Life on a Train

This special feature collection is taken on a railway trip on a 'Green Train', a type of express train in China that is more affordable and slower than high-speed trains, as is known for its green livery. These trains can serve very long trips across the whole country, and those willing to endure the complete journey in its bedless economic class have to sit twenty to forty hours.

The people who make such a choice are generally migrant workers from rural districts travelling to work in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai or coming back home on vacations. As a middle-class child, I've hardly taken Green Trains since I grow up; most of my trips are on comfortable and clean high-speed trains, while the tickets are usually tens of times more expensive.

According to our Premier's report last year, over 60% of people in this country earn less than 200 dollars a month. At the same time, they are also socially unrepresented, even in transportation, as most media voices focus on the advanced technology and convenience of world-renowned high-speed railways.

In 2001 a Chinese photographer, Fuchun Wang, published his collection The Chinese on the train, depicting what he has seen in the coach within the past several decades as a railway worker. Inspired by him, I hope to document these individuals to keep a lens on the silent majority under the loudness of grand narrations.