Brave or insane? Woman cross-dresses across Afghanistan

Candace Lau, a 28-year-old Chinese-Australian photographer took a year off work to travel on the cheap through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. She’s been dressing as a man mostly for safety. And Candace, because of the way she looks and people’s assumptions about her sex (and her understanding of Dari, a local language), could find out things that the locals would never tell us.

Because I look Chinese, people think I’m Hazara [an Afghan tribe]. And then people see how I’m dressed and assume I’m a boy, and I tell the men I’m a boy, and the women I’m a girl.

Candace Lau