Magazine Photographer of the Year
Chien-Chi Chang, Magnum Photos

For nearly 30 years, Longfa Temple in southern Taiwan has been regarded as a final sanctuary for mental patients despite constant criticism of its treatment methods. The temple uses not medicine, only chains for "therapeutic" purposes. Often a patient in stable condition is chained with one whose condition is deemed unsound. Day in and day out, under the supervision of the monks and nuns, the seriously ill patient is led around by the more lucid one--like a prisoner in a chain gang--as they proceed to their assigned work at various facilities in the temple. Despite harsh criticism of the temple's methods by the medical establishment, the government seems to have turned a blind eye to the situation. Meanwhile, the temple continues to claim success for its treatment of the mentally ill as more and more patients deemed incurable are brought to the temple by their families. There are currently 600 patients. One was killed by a fellow inmate last year.

 

"The Chain"

Chained patients, male.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

selected from "Bachelor Society: Illegal Chinese Immigrants in New York"

At day's end, a newly arrived immigrant eats a bowl of noodles outside his dilapidated loft building, oblivious to the traffic on the Bowery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

selected from "New York's Chinatown"

New immigrants learn how to decorate Chinese food at the Chinatown Manpower Project, a federally funded job training program for the immigrants.