French photographer reflects on an amazing journey in China
Print Edition
It was a long, dark, snowy winter’s night in 1989. Two street lights swayed in the darkness. Yann Layma was behind the wheel of a Jeep in the remote mountains of Guizhou Province.
Suddenly, the car broke down and Layma, along with his two companions, had no choice but to walk more than 10 kilometers to the ethnic minority community he was going to photograph.
“We did not have enough clothes, so we put newspapers inside our thin jackets to keep warm,” Layma, born in 1962, says in pidgin Chinese.
They soon fell through an ice hole. “We were so cold and on the edge of death,” Layma says. “But the villagers dared not help us as China was in the early stages of opening-up.”
Foreigners, especially in less-developed areas like Guizhou, were still a rare sight.
“In their eyes, I was a ghost,” Layma says. Finally a girl and her father offered them help. They gave Layma alcohol to warm the body and emptied a bed so he could rest.
This is just one of Layma’s stories from his 30 years in China, during which he walked across most of the country.
In 1984, Layma was commissioned to take photographs for then French President Francois Mitterand in the Elysee Palace, Paris, for one year. During this time, Mitterand recommended that Layma read Confucius, the famous Chinese philosopher.
Layma quickly fell in love with China.
The inspiration for moving to China came in a dream: “I dreamed of taking photographs in China.”
It was his psychiatrist who suggested he follow his dream and even gave him a camera.
After studying Chinese in Paris for one year, he went to Taiwan and was given the name Yan Lei (thunder in hell).
He moved to Beijing in 1985. “When I first arrived, there was no expressway and the roads were full of bicycles.”
“The people wore gray and there was not much commercial industry,” he says. “But it was pure like water.
“It is difficult for young people today to understand what Beijing was like as China has seen remarkable development over the past few decades,” Layma says.
In his words, China’s beauty not only exists in colorful ethnic minority regions and grand landscapes, but can also be found in common daily life.
Some of his favorite images portray elderly women. “They all had bound feet, a practice that crippled women both physically and spiritually in feudal society,” Layma explains. “These images are snapshots of real life that reflect real history.”
His photos range from underground disco parties to the operation of China’s first stock exchange.
Even though his works seldom touch on politics, Layma says he had been interrogated by policemen when holding a camera in the street in the 1980s.
“They would ask me what I was doing and what I was photographing,” Layma says. “But I had not broken any rules.”
In the 1980s, personal relationships with foreigners were rare in China. “Anyone who came into contact with me had to report and register with the higher authorities,” Layma says.
He can now walk and ride without any special attention from others across the country.
“It was truly huge progress, which marks China’s inclusiveness,” he says. However, he still witnessed the fading of traditional culture with growing prosperity.
“I returned to the village in Guizhou Province in 1998,” Layma says. “But I could not find the conventional lifestyles such as diversified minority costumes.”
To preserve his memory of China in the 1980s and 1990s, he has published five books of photos, including “Yesterday’s China,” which hit stores in February.
The selected photos in the book were captured from 1985 to 1995. “People prefer to leaf through pictures from their juvenile and youth period,” the book’s publisher Na Risong says, “since they carry our memories of past times.”
Layma’s China story has continued. In 2005, he was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur due to the contributions he made in improving cultural exchanges between France and China.
Over three years ago, he met his current wife online. And now, they split their time between Beijing and Tours, France, with their 10-month-old child.
Layma now spends more time selling the works of Chinese photographers abroad.
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