A picture in time

By Wu Ni in Shanghai and Yan Yiqi in Hangzhou | China Daily | Updated: 2013-05-21 10:10

Thurston shakes hand with Wang Rongxing, one of the boatmen in the original photo taken 30 years ago. Wang Lihong / for China Daily

"At that time, in 1983, we could expect these children to have similar lives as their parents and grandparents, dressing in the same old blue and gray, because nobody knew the economic change was going to happen," he says.

A Chinese friend posted Thurston's wish and the famous photo on the Chinese micro blog Sina Weibo, and the media in Shao-xing picked up the story and published it in April.

Xu Wenxiang, 67, was the first person to recognize the photo.

She says when she saw the photograph in the newspaper, she remembered the event immediately.

Xu was an elementary school teacher in Shaoxing who retired in 2002. Thurston took their picture when she and her students were on a boat for a spring excursion. Back to 1983, foreigners were rarely seen in a small city like Shaoxing, and that made a deep impression on Xu.

"I never thought I'd see the photographer again. It was like an unexpected gift to me and my two daughters, who were also in the picture," she says.

On May 1, Thurston flew to Shaoxing from his hometown of Totnes in Devon, England, to meet some of the people in the photo.

Wang Rongxing, 60, was one of the boatmen, and he could not believe how wonderful destiny can be.

"When he held my hands on the bridge where he stood 30 years ago, I felt like we have known each other for a long time," he says.

Thurston echoes his feelings.

"I took a photo for them 30 years ago and met them for five minutes and immediately we were friends forever. That is rather sweet," he says.

But perspectives had changed over the years, it seemed. Thurston was astonished to find that the river was no longer as wide or deep. Four years after the photo was taken, it was reclaimed to widen the road.

"I had expected all the things to be the same," he says.

Still he felt happy to see people on the photo are living a better life now, after having a meal in the house of Wang Rongchang, Wang Rongxing's brother.

"His house was clean and seemed to have been refurbished, it was well furnished with an aluminum front door and window frames. The family had traveled to Beijing and elsewhere in China," Thurston says.

"Wang Rongchang had a brand new electric scooter. His bother Wang Rongxing had two daughters at university. They were all casually well-dressed and everyone had mobile phones."

Teacher Zhen Guoxiang who was 25 when the photograph was taken, used to earn just 20 yuan ($3.25) a month. Now, her husband, also a teacher, earns 6,000 yuan per month and they own two apartments.

Thurston left for UK on May 8 but he is expecting more interesting stories from children in the photo.

"I was hoping that maybe some of them have turned up to be chairman of big corporations or a sports celebrity. Perhaps they had gone away to the big cities and did not see the news from local media."

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