Play the Game for Open Journalism: Before you came to China, what impressions did you have of the country and how have these impressions stood up?

Tom Carter: I was born and raised in the City of San Francisco, which has the largest Chinese population in North America, so Chinese culture has always been present in my life. But despite San Francisco's multicultural reputation the Chinese tended to be isolationists by nature: they had their neighborhoods and Chinese kids hung out in their corner of the school yard. This of course added to the intrigue, like sneaking into the Chinatown projects to buy illegal fireworks, or dating Chinese girls (my first crush was an eight year-old Chinese girl named Claudine Wong).

But this distance between "us" and the Chinese distorted itself into certain stereotypes and, dare I say, racial profiling, which I was just as guilty party to as anyone. I wrote in my introduction to CHINA: Portrait of a People that it literally took traveling across the world and then throughout the entire country before I would come to understand the Chinese.

Yeah, some of my original general conceptions have been reinforced since coming here, but more importantly I understand WHY: I understand why the little old Chinese ladies on the 38 Geary line always pushed and shoved to get on first; I understand why China-Born-Chinese had such a notorious reputation behind the wheel of a car; and now I understand why the Chinese in San Francisco didn't mingle with other folks.

I have since come to recognize that the key to global harmony is in understanding, because without that element then we are guilty of ignorance, and I can think of no worse fate for a society or an individual than to be ignorant. So it is my most sincere hope that, if nothing else, CHINA: Portrait of a People will serve as a visual conduit for global understanding and awareness of Chinese culture. Plus, it'll look cool on your coffee table.

PTGFOJ: When you are traveling across such a large country as China with such a variety of different landscapes as well as peoples and languages, do you always feel like you are in China, or does each place have a unique atmosphere that distinguishes it as place in its own right? Is there an overarching concept of ‘Chineseness' or is China a collection of distinct provinces?

TC: That's exactly the myth that I intend CHINA: Portrait of a People to dispel: China as a homogeneous culture and country. We as westerners are accustomed to thinking of the Chinese as a single race with common physical attributes and uniform customs, when the actuality is that China is comprised of 56 different ethnicities each drawing from bloodlines that run deep and long outside of China.

For example, the Mongols and Manchu of north China, the Hui and Uyghur (Muslims) in the northwest, the She in the southeast, Tibetans, the Zhuang, Miao, Yi, Dong, Yao and Hani in minority-rich southwest China. Not to mention all the unrecognized subgroups such as the Hakka of south China and Macanese (Portuguese/Chinese) from Macau.

The Han government is doing their best to extend their influence across China's indigenous population, so we will unfortunately see a lot of these ethnic minorities, or at least their folk customs, eventually phased out. I was very conscious to include as much of a photographic variety of ethnic minorities as I could in CHINA: Portrait of a People, for the fact that China is this beautiful prism of racial amalgamation that most westerns are oblivious of.

PTGFOJ: Are there any Chinese photographers that you particularly admire (working in China or overseas), or for that matter, other foreign photographers who have worked in China?

TC: I'm a fan of old-school Chinese photographer such as Liu Weiqiang, Yang Xiaobing, Wu Jialin and Feng Jianxin. Those guys captured some of the best images I've ever seen of 20th century China. While flipping through the dailies, I'll instinctively glance at the byline when an exceptional image catches my eye to see if I recognize the name. But normally I don't have time to keep up with other photographers' work.

The truth is I have been on the road so much that I don't have the luxury of friendships or networking, which perhaps makes me something of a rogue in the eyes of other photographers.

PTGFOJ: Has much of your work been censored? How does censorship work for a photographer based in China; is there a secret policeman following you around wherever you go, or are you expected to submit all your work for approval before publication?

TC: I'm reminded of Eve Arnold, who was the very first foreign photographer allowed into post-Cultural Revolution China back in 1979. It took her over a decade before her visa was approved. At the remarkable age of 67 she traveled around China for half a year taking pictures - but she was shadowed her entire trip by government spooks. Her photographs were brilliant, but you are left wondering what she might have accomplished had she been left to explore China unattended.

It's a new century now, but in many ways nothing has changed. China is one of the most heavily-surveyed countries and boasts the largest secret police force in the world, so in essence, yes, most foreign correspondents in China are followed. Print, broadcast and online Chinese media are 100% controlled by the state. Red propaganda is as raging as ever, as is the suppression of online information by the Great Firewall of China (Editor's note: BBC, VOA, Wikipedia, Youtube, Flickr and most blogs are blocked in China by the Golden Shield Project).

Foreign correspondents are required to register in Beijing and provide a media itinerary so that the Ministry of Public Security can monitor their whereabouts; certain locations and coverage of certain affairs are very off limits to the foreign press (Editor's note: for example coal mines, AIDS villages and property confiscation). If a photojournalist in China shoots something that the Guoanbu (Ministry of State Security) considers "sensitive," then your film will be confiscated, period.

The West tends to be highly critical of China's censorship laws, however it is imperative that we at least acknowledge the Chinese government's perspective on this issue: foreign journalists have this bad habit of vilifying China, focusing only on controversy because it makes for good copy.

We are all guilty of it to varying degrees. But if 1 billion peasants were to find out about all the civil liberties injustices and land disputes that continue to be perpetrated by authorities across China, there would unquestionably be a second Chinese revolution. Therefore, the Communist Party of China believes that it is in their best interests to keep the people of their eponymous republic collectively uninformed. What government in the world doesn't want to preserve their position of power?

PTGFOJ: Has being a foreign photographer closed opportunities for you or served to open doors that local photographers cannot pass through?

TC: For all of China's strict regulations, foreigners are undeniably given special treatment and exemption by both the government and the people, treatment that Chinese citizens, and especially Chinese reporters, are not granted.

As a result, many westerners who come to China subconsciously develop a sort of God Complex because they can act with immunity. Foreign journalists are especially prone to this because we tend to think we know what's best for China, and that through our reporting we are saviors of the "suppressed" Chinese people. So here's this mob of white people with notepads and cameras trying to "expose" the dark side of China "for its own good," then at the end of the day they get together at a foreign correspondents club bitching about censorship and wondering why the government doesn't recognize their "rights" to reporting.

After thousands of years of isolation, the Chinese have opened their venerable doors to the west and given us vast latitude to explore, yet very few foreign journalists want to use that access to show China's loveliness. Sure, CHINA: Portrait of a People includes some controversial images of Chinese counterculture, but it was my primary objective to accurately portray China exactly as I saw it during my 2-year journey across the country, and that China is mostly beautiful.

PTGFOJ: Does a photographer need to speak Chinese or have an interpreter to take good photos in China? Is there one word in Chinese that every photographer should learn?

TC: Chinese people are extremely impressed by foreigners who have the slightest grasp of their language. You can be speaking like an infant, but they will still rave about how great your language abilities are. It's very encouraging. I think anyone coming to China should be familiar with at least a semblance of Putonghua (standard Mandarin), because a little goes a long way here. My Mandarin is admittedly bad, as I have never had any formal education on learning the language. I picked up my entire vocabulary on the streets of China, chatting with locals and out of dire necessity. But it has been my first-hand experience that learning Chinese is a bit futile when it comes to traveling, because the range of dialects throughout the country is so vast. Even most Chinese people can't communicate to well with each other outside of their respective hometowns.

As for photography, some of my most special images came about out of a mutual curiosity that my subjects and I had for each other that might have been diluted had we been able to properly understand each other. And after all, isn't that the point of photography, to communicate without words?

PTGFOJ: China is not the only country you have lived or traveled in - is there anything a photographer coming to China should be particularly mindful of when photographing people or landscapes? How easy is it to take photographs at official or public events?

TC: Prior to coming to China I spent a year and a half backpacking down the length of Mexico, Cuba and Central America and have found a great number of similarities, especially in the plights of their respective indigenous populations. China is still a developing country, so their way of life is much closer to Latin America than they are to, say, Japan. China truly is one of the world's final frontiers.

For an expat in China, life in no small way resembles the old American Wild West; no, better, China is like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books: a thousand paths to lead you to a thousand wild situations. Hmm, maybe Bantam Books would be interested in serializing my story! But yes, photographers need to be prepared for a rough and tumble adventure and have a good sense of exploration. A strong disposition also helps: I've had my arse kicked by three drunks, I had a DPRK-issued machine gun pointed in my face when I accidentally crossed into the North Korean border, I literally almost died of Encephalitis, I've been threatened with arrest several times, and almost every day I am required to argue my way out of some hard situation or another. And you know what? I wouldn't trade ANY of those memories for a press-pass into the People's Congress.

The less a photographer is prepared for the unexpected, the better the picture. That's why I'm not fond of shooting official events in China, because there is an unbreakable level of security that just doesn't make for good, candid photos, either that or your camera is going to get smacked out of your hands by some jumpy teenage security guard, as I've had happen several times. Heck, even that AP photog who took the infamous Tiananmen Square tanks picture from half-mile away had his hotel room ransacked by the police just shortly after he clicked off the shots. Luckily he hid his film, which as all photojournalists in China know becomes instinctive.

PTGFOJ: Have you had any problems with regard to copyright of your images in China?

TC: Most of the copyright infringement I have personally experienced has been of the travel articles I have written, which are usually reproduced by China's top news agencies without permission or payment, and often even without a byline. You see, it's a million times more difficult for Chinese media to obtain quality, well-written articles than it is for them to take a photo.

This can be exasperating, especially because it's not like the government-run press is lacking for money whereas I'm in the same tax bracket as the peasants. But westerners should realize that plagiarism doesn't have the same stigma in China as it does in the west. The Chinese have a belief that a quality replica is better than the original, and this attitude has carried over into the new millennium of DRM. It's going to be a long, long time before China recognizes intellectual property rights because the average Chinese person can't afford luxuries like DVDs and books and certainly not Windows or Photoshop; pirated goods keep the masses entertained and occupied while greatly contributing to the productivity of Chinese society and its economy.

I'm certainly not sanctioning it, I'm just saying...that's China! Actually, I'll be quite amused the day I see a pirated copy of "CHIN: Protrat if a Pepple" for sale on a Beijing sidewalk next to "Hraay Plotter" and "The Vinchy Codd." A little China expat humor for you there.