This is a set of photos of different households in their 100 sq. ft. public housing apartment in Shek Kip Mei Estate. The photo essay was created by Michael Wolf. These are some of my favourite images of the collection. 

This photo essay captures the different living environment of the same size apartment. We can see the stories and lifestlyes of each households. There are different family members, some of them are living alone, some are old couples, some of them are a family of three or four. They are in different age, like some are young school kids, some are just retired couples, but there are also 80 years old elderly. The people also have different facial expression, like smiling, or look bored.We can see the decoration of their apartments, the first photo shows a neat and tidy home, the second one shows a messy home and the last is a very empty home. The furnitures and other things in their home shows their habits, like whether they cook at home or like to watch TV or not. 

This photo essay is saying that even though people lives in the same housing estate, and they have different living environment, but they have strong relationships. There are many memories in their apartment and in the community, and should not be damaged because of redevelopment.

This editorial cartoon is about freedom of speech in China.

There are a number of Chinese citizens being interviewed by foreign press, but their mouths are all locked up with padlocks. It indicates that the Chinese government are trying to avoid foreign press to know what really happened in China and what the people feels. The Chinese citizens are deprived of freedom of speech. They are not allowed to say anything bad about the government to the press or in the internet. The Chinese citizens are also looking very upset, they look like they have something to tell the others, but the Chinese Communist Government, represented by the two flags at the back, are keeping track of them, as if they are doing this for the nation.

The cartoonist mainly uses symbolism techniques in this cartoon. The China flags tell that the interviewees
are Chinese citizens. The padlock refers to the institutional arrangements of the Chinese government, that people are not given the freedom of speech. Also, there are skulls on the padlocks, they symbolizes that the governors who uses these padlocks are evil and people will receive horrible punishments if they break the rules.

The cartoonist doesn’t like China because they deprived their citizens’ human rights, like freedom of speech, as in this editorial cartoon. He thinks that China is covering too much about the bad things of the country, and the people are forced to follow the country’s commands. I agree with the cartoonist views about China, the Chinese
government has been hiding the real situations happening in the country, also its authoritarian governance.
For example, China has blocked Facebook in its territory, also other foreign social media like twitter and Youtube, to avoid foreign ideologies and information flowing into the Mainland. The government was scared about social disharmony and oppositions to the government. The other examples are civic activist like Aiweiwei and Zhaolianhai are arrested of protesting and expressing opposition views to the government. Both of them were put into jail. Overall, I think this cartoon does match what’s happening in China now.

Photo Source: http://www.gocomics.com/viewsasia/2013/01/11