Hidden Guanzhong

Author: Hu Wu Gong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-12-01
Features: To write this book, especially to take the photos in it, I devoted long-term effort. Whether it was spring planting, autumn harvest, or festivals, I gave up reunions with my family and neglected my elderly parents. Although they didn’t like or understand photography, they firmly believed I was doing something important out of familial love, giving me full understanding and support. Meanwhile, some self-proclaimed "revolutionary theorists" who took pride in being authorities in photography labeled the photography that focused on ordinary people’s lives and their living conditions as "exposing the dark side," calling the works "rustic, outdated, and obsolete." Fortunately, those days of flying "sticks" and "hats" have passed. With the times changing, today, the "rustic, outdated, and obsolete" photos have finally revealed their cultural and regional significance. The rise and fall of Guanzhong civilization are the waves rolling in the long river of life for the Qin people. Every fleeting change reflects the bloodline of the people, their life trajectories, and cultural heritage. Therefore, returning to the folk culture of Guanzhong and getting close to the complexities of ordinary people’s lives means getting closer to the truth and the reality of the country. Recording these ordinary moments that have never entered the hallowed halls of photography will inject depth into images, add vividness to history, and provide readers with moments for reflection. For me, photography is just a tool—a tool that motivates me to live. Recording life, interpreting life, and understanding society through photography has gradually formed my perspective on photography. The earliest photos in this book were taken in 1971, and the latest in 2002, spanning 31 years. Over these 31 years, I focused my lens on the cultural vein of the Guanzhong people, who have endured continuous rebirths over thousands of years, capturing their joys, sorrows, struggles, and helplessness in the face of fate. Among these, I value chapters like "Millet Pickers" and "Laborers" the most. Since the beginning of reforms, I have been observing millet pickers and later urban laborers, using my photography to help more people understand their extraordinary significance to Guanzhong and Xi’an. My photos have remained relatively unchanged throughout. While lacking artistic creativity, they are rich in documentary evidence. After all, becoming a photographer already constitutes an overreach of the subjects’ rights—how could I then create or even impose aggressive images that dominate public attention and achieve the so-called impact of catering to the masses? As the saying goes, "Nurture the soil silently." I believe all spiritual and cultural products should possess this quality. Images are no different; whether they are of any category or function, viewing them is a voluntary act—one cannot force people to look or not look. I treat my subjects and the resulting images with this basic sense of perception, cognition, and conscience, indifferent to beauty or ugliness, seeking only truth. "Truth" is a relationship—between people and their environment, between people and history, between people and reality, and between people themselves. It is also the relationship between me and my subjects. To accurately capture this relationship, I often join the Guanzhong locals at temple fairs, sleep in heated beds, and spend winter holidays with them; I risk dangers, climb trains, and rush to millet fields with millet pickers; and I work on construction sites, explore coal mines, and live in shanties with laborers. After more than 30 years of shooting and accumulation, combined with nearly 100,000 words of experience and reflection, I have now compiled this book, fulfilling a responsibility and completing a mission. I have said that a clear, self-taught perspective on photography begins with confusion, and the structure of a book also forms gradually. Yes, "living people" are so important! "Living people," though a common saying in Guanzhong, carries such a progressive consciousness! In China’s official history, only the "officials" are mentioned as "people," not the common folk. Yet the people of Guanzhong always speak of "living people" and insist on "living people." When teaching their children, they say, "Live well," and when lamenting, they cry, "How can I live?" When achieving great things, they praise, "We are finally living people." It is clear that the consciousness of "living people" is deeply rooted in their values. Even after millennia of Confucian teachings and a century of constraints, they cannot be stopped from aspiring to be upright individuals. The transition from "official history" to "people’s history" is a process and a progress. We see the arrival of a "people’s history" in an era of the common folk, which will be a comprehensive and more humanistic history. I am willing to capture the Guanzhong people and their journey of "living people." Thousands of years of agricultural and nomadic culture are our roots, our banner that sets us apart from other nations. Among them, there is a wealth of benevolence, moral warmth, and principles of etiquette and integrity, as well as an unyielding passion for life. However, an era has ended. Traditional book culture has become rigid, and past folk culture cannot be reborn. The past two decades of reform and opening up have fundamentally transformed Guanzhong’s appearance after thousands of years. From this point on, the people of Guanzhong have truly begun to shed their agricultural and nomadic civilization and step toward modernization through industrial civilization. Precisely from this perspective, as an eyewitness to the transformation of traditional cultural forms, I decided to capture those irreplaceable moments, hoping that this history would not be forgotten so quickly.