Beijing in
Pictures

When former NBA star John Amaechi, who was raised in England, accepted assignments from Amnesty International (where he serves as a spokesperson) and the BBC (where he provides basketball commentary) to cover the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, he knew exactly who he wanted as a travelling companion. His friend Jeff Sheng is ethnically Chinese, fluent in the language, and has spent more than a year living and traveling mainland China as a foreign exchange student and frequent visitor. Sheng is also something of a wunderkind. At 27 his arresting photographs have appeared in more than 20 exhibits across the country, including at Yale University and as part of "LA25," a select group of diverse artists showing October 8 to November 16 at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions in Hollywood. And he's a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

What resulted was a series of photographs, which we've excerpted here, as well as daily musings on life in China, the Olympic Games, and anything else that comes to mind. For a full account go to beijinglegacyblog.com.