China Seminar | 10 March 2011

A Tale of Two Cities: A Photo Journey of London and Kabul

Xiudong Xie

Mr. Xiudong XIE was Xinhua News Agency photographer when stationed in Kabul in 2004 and in London from May 2006 to December 2008. During this period, he was also on many assignments chasing breaking news, summits, general elections and sporting events in Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Montenegro and Slovenia. Over the years, more than 7,000 of his photographs have been widely distributed worldwide by Xinhua News Agency. He shows some of his photographs in a visual journey of pain and joy, despair and hope in the battered land of Afghanistan as well as the diverse and multi-cultural aspects of Great Britain.

Through this visual journey, you will witness the tension in Beirut in early 2005 after the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, the election in Tehran in 2004, which paved the way for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the president, and the birth of Montenegro in 2006 as the youngest republic in the world. His 40-minute slide show will present you with the best and the worst of times through the lenses of a Chinese photographer.

Mr. XIE graduated in 2001 with a Master of Art degree in English language and literature from Nankai University in China, and started his career as a desk editorial assistant in the News Photo Dept of Xinhua News Agency. He went to Afghanistan as a photojournalist at the end of 2003, and then to Great Britain in the middle of 2006. Presently he is a photo editor for Xinhua News Agency, and a 2010-2011 Parvin Journalism Fellow at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.