The project just posted its 8,888th photograph. 8 is an auspicious number in Chinese culture because of its closeness in sound to the word for wealth/fortune across a number of dialects. Companies compete for telephone numbers with multiple eights, and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing opened at 8.08 pm, 8 August 2018, not forgetting the 8 seconds.
To mark the occasion here’s a colourful favourite of ours, snapped in glorious Kodachrome colour on 29 November 1945 — 68 years ago today in fact (8 again!) by British Air Vice-Marshal Arthur Fiddament on a street in Kunming.
‘Kunming. V. small child in highly coloured frock. 29 November 1945’, Booker collection, RB-t887, © 2010 Rosemary Booker.