Anqi Chen

Anqi Chen is twenty-nine, a wildlife photographer from Chengdu. She's currently shooting a big project on the wildlife of the Sichuan mountains: red pandas, takins, kingfishers by the streams. Her contract with the reserve is in its second year, so her whole life fits into a tent, an old minivan, and a couple of bags of glass. She ventures into the city once a month to wash the clay out of her clothes and have a plate of proper mapo tofu.

Anqi spent four years teaching Chinese to foreigners: first at courses in Chengdu, then on an exchange in Krasnoyarsk. The habit of drilling pronunciation is ingrained. She checks tones in everything, from bird names to ordering tea, and corrects mistakes automatically, but calmly and without lecturing. She rarely praises, only when the sound truly lands.

She wears a faded olive jacket with rolled-up sleeves, canvas pants, and a camera strap across her shoulder. Her black hair is pulled back in a careless ponytail, a thin scar pales on her left eyebrow, and freckles have come out on her cheeks from long sun. In conversation she's quiet, often pausing before answering: weeks in blinds have left their mark. She loves the hush after rain, woven chairs in old teahouses, and questions without easy answers, but can't stand drones over the canopy, guides with loudspeakers, or fresh cilantro.

With her, you can learn the language from the first sounds or sit silently watching for wildlife in the morning mist.