They continue to dream
Away from the modern high-rise buildings of Nanjing lie the logistics warehouses of the delivery services. While the residents with established professions return to their modern apartments in the evening, the courier drivers' shift begins
Photo: Tong Niu
In addition to her own courier trips, this employee also took on jobs for the photographer's mother when she was no longer able to work full shifts due to her illness. Her own children live in other cities due to her job. To combat the loneliness, she adopted a small dog
Photo: Tong Niu
I lived in China for nearly 30 years before I left for Europe. In South China, I spoke Hakka, which is my first language. I spoke in the Zhejiang dialect with my parents, and when I moved to Beijing to study filmmaking, it was Mandarin. This linguistic background allows me to write with deep suspicion towards concepts such as originality and essence, as my roots are incredibly transitory. It also allows me to look at history differently.
I just finished a small book about the Chinese Tang dynasty, called “Everyday Tang,” which existed over a thousand years ago, from the seventh century to the tenth century. It’s a book that will be published by The New York Review of Books. It's about the decay of the West but also the rise of the East—or rather, how the East could imagine its future. The Tang Dynasty was the first multicultural, multilingual, international society. It conceived the Silk Road and introduced Buddhism first to China and then to the whole East. I think it also had the first woman Emperor. It was a nearly utopian system. China evolved differently and became more authoritarian, but I like to see it as a potential still imminent in its cultural and political fabric—something the West has lost the ability to do.
“China's shift from a colonised society to a global superpower has been far more immediate and disruptive”
This courier worker only sees his daughter at the weekend. His work serves as a stepping stone to the city - for a better future for his family. Every time he returns to his home village, he brings his child a present
Photo: Tong Niu
The problem with the West has a lot to do with American foreign policy and its long patronage. It has become a lazy world, never generating a clear concept of itself, as it is very heterogeneous. Moreover, much of what is considered essentially Western by origin is simply not. For example, as the late anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow pointed out in their book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, the discourse around democratic ideals and equality was, to a significant extent, shaped by contact with the Great Lakes societies of North America. These societies' unique approaches to freedom and conflict resolution profoundly influenced Enlightenment thinking—though the West often obscured these origins as „primitive.“
Ye Ju, the photographer's mother, was one of the first couriers to move from the countryside to the city of Ninjang. Her name translates from Chinese as “grapes and chrysanthemums”. With diligence and determination, she quickly found her place in the industry and gained the respect of her colleagues. In spring 2025, she died as a result of cancer
Photo: Tong Niu
While the West's transformation from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution took centuries, China's shift from a colonised society to a global superpower has been far more immediate and disruptive. China's true industrial revolution only began under Deng Xiaoping from 1978 onwards. Before that, China was predominantly agricultural. Imagine such a transition—from farming to global dominance in tech and production—in less than two generations. This took place amid declining resources and the climate crisis. Though few see it this way, it seems that the East, West, and Global South must all board the same ship to tackle the challenges ahead. We're sailing towards disaster, and no one will be immune to its forces. Yet, the West remains stuck, endlessly rephrasing old ideas in new linguistic terms. Only once we recognize that we share common challenges can we confront them collectively and resist all forms of totalitarianism.
It’s important to note that the new autocracy Donald Trump seeks to establish is, due to America's democratic and revolutionary roots, still very different from China's system. China is rooted in imperial, East Asian, and feudal traditions—a unique and complex composition that differs from the Western framework. Over the last 40 years, China has reinvented its identity profoundly while still drawing from thousands of years of history and culture.
“In the West, a certain innocence has been lost—not naivety, but the ability to believe in the future”
One essential difference is that people in the West seem only able to imagine their past, while people in China and Asia still envision a possible future. Whenever I'm in China, I meet people who are poor and depressed, but they rarely seem cynical. They believe a better future is still possible.
In 2009, I made a film called Once Upon a Time Proletarian. It compares the working class, the homeless, and the proletariat in China and Britain. Each chapter analyzes different groups on the streets of England and then China. When British workers talk about their reality, it's dark—a true 1984 mood. The Chinese, on the other hand, are hopeful. There is no simple answer as to why this is. Culture certainly plays a role. Christianity harbors an imminent sense of doomsday, while Chinese society is more pragmatic and, in some ways, more Buddhist than communist.
Industrialization and globalization have affected millions of Chinese workers, especially those moving from the countryside to cities. Like 19th-century English peasants, they face isolation, homelessness, and a disconnect from ancestral ways. But while this took centuries in the West, it happened in just over one generation in China. After 40 years of modernization, Chinese people have become citizens rather than farmers. They don't know each other anymore. But this is a global phenomenon, driven by the digital revolution that transcends nation-states—a Western construct from the 19th century. Multinational corporations like Amazon or Huawei operate globally, becoming modern feudal powers. This demands a political system that moves beyond the classic East-West dichotomy. We may need a new global democratic system and even a new vocabulary to address these realities.
“As a society: to move forward, we must constantly be moving”
For me, I often return to a confession by the English Romantic poet Percy Shelley. Like him, I believe poets are the most honest and avant-garde people. In the West, a certain innocence has been lost—not naivety, but the ability to believe in the future. The Romantics possessed a magnificent curiosity and a belief in the new. We must reject the notion that we are molded by the present world. We can refuse its limitations and believe in creating something new. For this, we need innocence and naivety in the best sense. Instead, we fall into harmful passions driven by resentment. We need an innocent passion—untainted by rage or manipulation—but maintaining this is difficult.
As we stand at this crossroads, I must admit that starting anew is difficult. I've written a dozen books and made many films, but every time I start again, it feels like I have no idea how to proceed. What allows me to move forward is crossing cultures again and again. I live in Western Europe, and every year I spend time in England, Germany, Switzerland, or France. Then I go to the East. It's this constant newness and—in a sense—constantly renewed immaturity that allows me to think freshly each time.
In this factory in the Chinese region of Jiangsu, Ye Ju, the photographer's mother began her work as a courier. The company Extreme Rabbit Express specializes in express deliveries to small towns and rural areas
Photo: Tong Niu
This is something we may have to realize as a society: to move forward, we must constantly be moving. I fear we have lost the willingness to embrace new worlds and cultures, to immerse ourselves in them, to be inspired by them, and then to evolve.
While the USA and Europe are preoccupied with themselves, not only the Chinese elite but also its working class still look towards Western civilization. Not because they envy its wealth. Chinese society is extremely education-oriented. This reverence for learning, even among peasants and farmers, is powerful and aspirational. Poor peasants still want their daughters and sons to study in the West. That is a kind of innocence.
But I don't feel that the West has this drive. It seems lost in cynicism. While more and more young Chinese are in the West, receiving education and adding it to their Eastern knowledge, the West remains stuck. As I discussed when talking about Graeber, the original success model of the West was to go elsewhere and learn—not to neglect of course that this process was extremely violent and involved and unacceptable amount of exploitation. However, curiosity seems essential for a society to succeed, and the West may have lost it for good.
What prevails is fear—fear of losing privileges, an imperial identity built over centuries. This fear makes the West resistant to exploring and relearning. Let me say it bluntly: I read Shakespeare, though it's difficult for me. It's not my language. But I make the effort because it opens new worlds. How many in the West study Chinese Buddhism, Daoism, or classical Asian texts? Maybe ordinary people don’t have time, but what about intellectuals? Shouldn’t they be curious? It's not an equal exchange, and I believe this imbalance doesn't benefit the West.