26 Amazing Candid Photographs That Capture Chinese People on Trains in the 1970s

Beijing-based photographer Wang Fuchun produced this series of incredibly vivid pictures of Chinese passengers on trains. A railway worker-turned photographer, Wang has been documenting all sorts of unique moments on trains for decades. From steam locomotives to bullet trains, the past three-decades of changes for China’s railways have all been recorded in Wang’s photos.

Wang’s bond with trains first started several decades ago. Influenced by his elder brother, who had an established career in rail, Wang also became a railway worker in 1970 after he finished his military service. Due to his strong interest in arts, Wang was asked to take photos as part of his job responsibility during the 1970s.

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Beautiful Shanghai Studio Portraits From the 1920s

In 1921, Sioma Lifshitz, also known as Sam Sanzetti, a Russian of Jewish heritage, jumped on a British boat from Vladivostok, beginning an incredible journey to Shanghai.

Born in 1902 on Russia’s Crimean Peninsula, Sanzetti never attended school, but received education from his schoolteacher father. At 13, he followed his parents to Harbin, China, where he worked two years as a delivery boy in a department store. When his family moved back to Russia, Sanzetti began working construction rebuilding a demolished foundry, and his employer dispatched him to Vladivostok to acquire some parts. “There,” said Sanzetti, “I was prevented by the Japanese from carrying out my mission and was forced into hiding. The day after Japan’s ‘slaughter night,’ I escaped to Shanghai.” At that point, he was 17.

In the years that followed, Sam Sanzetti made a living shining shoes. Eventually, he opened a photo studio, and business expanded until he was operating four Shanghai branches and employing 41. The studio was first located on 73 Nanking Road (today 73 Nanjing Dong Lu), near the Bund and just behind the Palace hotel (today Swatch Art Peace Hotel).

Construction on the Cathay Hotel (today Peace Hotel) was on-going at that time very and the opening in 1929 certainly also helped his business. The central position in the business center allowed him to become the photographer of the rich and famous in Shanghai, surely meeting with other successful business people of the time.

Over three decades, he took more than 20,000 photos and attracted celebrity clients, including the Italian envoy to Shanghai during the Mussolini regime, the local representative of the Pope, India nobles, the mother of Soong Tse-ven (1891-1971), a prominent businessman and politician of early 20th-century China, movie stars, and tycoons.

As the most successful photography studio in Shanghai at the time, he catered primarily to the middle class and above, who could afford such an expense.

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Rare Color Photos of Chinese Operas During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s

Zhang Yaxin, a photographer of Xinhua News Agency, was entrusted with a lofty and important task in those years (1960s and '70s): shooting the model operas, the political significance of which went far beyond its photographic significance.

Model operas took up more than ten years in Chinese people’s cultural life. Therefore, the stills of model operas were considered as the classic visual images, widely copied for numerous times, or adapted to become a wide variety of handicrafts, such as posters, stamps, posters on the match boxes, decorative ceramics, etc.

Due to the wide spread use of those images, model operas were engraved deeply in China’s history. The numerous copies of a physical image in such a wide range itself implied the strategy of promoting popular culture. However, at that time, such promotion had only one purpose, that was to appeal for the idealistic revolutionary ideology.

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Amazing Vintage Photographs of Pre-Revolution China, 1870-1946

Before Europeans first arrived in Asia, China was one of the most advanced and powerful nations in the world. It was the most populous, was politically unified, and most importantly, it had mastered the art of agriculture. However, when Europeans first landed on Chinese shores, they found a nation that had revered to traditional culture and warfare. Industrialization was almost nonexistent.

At the beginning of the 20th century, China was divided into sphere of influence with each powerful Western nation trying to exert as much control over it as possible. The Chinese resented foreigners control and expressed this at the beginning of the 20th century with the Boxer Rebellion. At the same time, the traditional government of China began to fail in the early years. The Chinese people, being resentful of foreigners and dissatisfied with inability of the present government to throw them out, initiated the Revolution of 1911, replacing the Chinese 2000 year old imperial system with the Republic of China headed by Sun Yat-sen.

Here is an amazing collection of vintage photographs taken in pre-revolution China, in Pre Deng XiaoPing period (1870-1946).

Chinese Family [c1875] Attribution Unk

Group Of Chinese Women With Fans, Canton, China [c1880] Afong Lai

Greatwall China [1907] Herbert G. Ponting

Boxer Prisoners Captured By 6th US Cavalry, Tientsin, China [1901] Underwood & Co

Beggars, Beihai Park [c1917-1919] Sydney D. Gamble

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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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The First Color Photographs of China, 1912

Outside of the clothing, these pictures look as if it could have been taken yesterday, yet it is over 100 years old. The archives of Albert Kahn contain hundreds of thousands of photographs, 72,000 of them in color. Kahn used the pioneering Autochrome method of color.

In 1912, he took pictures in China, which became the first photographic record of the country in color.

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Photos of Life in China During the 1920s and 1930s

During the early 19th century, Louis-Philippe Messelier left France for China and settled in Shanghai. He was a photojournalist for the French Journal of Shanghai. There, he witnessed eccentric street performances, film studios at work, the untouched countryside, and the local aristocracy.

During the 1920s and 1930s, China saw a rapid modernization influenced by the west. Messelier managed to capture a rare view of the country and its unique traditions juxtaposed with modern life.

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Rare Vintage Photographs of Chinese Women From Between the 1860s and 1870s

These incredible photographs are believed to be among the earliest of their kind in existence and offer an fascinating insight into life in China during the 1860s.

At home or abroad, in holiday robes or in plain clothing, the heart of a Chinese female seems to be at all times ready to overflow with mirth and good humor.

In this photograph from 1868, the bound feet of a Chinese woman are juxtaposed with a normal, unbound foot. The difference is incredible. The tiny shoe propped up against the wall looks like it was made for a small child, not a full-grown woman.

Here’s a sight that isn’t really that unusual, even today: two ladies, in this case Amoy women, sitting together for a bit of a chat.

Pictured here, in another photograph from 1871, is a young woman from Taiwan, which was known as ‘Formosa’ in the 19th century.

Seen here is one of the most widespread traditions of human society in any country, the wedding. The bride stands with her face covered, and indeed, it was quite normal for a groom not to see his bride before they were wed.

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Stunning Color Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Beijing in the 1940s

These amazing vintage pictures show everyday life of Beijing in the 1940s.

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China in Color Pictures From the 1920s and 1930s

These glass slides were taken by the Russian-born photographer Serge Vargassoff (1906-1965) who established himself as a professional photographer, at the age of 20, in Peking (Beijing), China and became a long-term resident of the city. Later he established a studio 'Serge Vargassoff Photography' at 3A Wyndham Street Hong Kong, as well as working at "Gainsborough Studio, Morning Post Building, Hong Kong". Vargassoff was well known to Hedda Hammer Morrision. Hedda Morrison writes fondly of Vargassoff in her book, A Photographer in Old Peking (1985), "[Serge Vargassoff] was an excellent, though not very businesslike, photographer. We enjoyed a firm friendship and it was he who brought me the news of the Japanese surrender - and a bottle of vodka with which to celebrate the event."

Pavilion

Wulong Ting (Five-Dragon-Pavilion) in Beihai Park

The wall of Tuan Cheng (Circular City) in Beihai Park

The Stone Pailou (Gateway) in Zhongshan Park

A glazed gateway with a pavilion in Beihai Park

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