A half dozen years ago, a German friend returned from the Philippines raving about how the game consumes the lives of Manileños. I had to make my own visit there to understand fully what he meant.

The scene here depicts a pick-up game raging in the Smokey Mountains of Manila, a garbage dump inhabited by squatters, while a mother checks her son for head lice. I didn’t visit this court myself; photojournalist Lynn Johnson, who contributes to National Geographic as well as SI, took the shot on a trip she made before mine. But her image squares with what I saw and wrote about. To view more of Lynn’s work, click here.

SEVENTEEN: CHINA

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