A Chinese Man's History Through Photo

Multiple Texts > History of China
By Admin

A Chinese Man's History Through Photo
22 November 2009

This is an unbroken chronicle of a Chinese man’s history recorded through photographic portraits over 26 years .

The man was born in 1881 during the dying days of the Manchurian dynasty, and named Ye Jinlu (叶景吕). However, his ancestor wasn’t surnamed Ye, but Zhu (朱), the surname of the royal family of the Ming, the last Chinese dynasty that saved the world by successfully driving the Mongols back to their grassland, but was later tragically destroyed by Manchu tribe that was more a criminal gang than anything else since it was formed by looters from Siberia （通古斯盗贼）, Tartars （鞑子）vanquished by European and Chinese armies, as well as Han Chinese traitors (hanbaoyi 汉包衣).

It is not a coincidence that Mr. Ye’s ancestors shared the same surname with the Mind emperors, because his ancestor (朱聿键) was the 23th son of the First Ming Emperor Hongwu. When the militant Manchu criminals left their designated migration area in China’s northeast and took over the entire Middle Kingdom in 1648, the first two things - among many other tasks which include slaying 5 million Han Chinese in the northeast region (东北), killing 130,000 Han civilians in Jinan City (济南) alone, murdering 5 million Hui Muslins in northwest, and slaughtering 60 million Hans in Jiangnan region (江南) - they protected the deceased Ming emperors (their mausoleums) and executed all living members in the royal family. It was under a situation of life and death as such, Mr. Ye’s ancestors were forced to change their surnames which has allowed this branch with the last Chinese royal blood to have survived to this day.

At the age of 15, Mr Ye began to work as an office boy in London for Luo Fenglu (罗丰禄), the ambassador to Britain. In 1901 when he was 19, before returning to China, he went to a studio and took his first photo in his life, which became the start point of his 62-year-long photographic annual record.

Mr Ye passed away in 1968 at the age of 87, and is survived by two daughters: 101-year old eldest daughter living in Hangzhou and 91-year old second daughter in Taiwan.

The majority of the photos were taken at Artistic Light Studio (福州艺光照相馆) and Time Studio (时代照相馆) in Fuzhou (福州), the capital city of Fujian Province （福建）.



1901, aged 20, the next year of the invasion of Beijing by the Eight-Nation Alliance (八国联军), including British forces in which Yuanming Yuan garden (圆明园) was burned down to the ground. The photo, the first in his life, was taken at a London photographic studio when he worked at Chinese embassy to Britain.		1909, aged at 28, the year when China was ruled by a baby Manchurian who ended up to be a war criminal and a Manchurian woman who became the most hated and loathed female figure in China. The photo was taken at a Fuzhou studio.



1911, aged 30, the year when Chinese under the leadership of Sun Zhongshan (孙中山) brought down the parasite alien regime of Manchu dynasty and ended two thousand-year old imperial system.		1922. aged 41, the next year of the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party. At the time China was governed by Nationalist Party in name only but actually ruled under various warlords.



1927, aged 46, the year when Nanchang Uprising （南昌起义）led by Zhou Enlai and Zhu De occurred in Jiangxi province (江西), which became the founding moment of the People's Liberation Army.		1929, aged 48, the year when the Wall Street Crashed that led to Great Depression in early 30s.



1933, aged 52, a year when Shanghai experienced its first golden era of development and became China's economic powerhouse and cultural centre.		1937, aged 56, a year when invading Japanese army based at "Manchuguo" occupied Beijing, Shanghai and the most part of China.



1942, aged 61, a year when half of the world involved in the WWII and China's anti-Japanese resistance was at its most difficult stage - a living hell brought to China by aggressive Japanese and die hard Manchu parasites.		1945, aged 64, a year when Chinese drove out of Fascist Japanese and the West defeated Nazi Germany and Italy. But the peace did not prevail as the cold war was initiated in the West and a civil war broke out in China.



1949, aged 68, a year when the Nationalist Government was forced to retreat to a tiny Chinese island called Taiwan, and the People's Republic China was formally established on October 1 under the leadership of Mao Zedong.		1950, aged 69, a year when America with the help of its puppet South Korean regime and Western allies attempted to bring the war to the border of China through North Korea; Chinese were forced to send armies abroad to defend peace.



1960, aged 79, a year when China was in the middle of Three Years of Natural Disasters, on the top of the international sanction, which resulted in wide spread food shortage and famine.		1968, aged 87, a year when China was at the height of the Cultural Revolution. This is the last photo of Mr Ye taken on June 1, China's Children's Day. A month later, he passed away.