When I went to Beijing, China, I had the opportunity to visit well-known landmarks such as Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. These sites are also visited by thousands of people from all over the country, especially during weekends.
Of the many pictures I took, there's one that I particularly treasure. Quality-wise, it's nothing much, just as amateurish shot with a grainy-composition. But it's the subject that I like most: a father and son walking along the serene, tranquil walkways of the Summer Palace in the late afternoon.
Let's go back to the same spot many years before. That particular father spent his childhood during the horrors of the Culture Revolution. Encouraged by leaders who preached perpetual revolution as the way to a perfect society, children at that time rebelled against their parents. They denounced them before the authorities for supposed crimes against society, with the hapless father or mother ultimately suffering humiliation and persecution (and for many, torture and even death). In the words of one author who grew up during that period, "Family life simply vanished."
Leisurely activities were considered uproductive, and romantic love was branded as reactionary. Schools were closed and children willingly left their homes to pursue unrealistic political ideals in the countryside, while parents who resisted change were hauled off to concentration camps to do backbreaking manual labor.
It took more than a decade to reverse the moral damage that particular era brought, and when those children - the father in the photo included - became parents themselves, they must have realized how important their families were in their lives. See why I love this picture?