Unique Photographs Capture Everyday Life in China During the Decades Following the Cultural Revolution

In 2009, Thomas Sauvin stumbled upon discarded film negatives he could purchase by the kilogram. The French national was alerted to them by a man in Beijing, who was collecting trash that could be melted down to extract silver nitrate — a substance that could be sold onto chemists and laboratories.

“He developed a network of people who collected negative films, X-rays, CDs, and anything else that contained silver nitrate,” Sauvin told the ABC. “Once he gathered everything, he put them in a pool of acid, and waited for silver nitrate to emerge — it looked just like gunpowder.”

At the time, Sauvin didn’t anticipate his initial discovery was going to launch a photography project with more than 800,000 images — he simply wanted to save the negatives from destruction. “So I made a deal with him to buy the negatives by the kilo,” Sauvin said. “I bought my first bag in May 2009.”

And in the process, Sauvin has incidentally archived one of the world’s biggest shifts — the rise of modern China and the country’s first forays into capitalist consumer culture. His collecting of ‘found’ Chinese photography has turned into the Beijing Silvermine.

Found, or vernacular photography refers to photographs captured by everyday people that were shot with no explicit artistic or commercial intent. And it’s these found photos that have led Sauvin to launch photobooks, exhibitions, and a popular Instagram account.

Sauvin, who has lived in China on and off since his school exchange in 1999, told the ABC that it was by chance that the Silvermine documented this period. “They were shot mostly between 1985 to 2005, because 1985 is when analogue photography started being accessible to everyday people in China, and 2005 is when digital photography started taking over,” Sauvin said.

What’s resulted is an archive packed full of candid portraits of people interacting with China’s newly reformed economy.

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40 Amazing Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Beijing, China in 1984

Thomas Hoepker began his photographic career in the 1960s and made his reputation through impactful reportage and stylish color features, working on stories as varied as the culture of the Mayan people, the rise of Muhammad Ali and the politics and everyday life in East Berlin, before the wall fell. He has also spent time in China, documenting everything from farm life in Yangshuo province to the hardships of Beijing. Below are 40 amazing photographs Hoepker took in Beijing in 1984:

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Everyday Life of Beijing in the Early 1980s Through Fascinating Photos

Beijing is the capital of the People’s Republic of China. It is the world’s most populous capital city, within an administrative area of 16,410.5 km2. It is mostly surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin to the southeast; together, the three divisions form the Jingjinji megalopolis and the national capital region of China.

Beijing in the early 1980s

Beijing is a global city, and one of the world's leading centers for culture, diplomacy and politics, business and economics, education, language, and science and technology. A megacity, Beijing is the second-largest Chinese city by urban population after Shanghai and is the nation's cultural, educational, and political center.

Combining both modern and traditional architecture, Beijing is one of the oldest cities in the world, with a rich history dating back three millennia. As the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political center of the country for most of the past eight centuries, and was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium AD.

The city is also renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. It has seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites—the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, Zhoukoudian, and parts of the Great Wall and the Grand Canal—all of which are tourist locations.

These fascinating photos were captured by kattebelletje that show everyday life of Beijing in 1983 and 1984.

“Children go to the streets and require adults to lead”

“Spitting is not hygienic”

“Striving towards no more than 1.2 billion people in 2000”

“Traffic safety concerns every household’s happiness"

Applying cement

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40 Amazing Photos From the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests

From April 1989 people from across China gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of the liberal Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang and share their frustrations about the slow pace of promised reform.

The gathering turned into peaceful protests which spread across the provinces of China as demonstrators, mainly students, began to call for an end to official corruption and for political and economic reform.

On May 13, hundreds of student protesters in Tiananmen Square went on hunger strike in order to speak push for talks with Communist Party leaders. It is estimated that one million people joined the protests in Beijing to express their support for the students on hunger strike and to demand reform.

Party leaders visited the student protests on May 19. The protesters ended their hunger strike that evening. However, the next day martial law was declared in Beijing to ‘firmly stop the unrest’.

In the weeks that followed the declaration of martial law, hundreds of thousands of people once again protested on the streets of Beijing, with similar demonstrations taking place in cities across China.

Overnight on 3 to June 4, the government sent tens of thousands of armed troops and hundreds of armored military vehicles into the city centre to enforce martial law and forcibly clear the streets of demonstrators. The government wanted to 'restore order' in the capital.

As they approached the demonstrations, troops opened fire on crowds of protesters and onlookers. They gave no warning before they started shooting.

As the troops kept firing into the crowds, some of those running away were shot in the back. Others were crushed to death by military vehicles. No one knows the death toll from Tiananmen that night, but estimates range from several hundred to several thousand.

A huge crowd gathers at a Beijing intersection where residents used a bus as a roadblock to keep troops from advancing toward Tiananmen Square in this June 3, 1989 photo. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing’s Cangan Boulevard in Tiananmen Square, on on June 5, 1989. The man, calling for an end to violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way. More on this iconic image and the still-anonymous "tank man" here. (AP Photo/Jeff Widener)

A student displays a banner with one of the slogans chanted by the crowd of some 200,000 pouring into Tiananmen Square, on April 22, 1989 in Beijing. They were attempting to participate in the funeral ceremony of former Chinese Communist Party leader and liberal reformer Hu Yaobang, during an unauthorized demonstration to mourn his death. His death in April triggered an unprecedented wave of pro-democracy demonstrations. (Catherine Henriette/AFP/Getty Images)

Thousands of students from local colleges and universities march to Tiananmen Square, Beijing, on May 4, 1989, to demonstrate for government reform. (AP Photo/Mikami)

Students from Beijing University stage a huge demonstration in Tiananmen Square as they start an unlimited hunger strike as the part of mass pro-democracy protest against the Chinese government, on May 18, 1989. (Catherine Henriette/AFP/Getty Images)

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33 Fascinating Pics Capture Street Scenes of Beijing in 1990

Beijing is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's most populous capital city. The city, located in northern China, is governed as a municipality under the direct administration of the central government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts.

Beijing is mostly surrounded by Hebei Province with the exception of neighboring Tianjin to the southeast; together, the three divisions form the Jingjinji megalopolis and the national capital region of China.

Beijing is an important world capital and global power city, and one of the world's leading centers for culture, diplomacy and politics, business and economy, education, language, and science and technology.

A megacity, Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by urban population after Shanghai and is the nation's cultural, educational, and political center. It is home to the headquarters of most of China's largest state-owned companies and also a major hub for the national highway, expressway, railway, and high-speed rail networks.

These fascinating color pics were taken by R_Roger that show street scenes of Beijing in 1990.

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In 1985, George Michael Played the First Western Pop Concert in Beijing, These Are 30 Rare Photos of Wham! in China

In 1985, Wham! took a break from recording to embark on a lengthy world tour, including a ground-breaking 10-day visit to China, the first by a Western pop group.

Three decades ago, as China was recovering from the trauma of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, it gradually started opening up to Western culture. The first performers to get through the door were Wham!.

In April 1985, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley took to the stage in Beijing at the People’s Gymnasium in front of 15,000 people, becoming the first Western pop act to play a concert in China. They played another show in the southern city of Guangzhou at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.

With the death of 53-year-old Michael on Christmas Day, Chinese fans, like those in the rest of the world, mourned yet another tragic loss in 2016. In particular, many Chinese internet users remembered Michael through Wham!’s groundbreaking 1985 visit.

Wham!’s concert in Beijing was groundbreaking, but it was not by any means a great show. A breakdancer who ventured into the crowd seemed to have crossed the line in conservative 1980s China, with organizers announcing a ban on standing during the show afterwards. Some of the audience mistook the cameras of television film crews for secret police, so they sat rigid in their seats.

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Beijing 40 Years Ago – 32 Beautiful Color Photos of the Capital of China in the 1970s

Let's make a trip back to Beijing 40 years ago. These beautiful photos were taken in 1977 and 1978.

Flea market in Beijing, 1978

Flower child in Beijing, 1977

Forbidden City in Beijing, 1978..

Forbidden City in Beijing, 1978

Forbidden City roof in Beijing, 1978

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Pictures of the Aftermath of the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China in 1989

David Turnley was in Paris when he got the call. His brother Peter was in Beijing to cover the visit of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to China but was on the line with different, more exciting news. A small group of students had taken to the streets in protest in Tiananmen Square—and their numbers were swelling.

“I think something is happening here,” Peter told his brother. “You need to cover this too,” Peter urged.

What had started with a handful of students “soon turned into 10,000, and a few days after that, a million,” recalls Peter, all in support of greater political and personal freedoms. The year 1989 was a time of historic change in entrenched political systems like the Soviet Union and South Africa, and the Chinese students wanted to be part of it.

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Stories Behind the “Tank Man” of the Iconic Tiananmen’s Photographs in 1989

Twenty-five years ago today, the Tank Man, the nickname of an anonymous man who stood in front of a column of tanks on June 5, 1989, the morning after the Chinese military had suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 by force. The man achieved widespread international recognition due to the videotape and photographs taken of the incident. Some have identified the man as Wang Weilin (王維林), but the name has not been confirmed and little is known about him or of his fate after the confrontation that day.

Five photographers managed to capture the event on film and get their pictures published in its aftermath. On June 4, 2009, another photographer released an image of the scene taken from ground level. Today, images of what happened at Tiananmen Square are still blocked on the Internet in China due to what John Palfrey of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society has described as “the world's most sophisticated means of Internet filtering.”

The most used photograph of the event was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press, from a sixth floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel, about half a mile (800 meters) away from the scene. Widener was injured and suffering from flu. The image was taken using a Nikon FE2 camera through a Nikkor 400mm 5.6 ED IF lens and TC-301 teleconverter. Low on film, a friend hastily obtained a roll of Fuji 100 ASA color negative film, allowing him to make the shot. Though he was concerned that his shots were not good, his image was syndicated to a large number of newspapers around the world, and was said to have appeared on the front page of all European papers.

Photo: Jeff Widener/Associated Press

Another version was taken by Stuart Franklin of Magnum Photos from the fifth floor of the Beijing Hotel. His has a wider field of view than Widener's, showing more tanks farther away. He was on the same balcony as Charlie Cole, and his roll of film was smuggled out of the country by a French student, concealed in a box of tea.

Photo: Stuart Franklin/Magnum Photos

Charlie Cole, working for Newsweek and on the same balcony as Stuart Franklin, hid his roll of film containing Tank Man in a Beijing Hotel toilet, sacrificing an unused roll of film and undeveloped images of wounded protesters after the PSB raided his room, destroyed the two rolls of film just mentioned and forced him to sign a confession. Cole was able to retrieve the roll and have it sent to Newsweek. He won a World Press Award for a similar photo. It was featured in Life’s “100 Photographs That Changed the World” in 2003.

Photo: Charlie Cole/Newsweek

On June 4, 2009, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the protests, Associated Press reporter Terril Jones revealed a photo he took showing the Tank Man from ground level, a different angle than all of the other known photos of the Tank Man. Jones has written that he was not aware of what he had captured until a month later when printing his photos.

Photo: Terril JonesAssociated Press

Arthur Tsang Hin Wah of Reuters took several shots from room 1111 of the Beijing Hotel, but only the shot of Tank Man climbing the tank was chosen. It was not until several hours later that the photo of the man standing in front of the tank was finally chosen. When the staff noticed Widener’s work, they re-checked Wah’s negative to see if it was of the same moment as Widener's. Later, on March 20, 2013, in an interview by the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association (HKPPA), Wah told the story and added further detail. He told HKPPA that on the night of June 3, 1989, he was beaten by students while taking photos and was bleeding. A “foreign” photographer accompanying him suddenly said “I am not gonna die for your country” and left. Wah returned to the hotel. When he decided to go out again, the public security stopped him, so he stayed in his room, stood next to the window and eventually witnessed the Tank Man and took several shots on June 4, 1989.

Photo: Arthur Tsang Hin Wah/Reuters

Just as powerful as the photos, this video of the Tiananmen Square Tank Man is utterly mesmerizing.

Beijing in Color Photos, 1947

Beijing, sometimes romanized as Peking, is the capital of the People’s Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world. Below are some color photos of Beijing in 1947.

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