics at a shopping mall in the western part of Shanghai.
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  • The IKEA store in Shanghai, China is packed daily, but Sundays are particularly crowded. Sometimes one can’t maneuver through the aisles.
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  • Televisions for sale at the Carrefours department store.
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  • A man tries out a chair at a Sam's Club store in China. The first Wal-Mart in China is in Shenzhen, the city where Deng made his famous “to be rich is glorious” speech. This store sells all that a family needs or wants. The cosmetics area is much more plush than any Wal-Mart in the U.S. Women who work in offices will have a cheaper brand of lipstick in their homes, but carry a nice brand in their purse so they can be seen using it in public. The signs that hang overhead in this store proudly announce, “Made in China.” This is very different than the best store I could find in China 17 years ago. The best store then was a government “Friendship Store” that had a photo of a female employee on the wall with a sign underneath, “Worst Employee of the Month.” The only way you could motivate workers at that time was to shame them. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, beauty in China is seen as utilitarian. Cosmetics for instance are a major business in China and women in the China Middle see this as an important part of their lifestyle. Wal-Mart aims for the Comfort Class consumer earning between $5,000 and $20,000 a year.
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  • Tourists at the Window of the World amusement park in Shenzhen.
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  • At the Mission Hills Golf Club, the largest in the world.
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  • At the 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition.
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  • The 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition.
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  • The 3rd China International Automobile Exhibition.
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