"I want to show people the humans behind their favorite dishes, the business, the stories, the truth."

British-born Chinese photographer Kenneth Lam and Chinese Londoner Jenny Lau are using photography to explore their culture and share it with the world.

They're involved in a photo project that has launched on social media to celebrate the people who work, live and shop in London's Chinatown using the hashtag #HumansOfChinatownLondon.

 "I didn't want typical commercial shots of people smiling with a plate of food, I wanted to get these people to show me who they were and hopefully I could capture that," Ken Lam told CGTN. 

Chinatown London commissioned Ken Lam and writer Jenny Lau to capture and tell the stories of the faces often seen around the central London hotspot. Its Instagram page, on which the photos will be published, says the series "will be celebrating the everyday people who have made, and continue to make, Chinatown what it is today."

From firefighters to chefs and restaurant owners to lion dancers, the photo series captures the locals in their natural element, and in a few paragraphs, gives the audience an intimate look into their lives.

Ken Lam trained as a fashion photographer and worked in the industry for five years. But Lam said he then changed course and "focused on more personal work to do with identity, culture and food with biographical narratives." 

Jenny Lau was also born in Britain and lived in Hong Kong for 11 years. Lau is a blogger and the owner of popular plant-based Chinese food blog, Celestial Peach, in which she documents the search for healthy, vegan flavors of her heritage. Lau also hosts an interview series called #ChineseFoodiesofIG.

"I partnered with a British-born Chinese storyteller and together we captured each subject; he took photos and I wrote the words. The project launched during Chinese New Year and we have 20 portraits lined up - possibly more," Lau told CGTN.

Ken Lam said Dumplings' Legend's Derek Lim was one of his favorite subjects to capture. "What a character, I knew exactly where to position him and the session took literally three minutes and we were done with a beautiful shot of him, body language, face and light all came together to reflect this man's character," Ken said

The project focused on telling the stories that aren't often heard about the rich and diverse history of London's Chinatown, a history that is said to stretch back to the 1880s when it was originally in the East End.

It was in the late 1960s that the current Chinatown was established as the center of the Chinese community in London, which numbered in the tens of thousands.

As the community established itself, supermarkets and restaurants began to pop up, as well as souvenir shops, health clinics, travel agents and more.

Although Chinatown is known for its Chinese restaurants and is a hotspot for food enthusiasts, Lau says that this project aims to show its other side by peeking into the lives of the long-serving community members.

"The Chinese in this country are often perceived rather two-dimensionally: as the people who cook your takeaways, without considering the circumstances as to why they ended up in this job," Lau said.

"But everyone really has an interesting story to tell. Not to mention that the Chinese have contributed so much more in the context of this country's history, beyond catering," she added.

As the series focuses on telling the untold stories of the people who make up Chinatown, Lau said that her mission was to get to know the subjects of her interviews.

"When approaching members of the public - such as older community members, it was often challenging to get them to talk. Their English was non-existent and they were very shy and suspicious, so we had to conduct interviews in Cantonese or Mandarin with translations and be very gentle and encouraging," Lau said.

The project also aimed to show the diverse people that make up Chinatown from all around the world. "Within the Chinese subjects we meet people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Chinese mainland, but in addition to the ethnic Chinese we also interview Filipino, English, Greek and so on," said Lau.

The photos published on Chinatown London's Instagram page have already received hundreds of likes, and comments poured in from users showing their support for the project.

But Lau says there have also been some disheartening comments. "I think the general comments have been very appreciative. Unfortunately, there have been a few ignorant comments about coronavirus that have absolutely nothing to do with the subjects or the project, but such is the nature of social media nowadays," said Lau.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in China's Wuhan province at the end of 2019, its effects have been felt around the world.

One of the fallouts of the virus outside of China was the reported rise of discrimination and racism towards those of Chinese and East Asian origin across Europe, from Italy to France.

Cases of racism have also been reported in London and across the UK and have been increasing in the past few weeks. 

"There's clearly a lot of misinformation that is spreading as fast as COVID-19 itself. As for the discrimination, I can only speak from a British-born Chinese perspective, which is that I am worried about the damage to Chinese-run businesses and individuals who don't necessarily have a support network. I think the global community need to show solidarity and a little kindness," Lau said.

For Ken Lam, the recent spate of racial discrimination brought back negative memories from his childhood. "It's awful, I remember at high school I was being bullied for being Chinese and gay, and to think ten years on this still goes on, it's just ignorant, this was echoed by a few of the subjects, so hopefully this project will shine light and bring a sense of humanity behind my culture and who we are," Ken Lam said.

Both Ken Lam and Jenny Lau hope that through the Humans of Chinatown London project, they could try to bring some positivity to the community and celebrate it.  

"Often racism and prejudice come from a place of fear and misunderstanding, hopefully these images and words will project what and who Chinatown really is," Ken Lam said.