Twenty-four enchanting images of China now available to us thanks to quite the unexpected source.
Try to remember back to the days before the Internet. People communicated by phone or mailed letters; news from abroad took longer than 10 seconds to find; in order to learn about different countries you had to open a book and copy things down.
That goes for teachers too. Back before you could just Google China, teacher Stella Garrison used these photos to teach her students (in her one-room school in Nebraska) about China and Chinese culture. Originally published by Keystone View Company, Stella received the pictures and their accompanying descriptions from her state’s superintendent’s office..
Stella’s son, now-retired US Department of State officer Richard Garrison, recently gifted his mother’s antique photo collection to the Chinese Embassy in the US, carrying out her wishes that the photos one day be returned to the Chinese people.
Thankfully, nowadays we do have the Internet and the means to digitize anachronisms. So, without further ado, enter 1930s, Republican era China:
▼ The Great Wall of China on the Rugged Hills Near Nankou Pass
▼ And accompanying description
▼ The Bund and the Huangpu River, Shanghai
▼ The Temple of Heaven in Beijing
▼ On a street in Beijing
▼ A peddler grinding soy beans with a hand-mill
▼ A caravan of camels outside the city walls of Beijing
▼ Transplanting rice in China
▼ The Empress Dowager’s Marble Boat in the Summer Palace
▼ A picturesque thoroughfare in Hong Kong
▼ Contrasts on a modern street in Canton
▼ The treasury building, Canton
▼ On the promenade of Macao
▼ Witches’ mountain and the Yangtze River
▼ The bride and bridegroom of the Chinese stage, Canton
▼ Unloading tea at Hankow, the great tea market of interior China
▼ Foochow Road, Shanghai
▼ A free milk station in Peiping
▼ A huge sentry on the road to Ming Tombs
▼ The shop of a wicker ware merchant
▼ A vegetable garden in Nanking
▼ The Interior of Joss House Tieantsin
▼ The ruins of Chapei
▼ Entrance to Canton University
▼ State Square, Victoria, Hong Kong
We didn’t include all of the descriptions here, but if you’d like to see them, visit the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America website. They are full of interesting information and enhance the time-machine effect of these fascinating photos.
Sources/Images: Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America via Shaghaiist