1 . Noted for his profound description of life along the Chinese railway, Wang Fuchun passed away on March 13th at the age of 79. His engaging photographs capture the substance of China’s ever-changing landscape.

Being artistic and good at painting and calligraphy, Wang found that photography bridged the two worlds: he could make art with his camera and increasingly he felt that his goal was not art, but life.

In the late 1970s, when he started taking his photographs, everyone on a railway platform looked reserved and orderly. By the late 1980s, a great rush to the cities had begun on the trains. He recorded young migrant workers shedding their shirts, running with sweat, seeking coolness on top of the seats. He did not ask anyone’s permission to take them, and he preferred to act secretly, like a thief in a way, as it captured the authentic (真实的) moments of people’s lives—and so mirrored all the more clearly how China was changing.

His project was all-consuming. Over 40 years he estimated he had ridden on 1, 000 trains and covered more than 100, 000 kilometers, on every line in China. Each trip was neatly noted down in a notebook; he took about 200, 000 pictures, and logged each by its place. From those pictures, he felt the migrants’ poverty too keenly, and he preferred to capture the hope that pushed people on to trains.

China was rushing to the modern world. Steam was fading; the green-skinned trains acquired fans and air-conditioning. Then came express trains, then high-speed rail. The aisles were clear, the windows sealed. However, in the reclining seats (躺椅座位), everyone reclined. In the ordinary seats, everyone’s noses were buried in their tablets and their phones.

He liked the message of hope; he was proud of what China had achieved. But how sad, he also thought that on that dashing train there was no mess, no collision of life and no good subjects for him, and that Chinese people should once again look so orderly, reserved and unconcerned about each other, even on a train.