Bad Ethnography

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From the series The Return of the Concubine

In China, the status of a man was once measured by the number of women he had – both wives and concubines. In 1949, the Communists banned the practice, as a sign of bourgeois decadence, but now, after two decades of market economy, concubines have.

The phenomenon of concubines can be found in all social classes. Many of the girls have come from rural areas to escape poverty, and first started as sex workers, before being chosen as concubines. Others are approached at private parties, or even universities. These young women go from extreme poverty to a life of great loneliness and boredom in strange cities where they know no one.

Axelle de Russé, photographer