A Photo Album on China's Countrysides

choi

Photo-Op: Twilight of Idylls. Wall Street Journal, Feb 22, 2014
online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303704304579378672364940290
(Matthias Messmer and Hsin-Mei Chuang, China's Vanishing Worlds; Countryside, traditions, and cultural spaces. MIT Press, 2013)

Note:
(a)
(i) Matthew (name)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_(name)
(Matthias is its form in Dutch, French, German and Latin languages)
(ii) The German surname Messmer is "variant of Messner, the alteration being by analogy with surnames in -mer from place names in -heim ‘homestead.’"
(iii) The southern German surname Messner is an "occupational name for a sexton, churchwarden, or verger, Middle High German mesnære (Old High German mesinari, from Late Latin ma(n)sionarius, a derivative of mansio, genitive mansionis, ‘house (of God)’, ‘church’). The double -s- is the result of association with Messe ‘Mass.’"

(b) Hsin-Mei Chuang was born in 1979 in Taiwan but I can no find her Chinese name.
(c) "Chadong, a mountain town in western Hunan Province. The region is home to the Miao people, an ethnic minority"

湖南省 湘西土家族苗族自治州 花垣县 茶峒古镇
(d) "In Wuwang Village, in Shanxi Province, an abandoned theater stage and mill built on the ruins of an ancient temple gather dust beneath a polluted sky"

山西省运城市临猗县角杯乡 吴王村
(e) "In Shangqiantan Village, in Hunan Province, Mr Messmer spots a dog running across the stone floor of a traditional house while an old man enjoys a bowl of noodles—a timeless respite from the manual rigors of peasant life."

I can not find the village name in Chinese.

(f) The WSJ review has one photo, as described in (c). Additional photos:
(i) Benteli
www.benteli.ch/en/china-s-vanishing-worlds-1.html
(The photo album is "out of print")

Founded by Albert Benteli in 1899, Benteli is based in Switzerland. See
.ch

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.ch
(ii) Matthias Messmer and Hsin-Mei Chuang, China's Vanishing Worlds; Countryside, traditions, and cultural spaces. Cultural Politics, 9: 42-52 (March 2013)
culturalpolitics.dukejournals.org/content/9/1/42.full