Beijing Blog Award-winning former Herald staff photographer Michael Martina is an accredited journalist living in Beijing. He left The Herald in 2006 to complete his master's degree in China Studies at The University of Washington and later studied Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has worked as a journalist in several countries, including Peru and Finland, and collaborated on a 2004 story for The Herald from Guatemala City. He speaks and reads Chinese. E-mail him.