ByFANGAIQING
[email protected]
E
ven before he turned
up for the event, Xie
Hailong knew that
getting in was going
to present problems.
It was the first day of the second
NationalGames for theDisabled in
Tangshan, Hebei province, inAugust
1987 and Xie had to contend with the
lack of a ticket or any official creden-
tials to get through the gate.
Then, as he waited in the summer
heat, an official shouted: “Anyone
here fromChinaDaily?”
Without hesitation Xie shouted,
“Yes, here.”
“Name, please,” the official
demanded.
“WangWenlan.”
Wang was director ofChinaDaily’s
photography department. Photogra-
pher Xie was familiar with the name
and knew it would be useful to him.
At least one person in the crowd
doubted that the impostor could be
the well-known photographer, mus-
ing: “SurelyWang’s got to be taller
than that?”
Nevertheless, in an age where vet-
ting of personal credentials for big
events was far more relaxed than
it is today, Xie, camera gear at the
ready, was ushered through the gate.
It proved to be a turning point in his
career, one in which he would richly
contribute to photography and pho-
tojournalism for the next 32 years.
One of the photos he took at the
Games was widely reproduced in
domestic newspapers, and went on
to win first prize in a national photo-
graphic competition that year.
It featured the swimming back-
stroke gold medalist HuangGang,
then 20 years old, of Sichuan prov-
ince, who had lost his left hand and
both of his legs below the knee when
he was young. Xie has continued to
photograph him over the years.
Wang was highly amused on hear-
ing Xie’s 1987Games press creden-
tials anecdote once they became
close friends, and both of them, in
their late 60s, are amongChina’s
most outstanding photojournalists.
Over the decades, the pair have
busied themselves “recording today’s
stories to tell in the future”, as Xie
puts it. Ordinary people often loom
large in their lenses.
Wang’s recent photo albumLan’s
Lens:China’ andOpening-sReform
Up intheEyesofaPhotojournalist
features life scenes that highlight,
among many other things, the way
people dress, what they eat, where
they live and how they get around.
There are 150 pairs of photos, with
one photo next to another that con-
trast the past and the present, viv-
idly showing how much has changed
over the past 40 years, but also
reminding us of things that endure.
One pair of photos neatly encapsu-
lates the story of television’s develop-
ment inChina.
Ablack-and-white shot taken in
XidanDepartment Store inBeijing
in July 1981 shows three color televi-
sion sets sitting on a counter, their
antennas stretching high as if look-
ing for attention.
People crowd around — those
standing in the first row resting
their elbows on the counter, their
eyes fixed on the shop assistant as
they listen intently to his sales pitch.
However, few of them could seri-
ously consider buying one of these
technological marvels.
Each of the television sets cost 200
yuan ($29),Wang said, well beyond
the means of most people in the
1980s, and at a time when his sal-
ary was just 30 yuan a month. In
fact, novelty value apart, there were
few good reasons to buy one of these
things because the on-screen fare
was so thin on the ground anyway.
The contrasting photo shows a
little girl sitting in a shopping cart
staring at an LCDtelevision in a
supermarket inBeijing many years
later with no one else around.APeking Opera character appears on
several television sets of different
brands and types for comparison,
with price tags below, ranging from
about 10,000 yuan to more than
30,000 yuan.
By 2017, with mobile internet
service widely accessible, television
seemed a lot less appealing than it
did 30 years earlier.
Each of the pictures inWang’s
album has a story behind it, pointing
to the country’s economic growth,
influences brought by globalization,
and changes in lifestyle, media forms
and technology.
Readers can also feel the regional
similarities and differences.Despite
the caption in sevenChinese char-
acters for each photo, readers can
catch the stories easily on seeing the
images because many of them echotheir own life details.
Wang had 32 years’ work to draw
from.He worked as a photographer
forChinaDaily from its founding in
1981 until he retired from the paper
in 2013.
He was always on the scene of
breaking news and major events,
including the annual sessions of the
National People’sCongress and the
Chinese People’s PoliticalConsulta-
tiveConference, the Olympics, as
well as the devastating earthquakes
in Tangshan in 1976 andWenchuan,
Sichuan province, in 2008.But he
has also always nursed a passion for
capturing the ritual of life and social
landscapes.
One of his best known collections,
one on which the cover of the book
is based, portraysChina as a “bicycle
kingdom” since the 1980s, how it
has developed into a country of four
wheels and more, and finally how
shared bicycles touched every corner
of the country.
There was a time when choos-
ing what to photograph apart from
big news events proved difficult for
Wang, and uppermost in his mind
was the artistic expression of his
photographs.
He started taking photos during
the “cultural revolution” (1966-76),
mainly taking pictures of himself
and people around him and of land-
scapes. It was not untilApril 1976
when he went to Tian’anmen Square
and saw tens of thousands of people
mourning the passing of former pre-
mier ZhouEnlai in January that he
realized 10 years of turmoil had in
effect passed him by, he said.One of his pictures of those scenes
was published inChina YouthDaily
in 1978 and has been among the
most memorable photographs of
the event.
In the 1980s, he said, he was great-
ly inspired by the works of his peers,
especially of Liu Xiangcheng, a Pulit-
zer Prize-winningChinese-American
photojournalist.
Wang was especially impressed
by one of Liu’s photos taken in the
ForbiddenCity inBeijing in 1981.
Ayoung man dressed in a typical
Chinese military coat, de rigueur
in those days, held a bottle ofCoca-
Cola — a glass bottle, of course — and
smiled into the lens.
That image meant very little to
Wangat the time, but for Liu it was
a potent symbol of modernWestern
culture entering the heartland of
Chinese culture.
Wang then figured out that indi-
vidual lives were not only worth
recording, but could also be a micro-
cosm of social progress.At least one
thing is clear: from then he was keen
on ensuring that his works carried a
larger historical message, so the pho-
tos did not need to look particularly
special at that moment, but were
being shot for future review.
“He (Wang) is a slow photogra-
pher,” Xie said. “He thinks a lot about
what angle he will shoot from and
how to take advantage of the envi-
ronment to serve his aims. He goes
through all the detail, intent on let-
ting everything in the picture tell its
own story.”
Xie describes himself, on the other
hand, as sometimes tetchy — some-
thing that may partly come from
his preoccupation with basic rural
education.
He was a bench worker before
formally beginning to learn photog-
raphy in 1978, wishing to record his
son growing up.
In 1987, when his home was full of
awards he had won through warm,
feel-good pictures, he started to
rethink what he was doing as his
photography teacher encouraged
him to take pictures that would
make those who viewed them think
rather than to make them happy.
That year, in the countryside
ofGuangxi Zhuang autonomous
region, he took a photo of a teacher,
29, giving a class with her 5-month-
olddaughteronherback.
He later heard that the teacher
had another 2-year-old child at home
tied up with a rope to keep him from
running away, so that she could get
on with teaching.
AlthoughChina had enacted the
compulsory education law the year
before to guarantee nine years’ com-
pulsory and free basic education,
poverty held some rural students
back.
And some rural teachers, either
because they were so poor or
because they watched enviously as
other people built new houses, opted
to become migrant workers in cities
so they could earn more money.
“There would be no hope if there
were no teachers,” Xie said.
For bothWang and Xie, documen-
tary photography is always a work
in progress.Shanghai’s Guangxin Road, shot in July1991, reflectswhyChinawas once called a “bicycle kingdom”.
PHOTOSBYWANGWENLAN/FORCHINADAILYTwophotographershavebeenchroniclingChina
intheirowndistinctivewaysformorethan30years
Eyes ofthebeholders
Acurious crowdexamines the TV sets on sale at the Xidan
Department Store inBeijing in July1981.CHINA DAILY GLOBAL WEEKLY August 2-8, 2 019 LIFE 29