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Jean Chung

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60 images Created 29 Aug 2021

Five years after the Taliban's Fall - Captured on a panoramic camera

“No one wins war in Afghanistan,” is a phrase someone coined after seeing the world’s superpowers keep losing it. This landlocked country in Central Asia was a passage for the Silk Road, the Mongol Invasion, and the Mogul Empire; and the tomb for The British, the Soviets, and most recently, the United States.
The Taliban, meaning “students” or “seekers” in Pashto, was in power in 1996 to 2001; then in 2021 again. They literally banned anything “un-islamic” from kite-flying to women walking and traveling alone. What was considered accepted in the Western World was the subject of whipping and stone-throwing.
The time I was in Afghanistan was five years after the Taliban’s fall during 2006 and 2007. Until August 10, when I was pulled out of the country by the South Korean government due to the hostage crisis of the South Korean Christians, I tried my best to document the country that was starting to breathe the freedom.
Here’s the documentation of the country through my lenses as an Asian woman. At least in Kabul and above, women were somewhat free to walk around the streets for shopping and running chores without male members of the family. Men were able to fly kites and build muscles at a gym. Although most women still chose to wear Burqa in public places, they took up a good 10% in the government’s seats.
One year out of 20 years of life without Taliban could only be a fraction of time. However, I think I was in the country in the very crucial time and probably one of the best times.
My prayers go to those who allowed me to document the slice of lives of Afghans, who are now witnessing the bitter history repeating itself.
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  • Young women walk on the graveyard in Kabul.
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  • Farmers feed cows at a livestock market outside of Kabul.
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  • Women wash clothes in a stream in Bamiyan.
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  • Men fly kites on Nowruz, the Persian New Year, in Kabul.
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  • A boy rests in an empty restaurant.
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  • Men climb up on the hill on Nowruz, the Persian New Year, in Kabul.
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  • A mental patient was chained to a tree at a mental institution in Jalalabad.
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  • Children and villagers stand amid the poppy field, Jalalabad.
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  • Water was filled up in the Kabul River on a snowy day.
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  • Umbrella sellers wait for customers in Kabul.
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  • Afghan police stand in a poppy field during the drug eradication program in Jalalabad.
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  • Women gather on a roof of a Shi’te mosque on Nowruz, the Persian New Year in Kabul.
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  • Crowd gather in a large lot in Kabul.
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  • A woman looks at a baby at an intensive care unit at a hospital in Kabul.
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  • Children in a Macroyan apartment complex in Kabul. The Soviet halted its construction and left Afghanistan in 1989. The complex was still incomplete in 2007 and became home of many displaced families along with middle to upper-class Afghans.
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  • A boy runs inside a Macroyan apartment complex in Kabul. The Soviet halted its construction and left Afghanistan in 1989. The complex was still incomplete in 2007 and became home of many displaced families along with middle to upper-class Afghans.
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  • Women and children sit next to a building in Kabul.
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  • Girls stand on a hillside on Kabul which was occupied thousands of displaced war refugees coming from Pakistan.
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  • Goats march down the road as children fetch water from a pump that an NGO had installed near a graveyard in Kabul.
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  • A boy pretends to make a phone call near the Kabul River where street sellers also sell mobile phone cards.
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  • An unpaved road.
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  • A person walks past in a graveyard.
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  • Bombarded buildings stand in Kabul.
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  • Kabul at dusk.
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  • A street photographer takes a portrait of a customer with a help of an assistant at left, Kabul.
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  • Kabul at sunrise.
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  • Afghan men play a dog fight in the outskirts of Kabul.
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  • Kabul at sunrise.
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  • Afghan soldiers tending and guarding the tank graveyard north of Kabul.
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  • Kabul’s countless hillside houses built by refugees coming from Pakistan.
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  • A woman in burqa walks on the rainy road in Kabul.
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  • Kabul River.
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  • A man shovels the dirt on the hillside neighborhood of Kabul.
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  • Mausoleum of King Nadir Shah stands overlooking east Kabul on Nader Khan Hill. He was assassinated in 1933, and the tomb was badly destroyed throughout years of civil war.
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  • Women shyly pose for a photograph inside a women’s security check room in a government building.
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  • Women walk across a large filed that is sometimes used as a soccer field in Kabul.
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  • Mental patients at an institution in Jalalabad.
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  • Noor Agha, a renowned kite maker, bends the bamboo stick to make a kite in his home in Kabul. He sits with a kite at right which was ordered by an American client working in the military. He decorates the kite with his signature Scorpion shape.
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  • Headshots of members of the Parliament displayed in a National Assembly in Kabul.
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  • View of Kabul.
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  • Street vendors of paper works line up in front of the Supreme Court in Kabul.
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  • Soviet tanks in the tank graveyard in north of Kabul.
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  • Contestants of Mr. Kabul inside Kabul Stadium.
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  • An Afghan soldier smokes a cigarette in the tank graveyard in north of Kabul.
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  • Children in a Macroyan apartment complex in Kabul. The Soviet halted its construction and left Afghanistan in 1989. The complex was still incomplete in 2007 and became home of many displaced families along with middle to upper-class Afghans.
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  • A man checks his message on an old Nokia phone in a car park outside of Kabul.
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  • Empty holes of Bamiyan Buddha statues. The two Buddha statues were blown up and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols.
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  • The poppy field in Jalalabad.
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  • Men and women inside a bus in Kabul.
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  • Government workers gather for the International Women’s Day celebration in Kabul.
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  • A mental patient prays in a mental institution in Jalalabad.
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  • A burqa-clad woman walks past the blown-up Buddha statues in Bamiyan. The two Buddha statues were blown up and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols.
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  • Women hold the pickets of Karim Khalili, left, and Ismail Khan, the warlords of Afghanistan-turned-politicians during a warlords rally in Kabul Stadium.
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  • Women gather inside a government building on the International Women’s Day.
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  • A man walks towards an ancient ruin in Bamiyan Valley.
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  • Thousands of men hold pickets of warlords on a warlord rally in Kabul Stadium.
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  • A woman is getting her portraits taken by a street photographer in Kabul.
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  • A resident sprays water on the dirt road in Kabul.
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  • Afghan police and government officials show the efforts in drug eradication in Jalalabad.
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  • Uzbek day laborers wait for their work in Kabul’s labor market.
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