Tang Wei builds a drain in Shanxi

Here is Tang Wei taking part in either re-enactment of part of the bourgeois element send into the countryside for reeducation by the peasants or in one of the worst planned and executed publicity photo-shoots ever.

Taken at face value the pictures tell a story of public improvements in remote areas of the People's Republic of China being done by young girls without tools, proper protective gear or even gloves and boots. In Shanxi, necessary drainage is constructed with bricks placed by hand at the bottom of a ravine. No earth-moving equipment is required; picks and shovels aren't necessary. Or it may simply be a movie star with a photographer and a few others in tow arrives at a school in the mountains. The girls at the school serve as props in a muddy ditch while Tang Wei hands them a few bricks.

The whole affair has such an air of unreality that one wonders why it was staged and recorded for fans of Tang Wei (or for fans of child labor).

Xinhua