Visitors dressed as frogs walk along a popular street lined with bars, in Beijing, Friday, May 5, 2023. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Residents gather to watch fireworks rehearsals ahead of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the founding of China's ruling Communist Party in Beijing on Tuesday, June 22, 2021. Chinese authorities have closed Beijing's central Tiananmen Square to the public, eight days ahead of a major celebration being planned to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Communist Party. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

A grey-bellied Night Monkey (Aotus Lemurinus) plays with a teddy bear at the veterinary clinic of the Cali Zoo in Cali, Colombia on January 27, 2020. They monkey is being raised by personnel of the Cali Zoo after a worker found it near the complex. Apparently it fall from a tree with his father who had health problems. (Photo by Luis Robayo/AFP Photo)

Nine years ago, Tom Carter traveled from San Francisco to China, responding to a job posting that turned out to be a scam. He managed to find another job as a teacher, and saved enough money to embark on a 56,000 km trip through all of China's 33 provinces that lasted two years. Carrying a camera – just a a 4-megapixel point-and-shoot – Carter captured some amazing images of the widely varying landscape, people, and architecture across the nation. Photo: Buddhist pilgrim family from Sichuan. (Photo by Tom Carter via The Atlantic)

A plane flies past the moon in west London on Monday, January 17, 2022. The first full moon – the Wolf moon according to native north Americans – of 2022. (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)

This photograph taken during a government organised media tour shows people in traditional costume standing in Potala Palace Square as the Potala Palace – classified as a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1994 – is seen in the background in the regional capital Lhasa, in China's Tibet Autonomous Region, on June 1, 2021. (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP Photo)

A man poses in front of a portrait of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong during the opening of an exhibition of Mao related art in Beijing, China, September 8, 2016. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Icicles are seen on a handrail along the coast at Donggang business district in Dalian, Liaoning province, China on December 27, 2018. (Photo by Reuters/China Stringer Network)