After staying in the Middle East for four years, she found that the young people there are not much different from us.

Sometimes, when sitting on the street and having coffee, a street battle is going on nearby. Sometimes, after a battle, the entire street is blown into ruins, empty and with few people. After a while, shops are set up in the destroyed houses.

Some people have also seen their friends walking towards them from across the street and being blown to pieces. At that moment, believing that they have gone to heaven, that their lives have been extended rather than wasted, does indeed alleviate the pain of the living.

During the war, every household will stockpile wartime reserves, such as food and water, and then live their lives as usual.

Aleppo, Syria

Not long ago, "The Invisible Middle East" written by the landscape photographer Yao Lu was published. The daily lives of ordinary and young people in the Middle East, accompanied by unrest and death, explain the confusion she had before deciding to go to the Middle East - How do people maintain a daily life in such a war-torn environment?

From 2016 to 2020, Yao Lu went to dozens of countries in the Middle East and stayed in the homes of 31 strange Middle Eastern people as a couchsurfer. During this period, she experienced the first Christmas full of a sense of security after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, caught up with the period of change in Saudi Arabia, and witnessed the first batch of female drivers on the streets of Saudi Arabia with her own eyes.

After that, Yao Lu spent 2 years writing about this experience and waiting for it to be published.  

The gender issue is probably the world's perspective on the Middle East, and this is another reason for her to go to the Middle East. She wants to see what kind of life women live in a place with extreme gender inequality.

As a result, just as she saw that the young people in the Middle East live a similar life to ours, the Middle Eastern women she saw are also troubled by gender bias and gender inequality, just to a wider extent and a deeper degree.

For example, Yao Lu mentioned that when she started working as a landscape photographer in 2012, there were often male photography enthusiasts who took the initiative to guide her, and she was often earnestly educated that girls are not suitable for this job, as it is too hard and dangerous. This makes one suddenly feel that we are just imprisoned by different robes. They are dark and thin, while we may just be able to choose the popular color of the season.

The Tigris River in Baghdad, Iraq

Of course, she still encountered the meaning beneath the word "dangerous" that others mentioned. A woman traveling alone to a remote area has the risk of being sexually harassed. In Iraq, she took a taxi to the airport. The price had already been negotiated, but the young driver kept asking her, "How much? How much?" Because the two couldn't communicate smoothly in English, the young man clicked on a video of a stripper in his phone to show Yao Lu. Only then did she understand that he was asking how much her body was worth. Yao Lu said that probably because there are few tourists in Iraq, so the young man thought that a foreign woman could only be a sex worker. Yao refused all the way. The young man wanted to touch her legs and kept asking how much. "It can be seen that he is quite anxious."

Finally, when they arrived at the airport, as soon as the car stopped, Yao Lu immediately got out of the car and ran towards the soldiers at the checkpoint, pretending to be emotionally agitated and saying a bunch of things. Then the soldiers scolded the driver and drove him away. Yao Lu recorded this incident on a social platform. She didn't expect that half of the comments questioned that she didn't give money, saying that it was wrong for him to sexually harass, but it was also wrong for you not to give money. This is really ridiculous. The loss of this trip is already the smallest punishment for the driver. If there is no punishment at all, it is hard to guarantee that this driver will not harass women again in the future.

Yao Lu said that in the past, if she talked about her experience of being sexually harassed during her journey, others would say, "Look, I said it's not safe for girls to go out alone." Now it's better. They just think that she took advantage by not giving money. But now she is more willing to talk about these unique experiences of women in public and on platforms, because it can allow more women to learn to be on guard, learn to clearly refuse, and learn to keep evidence.

Although when we hear that a woman is traveling alone to the Middle East, our first reaction is indeed to ask if you have been sexually harassed? But in fact, during the 4-year itinerary, in so many cities and with so many people, Yao Lu only encountered sexual harassment a few times. More memories and unforgettable experiences come from those vivid and independent individuals under the robes.

Karbala, Iraq

War, black robes, and oil tycoons. These stereotypes of the Middle East come from the smoke in the news, the Syrian boy who fell on the beach, the women in the movies whose entire bodies are covered, with only a thin slit for the eyes to show, and the shopping paradise of Dubai. The Middle East is too far away from us, but the life under the robes seems to bring us closer.

Luckily, Yao Lu, who started to be independent and went to shoot landscapes in remote areas alone, is very assertive. She said to those who tried to stop her, "I think girls can do anything."

The following is Yao Lu's self-report, sorted out and published by the Houlang Research Institute -

The War Barrier: Young People Unable to Move

From 2016 to 2020, I spent 4 years in the Middle East . Because I didn't want to travel in a cursory manner, the travel method I chose was couchsurfing. This is a free accommodation method where couchsurfers and hosts share their distant and strange lives.

The first stop was a relatively safe country like Iran, followed by Lebanon, Turkey, etc. In 2017, I went to Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt. In that year, Iraq and Syria were still in the midst of a civil war, and the situation was fierce. I thought my journey to the Middle East would end here. By the end of the year, the situation in Iraq and Syria gradually stabilized, but in the second year, in March, my Syrian friend told me that there was a battle between the government army and the rebel army in the Eastern Ghouta area near the capital Damascus, and gunshots could often be heard in Damascus. During that time, I kept weighing my options and finally decided to temporarily give up on Syria.

In June 2018, I went to Iraq and stayed for a month. Fortunately, towards the end of the year, I received a message from my Syrian friend saying that it is relatively peaceful now and you can come. So in November 2018, I set off for Syria and stayed for a month.

When I got there, I was surprised to find that the daily life of young Syrians is not much different from ours. I have interacted with some undergraduate and graduate students in Syria. They go to school every day, then eat with friends, invite friends to have coffee together, or go to a concert, eat delicious food and wander around the city.

The Old City of Damascus, Syria

Although superficially it seems no different from ours, their lives have been greatly changed because many people originally had plans for their lives, but these plans cannot be implemented now due to the war. Or they may not have had any plans, but due to the war, they have to think about their future. In short, their entire life plans have been disrupted.

After the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the unemployment rate is very high. Young people on average take 4 years to find their first job after graduation. When I was there, the average monthly salary there was about $100, which is equivalent to more than 700 RMB. In fact, it is not enough for a person to live in a place like Damascus. So many young people will work two jobs. One is from morning to one or two in the afternoon, and the second is from afternoon to night. There are very limited things they can do. Their entire society is still very traditional, and there are no self-media. They prefer to work in the government. Although the work in the government is very leisurely, the salary is very low. Like someone I know, he goes to the government to clock in and work in the morning. Anyway, there is not much work, and after finishing it quickly, he chats and drinks tea, and then goes to drive a taxi in the afternoon. Another person works in a pharmacy in the morning and in another pharmacy in the afternoon. Anyway, they are all very traditional jobs.

Their feeling is probably that suddenly they feel that their life plans cannot be realized. When they were very young, they may have had many imaginations about the future, such as thinking about studying abroad when they grow up, or traveling around the world. But when they grow up, the civil war breaks out, and then they will find themselves trapped in this place, and they cannot have dreams because they can do nothing.

When a disaster of that era comes, individuals are very powerless. In this disaster, you are unable to move. So later I gradually understood that this is the state of people in a war.

Homs, Syria

Eternal Robe, Changing Hair Color

Initially, I wanted to travel throughout the Middle East for two reasons. One was to see how ordinary people maintain their daily lives during the war, and the other was derived from my own experience. After I resigned in 2012, I started shooting landscapes in various parts of China, and I often went to some remote places in the northwest and southwest. Many people told me that girls can't do this. This job requires physical strength and the ability to endure hardships, and it is not suitable for girls.

Later, I thought, then I will go to a place with extreme gender inequality to see what kind of life the girls in that place live, to what extent their lives are limited by gender, and how they view their own living conditions?

The first chapter of the book is my first stop, Iran, which mentions a girl with big red hair. In China, it is actually not very common to see people dye their hair so brightly, but in Iran, I have also seen green hair, sky-blue hair, all kinds of bright colors. Their resistance is particularly externalized.

For them, probably since you want me to cover my hair, I will dye my hair as brightly as fire where you can't control it. I must live my own life. They also have parties at home, then they will dress very revealingly, and they won't care about any rules. They will take pictures and videos and post them on the Internet.

They really want to do some things that break the rules. In fact, they have experienced an open era before. The host of the couchsurfing in Iran is a three-generation family. The grandmother experienced the open era in Iran when she was young, and her lifestyle and dress style were like those in Europe and America. The mother experienced the Islamic Revolution in 1979 when she was a teenager, and the society turned from open to conservative. The daughter was born after the Islamic Revolution and has a strong sense of resistance. She is the girl with big red hair.

They have to follow the rules when they go out, such as wearing a long top that covers the buttocks and wearing a headscarf, etc. But at home, they have their own secret lives.

In Iran, the two genders are strictly separated. As night falls, the religious police who spy on behavior seem to close their eyes temporarily, and young men and women slowly draw closer and cautiously lean against each other.

Of course, this cannot be said to be the norm for Iranian women, because the people I met are basically those who can speak English, and they are generally highly educated. But the hosts of the couchsurfing in these Middle Eastern countries I went to can speak English and are mostly open-minded middle-class. In this horizontal comparison, it is indeed only Iranian women who are particularly speculative and rebellious against authority and rules.

In Jordan, the host of the couchsurfing I stayed with has three sisters. Once they said they would take me to the mall, and then they spent two hours putting on makeup for each other. As a result, they found it boring after only 10 minutes of shopping and immediately went home. Later, I encountered something even more exaggerated in Iraq.

In Baghdad, the host of the couchsurfing lives with his mother and two younger sisters. One of his sisters is 18 years old, and the other is 22 years old. That day was Eid al-Fitr. The host said that the whole family would go to the national park for an outing. I was very excited and