Shannon May

Huangbaiyu   |   Unintended signals   |   In other news...   |   Publications   |   About me

Huangbaiyu Press Coverage

deciding to speak

In April, 2006 I could no longer continue reading the glowing stories of the successful development of a model eco-town in Huangbaiyu without becoming angry or depressed. When approached by reporters researching a story on the model development for BBC World Service, I said that I would talk to them if they’d leave Dai’s receiving hall, and come with me into the village--into the areas where the residents of these valleys lived, rather than in the office of the developer, or on the construction site.

Those spaces were places that the people who lived in Huangbaiyu were almost never invited. And so I began to share the data I gathered through conversations made possible through months building personal relationships with the individuals and families who lived in Huangbaiyu. And I took these reporters, and every other that followed, into the homes of families, and encouraged them to ask questions directly of the people who lived in these valleys and what they thought of and how they experienced the model development project in their midst, rather than relying on press releases and sales pitches.  Soon coverage on Huangbaiyu began to change, as reporters now had access to data culled from the reality of this place and its people rather than only from a sales pitch in a controlled office.

article listings

(additional articles, particularly those before 2005 & Chinese press will be added)

Sacks, Danielle. “Green Guru Gone Wrong: William McDonough.” Fast Company. October 2008.

Lesle, Tim. “Western Promises.” Dwell. October 2008. (Not available online.)

Lesle, Tim. “Cradle and All: Anthropologist Shannon May set out to study village life in rural China. She would up getting an education in the pitfalls of sustainable development.” California Magazine. September/October 2008.

B., Jonathan. “A (Well-Intentioned) Green Failure: Huangbaiyu.” Re-nest: Abundant Designs for Green Homes. 5 March 2008.

Lesle, Tim. “China: Green Dreams: A (not so) model village.” Stories from a Small Planet. PBS/Frontline World. February 2008.

Ellis, Linden. “China’s Environment: A Few Things We Should Know.” The New Security Beat. Environmental Change and Security Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. 17 December 2007

Funk, Mackenzie. “China’s Green Evolution.” Popular Science. 2 July 2007.

Schafer, Sarah. “ Trouble for China's Model Green City,” Newsweek International: web exclusive. 11 May 2007.

Streeter, April. “A Tale of Two Cities: China’s sprawling cityscapes are starting to sprout some eco-alternatives.” Green Futures. Forum for the Future. 2 November 2006.

Toy, Mary-Anne. “China’s first eco-village proves a hard sell.” The Age. 26 August 2006.

    Simultaneously published as:

    Toy, Mary-Anne. “Green Dream Vanishes in Puff of Reality.” The Sydney Morning

    Herald. 26 August 2006.

Sudjic, Dejan. “Making Cities Work: China.” BBC NEWS. 21 June 2006.

Xu Ke. “From Harvard to Huangbaiyu.” China Pictorial. December 2006.

Stone, Richard. “Development and Ecology: Villagers Drafted into China’s Model of ‘Sustainability’.” Science 7 April 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5770, p. 36. DOI: 10.1126/science.312.5770.36a

Streeter, April. “Big Trouble in Rural China.” Sustainable Industries Journal. 28 April 2006.

Schafer, Sarah and Anne Underwood. “Building in Green.” Newsweek International. 26 September-3 October, 2005.