Singing in the Wilderness

Musa and his friends, all men, all young, all from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region on China's northwestern border, now wander great cities in the East talking, shooting up, remembering home and practicing the one true skill they have: they steal.

In the rural Liangshan Mountains, 14-year-old Qihuo and her friends embark on a road trip to find a skirt for her traditional menarche rite of passage.

The Chinese village of Dafen was once a place where thousands of professional painters made reproductions of Western masterpieces. At the government’s instigation, these artists now paint their own original works. Their paintings hang all over China, in a wide variety of settings, from hospitals to museums, and from offices and commercial buildings to outdoor public locations.