(Photographer: An Hejie. Market Place, Town of Chifeng, Inner Mongolia)Beyond the northern (Inner Mongolia) frontier, spring has arrived but the
cold weather lingered on. Snow fell on this April morning. Flakes danced
in the sky. A middle-aged man tended to his cart, on which sat a little
boy, wrapped up with blanket used to keep the vegetables from freezing.
From time to time, the father would tuck at the blanket to make sure that
his son was all right. These are the words from the photographer: "Set in
the dark and shadowy background and the dancing snow flakes, the pink
puffy face of the little boy stood out in great contrast to that of the
father which was apparently shaped by the caprices of life. And life was
indeed harsh. Father and son only have each other for support. When the
father yelled out a sales pitch on top of his voice, his facial _expression
was shockingly touching. One cannot help but be moved."
The old man sells roast yam for a living. Because he doesn't have alicense, his tools were confiscated and his tricycle was smashed, its
chain cut. All the old man can do is to sit there and cry.
The father and his son live in an impoverished hilly area. They demandnothing but a piece of land to call their own. Perhaps they will not have
a chance to see the outside world all their lives -- they will not know
what a staircase is, they will never ride in a taxi, nor will they ever
step into a movie theater. But the truth is these are the people who offer
us everything our lives depend on, generation after generation. The heaven
and earth have nothing to repay them.
Wang Zhizhong worked as a coal carrier. Carrying a basket of coal weighting 40kg (88 lb), he made his way up a 100m deep mine, and thenwalked a distance of 1000m along a mountainous track. For each trip, he
made 1RMB (0.125 USD). He was 17.
No rose, no diamond ring, but if this is not love, what is love?
Your elderly mother and little children are waiting for you to come home with the day's wages.
Mothers and their child. This is life.