Going Home, China

Going home is a much loved theme of me and I did this theme twice here and here. Late this night, I strolled around along the street in a China town. Before long, I came to a light box with an ad saying in four big Chinese characters, "Help you go home". So there I stood and held up my GX200, waiting passers-by hurrying home to come past the light box.

As China is the world factory, it is imaginable that lots of its citizens earn their living in factories of all sorts. The factory workers are mostly people with little formal education from remote and poorer areas. They are generally known as Min Gong, literally "civilian workers". Every year, millions of these Min Gong compete for train tickets to go home before the start of the Chinese New Year. This ad says it can help these Min Gong go home. A big draw for them really.

Sometimes, to fix at a spot and take photos as the scene changes with time is interesting. The photos will give a richer texture to the scene than otherwise. Here, the best I like about the photos is it affords me to make a good guess about the background of the people passing by: people in this area are mostly blue-collar workers and some are probably peddlers with their makeshift mobile kiosks or luggages.

I like this shot of the tall man because he was curious enough to stand right in front of me to get an exact view of what I was looking at.

At the town, there are still tricycles used for whisking people from place to place for a fee. The rider is the person who truly can help people get home.

Home is always a sweet place. I hope that this is the same case for all of you.