Jerod Owens (left), 15 and Cole Pickering, 12, walk up and down the main street in Chesterhill, Ohio eating snow on February 7, 2011. Jerod, who moved to Chesterhill this year from Columbus, says he likes it much better because he feels safe hanging out outside. Cole was born and raised in Chesterhill and wants to move away.

John Grenko of Germantown, Ohio sells tickets for pony rides at the Fairfield County Fair in Lancaster, Ohio on Sunday, October 10, 2011. Grenko has been runing his company, Grenko Amusements, for 41 years.

A shadow on a trailor during a party at Burr Oak Lake near Bishopville, Ohio on May 21, 2011. Families from all over the state vacation at the lake in the summer, known as a popular fishing and partying destination.

The Mountaineer Power Plant, a coal-fired power plant outside of New Haven, West Virginia. Coal-fired power plants are a contraversial issue along the Ohio River, where it has historically been a source of income for the region but continues to have negative environental and health effects.

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Referred to around campus as China Town, 180 out of the 215 residents at Scott Quad, the international dormitory at OU are Chinese. Many complain that it's hard to speak English or meet American friends while liveing with so many other Chinese students.

Chinese students find it hard to relate to the undergraduate party scene at OU, recentlly named the nations number one party school. Andy Liu moves into the dorm room he shares with two American roommates in Perkins Hall, surprised to find a Chairman Mao poster and skimpy, pin-up posters. Andy has been at OU for three years and has yet to take a single academic class, struggling to test out of the English program.

“Chinese education focuses too much on exams and they’re really bad about the creative and letting the students think,” says Popo Huang who is studying Graphic Design at Ohio University. Popo’s parents at first weren’t supportive of her decision to study art. They wanted her to study something more practical, like business, which is the most popular major amongst Chinese exchange students at OU. Popo, who has already moved out of the OPIE program, sits in a Philosophy class where the majority of the classmates ar American.

An ashtray in the courtyard of Scott Quad is filled with cigarette butts on a rainy afternoon. Most of the Chinese students in Scott Quad are in full-time OPIE classes and are bored by the mundane language classes. They kill time by taking smoke breaks together or playing games in the common space. he mundane language classes. They kill time by taking smoke breaks together or playing games in the common space.

Chinese students in Scott Quad spend the majority of their time in their rooms. In an attempt to get students more involved with American students the Resident Advisors hold events such as the Disney-themed Party held on Saturday April 16. Yvette Zhang, a Resident Advisor in Scott, knocks on doors to try to convince residents to participate.

Chinese students from larger metropolitan areas such as Hong Kong or Beijing stand out in rural Ohio. They tend to be from wealthy families and have a more urban fashion sense. "I don't want to do what other people do. I want to do something different," says Popo Huang, who is from Guangzhou in southern China.

"Some Chinese students in Athens, they just study everyday, don't have some idea, don't have some dream. But we are different, we have a lot of plans for the future," said Andy Liu. Andy and Popo are very active in the Chinese clubs on campus but think that American parties are too centered around binge drinking and bars, which are frowned upon in China.

"I wish that my skin were whiter, like Americans," said Zhang, Li Fang, a 19-year-old International Relations major who arrived at Ohio University at the end of March, 2011. Three weeks after arriving, she lives in Scott Squad where close to 85% of the residents are Chinese, and is waiting for an American roommate.

The Chinese community in Athens is notoriously isolated from the rest of the student body due to cultural differences and the language barrier. Students in Scott Quad cook noodles in a rice cooker in their dorm room. From left, Ma Wen Qi, Zhou Yi Ming, Song Kai Li, Monroe Pan, Bill Zhang, and Zhu Zi Yang eat noodles in a dorm room at Scott Quad on April 26, 2011.z From left, Ma Wen Qi, Zhou Yi Ming, Song Kai Li, Monroe Pan, Bill Zhang, and Zhu Zi Yang.

“I want to study the real university classes more, to live a more formal American college life. I watch the American college students walking around, having meals, I can't feel that life now," says Clara Zhang, who is in her first quarter at OU.

In the past decade the Chinese government has prioritized Sino-African relations and worked to strategically strengthen economic, academic, political and cultural ties throughout Africa. As a result, Sino-African trade more than doubled between 2005 and 2009 and African immigration to China has increased accordingly. Guangzhou, historically a hub for international trade and one of the most important ports in China has become a center for Sub-Saharan Africans, in particular Nigerians, who make up the largest sub-group in this community. The majority of Nigerians in Guangzhou are individual entrepreneurs and international traders who deal in cheap goods. Although statistics vary due to the fact that many reside illegally in China, the Association of Nigerian Community China estimates that at least 50,000 Nigerians live in Guangzhou. The Nigerian Diaspora in China faces religious oppression, racism, social isolation and both brutality and extortion by local police. Mainly undocumented, many face mobility issues in a city where they work illegally and live in constant fear of the police. In pursuit of a better quality of life and chasing a dream to return home wealthy, they endure. *The last names of characters have been left out and location names have been changed in order to protect the individuals in this story.

Many Nigerian prefer not to eat Chinese food, and either cook at home or buy from Africans who travel the marketplaces selling contaiers of traditional African food, usually beans, meat and rice or soup. Ezeugo Chief, owner of Mei African Food African Restaurant in San Yuan Li, says he has 60 employees, delivers to around thirty locatons in Guangzhou and can serve up to 500 people a day. His restaurant also serves as a meeting place for Africans to relax. Pictured, have a few drinks at Mei African Food African Restaurant in San Yuan Li, Guangzhou.

Guan Yuan Xi Road is a busy four-lane road that runs straight through the San Yuan Li neighborhood; the main artery of the marketplace. Africans walk to and from their shops hauling packaged goods wrapped in green burlap sacs, ride between markets on Chinese motorcycle taxis, and linger in front of their shops waiting for customers. The San Yuan Li police station stand ominously not more than 100 feet from the San San Market, and at least once or twice a week officers patrol the area looking for illegal activity and randomly checking poeople's documents.

Most inter-racial marriages in China are between Nigerian men and Chinese women. Couples face a cultural issues, especially when determining gender roles in the household and the role that grandparents and extended family play in child-rearing. Yang Li Wang films at her grandson's first birthday party at the Latin restaurant in Grandview Mall in Tian He, Guangzhou's shopping district.

Many Chinese shop owners say they don't like to do business with Africans because they drive such a hard bargain and pay less than other foreigners and even Chinese clients. Favour decides not to buy after she cannot get the price she wants at a shop in Guang Da, one of the largest wholesale markets in Guangzhou.

"Old-timers" (Nigerians who lived in China before the recent immigration boom) say that ten years ago Chinese would plug their nose and get off the bus when an African got on. They admit that the racism issue is getting better, especially in Guangzhou, where Chinese are getting used to seeing Africans. Favour, far right, rides the bus from her clothing shop in the San Yuan Li marketplace to the hospital for a routine maternity check-up. She is relieved to discover that her test results are all negative. She says if she were HIV positive, she would be forced to abort the baby.

Favour's daughter Ebube, 3 years and eight months old, was born in Guangzhou. She is in kindergarten this year and speaks Chinese at home and with friends and English at home. Favour would like for Ebube to study in China because she thinks there will be more opportunity for her in the future, but since neither Facour nor Ebube are legal citizens, she is afraid they will have to return to Nigeria for Ebube to attend grade school. Pictured, Ebube at the Grandview Mall in Tian He, a shopping district in Guangzhou.

Nigerians are devoutly religious and have carried their Christian traditions with then to China. Most practice in small groups either at home or in clandestine conference rooms or hotels, giving services that range from Pentecostal to Methodist or Catolic depending on the pastor. Cali worships at one of only two churches sanctioned by the Chinese Government, a Catholic church in downtown Guangzhou.