The story from the largely Turkish speaking, Muslim dominated, historically Central Asian, and extremely tense province of Xinjiang started off the series on July 27, 2008. The story came to dominate the cover of the newspaper with photo and headline and then ran across five pages.
The second part of the series from July 29, 2008, covered drought in Inner Mongolia. The story from July 31 was about North Korea border tourism and Korean influence. The last part from August 2 about HIV-AIDS blamed on ethnic minorities close to Burma.
Short project description
“Beyond the Great Wall” was a series of reportage for leading Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet to cover the borders of China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
The assignment included travels to the Chinese border regions towards North Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan and Burma and reportage on four very different faces of China. The perception of China ranged from a beacon freedom to North Korean refugees into a symbol of fear in oppressed Xinjiang province. China seemed to manifest its diversity way stronger at its borders than at its core.
Borders explored
China-North Korea,
China-Mongolia,
China-Pakistan,
China-Burma
Method
Traditional journalism
Purpose
Provide different and unexpected views of China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games
Audience
The general mainstream audience of newspaper Svenska Dagbladet
Project Period
Start: Planning started in March 2008
Last activity: The last of four stories was published on August 2, 2008
Locations
Borders of China
Project led to
One of the conceptual starting points of Bordr
Inspired by
The basic idea was to travel as far away from Beijing as practically possible – and still be in China. This took the project to the borders of the country, and they turned out far more interesting than expected..
Difficulties
Political tension, particularly in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, where political control is extremely strict. Also, a major earthquake struck the province of Sichuan shortly before the trip, killing more than 80.000 people. This made for some large and important extra assignments during the project period, but took some focus away from the border stories.
Credit
The project was an assignment from newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in Sweden through then foreign affairs editor Carina Stensson.
Journalist, photographer, and idea: Marcus Haraldsson, Bordr
More
Read the full stories (in Swedish)
1. China-Pakistan border
2. China-Mongolia border
3. China-Burma border
4. China-North Korea border