Editor’s note: Song Zeyi is a photographer who has traveled across China to document more than 200 factories established as part of the Third Front Movement, a national drive launched in the 1960s to develop industrial and military facilities in 13 provincial regions, including Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Guizhou. Here, Song talks about the wide-reaching impact the movement has had on people’s lives, national prosperity, and even his own family.

In 1965, when the central government called for workers to join the Third Front Movement, my maternal grandparents decided to move with their three children from Dalian, a coastal city in the northeastern Liaoning province, to the landlocked Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, pretty much at the other side of the country.

My childhood experiences were closely connected with the factories and mines of the Third Front. I especially loved visiting my grandparents at Chinese New Year, because Third Front workers made good money and ate good food — even seafood, a rarity back then in the northwest.

In Yinchuan, a city surrounded by the Tengger and Mu Us deserts, the modest housing compound for factory workers and their families was inhabited entirely by migrants from Dalian. It was a remarkable sight at New Year, with piles of red garbage comprising firecracker casings, shrimp shells, crab shells, and more.

By the time it occurred to me to start documenting that era through photography, those simple housing blocks and that striking New Year scene had long since disappeared. That flash of red now exists only in my memory, and my understanding of it has evolved over time. As a child, the sight represented holiday festivities and delicious food, but I can see now that those trash piles also reflected the ambitions of the Third Front workers to make this “new land” better than where they had left. It took me 40 years to realize this.

Family legacy

I am a third-generation of the Third Front Movement. There’s a saying that captures the experience of families like ours: “First we devote our youth, then we devote our whole lives — in the end, even the futures of our children and grandchildren are tied to the cause.”

In 1964, after China successfully detonated its first atomic bomb in the sparsely populated western region, the central government began relocating industrial enterprises from the coastal areas to western and northwestern inland regions in the name of military preparedness. When my grandparents uprooted their comfortable life in Dalian to relocate to the relatively underdeveloped Ningxia, my mother was just 6 years old and had no choice but to go with them.

My grandfather was an orphan, and he believed that his education and personal growth were made possible by the state’s support. So when the country needed him, he didn’t hesitate: wherever he was asked to go, he gathered his family and went without a backward glance. My grandparents originally worked at the Dalian Crane Factory. For my mother, Dalian remains a beautiful childhood memory. Her strongest impressions were of material abundance and its “fashionable” atmosphere. She recalls how, even then, stores would have vast window displays like those in Europe.

I was born in 1984. When I was 3, my mother took me to Dalian — a trip I remember with surprising clarity. But when I returned to Dalian again in 2006, I felt a sense of dissociation. The city was at once familiar and strange. I grew up in the desert, but I always heard my family saying that the sea was better. When I stood on the shoreline for the first time, I experienced mixed feelings. That inexplicable fondness for the ocean left me feeling awkward and bewildered. Unlike my parents’ generation, who had tangible things to anchor their memories, my secondhand memories were like mirages.

My grandfather passed away from pancreatic cancer less than three years after arriving in Ningxia. My grandmother had to raise three children on her own, and life was extremely difficult. After her husband’s death, she tried to return to Dalian, but some policy delays meant that even after her furniture was all packed and on a train, she could not go home. It left her with a sense of resentment toward my grandfather, one that was bound up with love. She would still set out his memorial portrait at Chinese New Year and during festivals, all the while cursing him under her breath for “stranding” the family in Ningxia. Many years after my grandmother passed away, my mother told me: “She never gave money to beggars. When she saw one, she’d mutter, ‘Why was no one there to pity me at my lowest point?’”

Though my father was a native of Ningxia, many of his neighbors were from Shanghai — mostly Third Front workers who had come from the Fukang Felt Factory. He grew up surrounded by the Shanghai dialect, so when he eventually visited the city, he could immediately catch the subtle barbs in people’s speech. Even his first love was from a Shanghai family. Such small details demonstrate the cultural blending brought about by the movement.

Home front

Every Third Front participant or descendant I’ve encountered has carried a special sense of identity, a kind of emotional anchor. In Duyun, in the southwestern Guizhou province, I met two elderly women with unmistakable Beijing accents who, although having spent decades away, still saw themselves as Beijingers.

One of my classmates was born in Ningxia after her parents relocated there in 1965 from Qingdao, a coastal city in the eastern Shandong province, as part of a project led by the Ministry of Chemical Industry (editor’s note: the ministry was abolished in 1998). She is unquestionably a Ningxia native — and yet, this year, in her slightly accented Mandarin, she told me with utmost seriousness: “Qingdao is my true hometown. When I retire, I’m definitely going to buy a house in Qingdao and spend my old age there.” When it comes to the concept of “home,” even third-generation descendants of Third Front workers often feel like strangers in their own land, reflecting the complexities of cultural migration and identity.

In Zunyi, in Guizhou province, I met an elderly couple who spoke in the Dalian dialect. They had relocated with the engineering division of China’s Air Force. The types of flowers the elderly woman grew on her balcony turned out to be the same as those my grandmother used to plant. Her husband was still vigilant about espionage, demanding to know “which unit” I was from on our first meeting. I couldn’t help but laugh. When I explained that I was researching the history of the Third Front, he instantly dropped his guard and invited me into his home to pore over old photographs and listen to long stories.

On the train to Panzhihua in the southwestern Sichuan province, I encountered a crane operator from the Panzhihua Iron and Steel Rail Beam Factory, better known as Pangang, who insisted on taking me to a restaurant to join a table filled with his apprentices. They proudly told me that every turn and bend on China’s vast high-speed rail network uses rails made at their plant.

An industrial city that rose from nothing, Panzhihua exists entirely because of the Third Front. What struck me was that rather than the constraints of an older cultural tradition, or the insularity or hostility found in some places, it had sincerity and an abundance of feeling. Residents share a sense of recognition — as long as you care about the Third Front, they see you as one of their own.

Art in design

I encountered all sorts of challenges during my fieldwork. Many factories did not allow casual entry. I used to carry cash in my pocket, to use to bribe security guards, but I never had to use it — not a single person accepted the money. People in big cities often assume that money can solve everything, but workers in these smaller industrial towns have their principles. Sometimes, after I’d finished taking my photographs, I would go find a convenience store to buy two packs of cigarettes to give the security guards — a token of gratitude that they would always willingly accept.

Amid the ruins of these old factories, I discovered many thought-provoking expressions of aesthetic beauty. The factories of the Third Front consistently struck a balance between function and form. Even when resources were limited, they never compromised their pursuit of beauty. Examples include the artificial rockery at the entrance to the Minshan Machinery Factory in the northwestern Gansu province, or the distinctive windows of the Liaoyuan Machinery Factory in Sichuan — features that had no effect on production efficiency, yet embodied a certain aesthetic sensibility. These stand in stark contrast to the “efficiency-first” buildings of today. In the minute details of these old structures, I glimpsed the uncompromising pursuit of beauty by people who lived in an era of material scarcity.

In the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, I saw a Third Front factory that had made use of a natural slope to build a children’s slide. Others had corridors with colored lights or circular doorways that conjured thoughts of a classical Chinese garden. Human-centered design can be seen everywhere in the architecture of that era.

Shanghai plaster, a stone-like facade finish, and terrazzo were commonly used at the time. These finishes have largely disappeared today because of their cost and the pollution they can cause. Yet, they were often executed with remarkable refinement: in some cases, fragments of green or amber beer bottles were mixed into the stone, creating distinctive decorative patterns. These surface treatments have since become a reliable marker of period architecture.

Architecture is a mirror that reflects the richness and complexity of what has passed.

Too late

I’ve missed the opportunity to photograph many factory buildings before they were demolished. This includes one in Ningxia, where my father once worked. I always thought that factory was an eyesore, hemmed in by a forest of apartment blocks, and so I never bothered to capture it before it was torn down. Quite a few Third Front factories have been lost to history because of my procrastination and neglect.

The rise and fall of many Third Front projects were tied to the shifting landscape of geopolitics and national policy. As one worker put it, “They were built for peace, and they were shut down for peace.”

After the policy changes of the “reform and opening-up” era, many factories tried to survive by switching from military to civilian production. Some ended in failure. One factory tried to make bicycles from the same steel used for mortars, but each bike cost more to build than it could ever sell for. Plants that had produced fighter jets started turning out washing machines and buses. Missile factories pivoted to refrigerators.

At the Zunyi 061 Base (today Guizhou’s affiliate of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation), I met Yang Yingzhou, a founding member of the surface-to-air missile engine factory. During a tour of the abandoned workshops, he pointed to a thick tree, telling me that he had planted it when the factory was established. Back then, he said, it had been no thicker than a rolling pin. I suggested taking a photo of him with the tree. When I looked through the viewfinder, I was startled to see him embracing it with deep affection. I didn’t interrupt, just quietly pressed the shutter. At that moment, I realized that patriotism is not a slogan. These men and women truly gave their lives to the country.

Time travel

In 2022, I took my nephew to an old factory to take photographs. When we climbed over the wall, a loudspeaker started playing songs from the 1990s. We sat on the steps of an old cinema for 10 minutes, letting ourselves slip back in time.

Ruins are a kind of medium — a vehicle taking you into the past.

In 1997, when I was starting at middle school, I broke into an abandoned department store with a friend. That building had been a model showcase of socialist development. Once inside, we horsed around, sprayed fire extinguishers, and even drank a 9-year-old bottle of orange cordial that we found. Just as things were getting fun, the police turned up. We scrambled up a ladder toward the roof, only to hear: “Stop! One more step and I’ll shoot.” Terrified, we awkwardly backed down the ladder. My friend turned to see the police officer’s face and blurted out in embarrassment, “Uncle!”

I spent my childhood surrounded by industry. My mother worked in a cotton mill, and her factory was my playground. My uncle was the head of a machine repair workshop, and he would let me play with the gantry crane. When I was very young, I was already melting lead ingots into cast parts, carefully copying my uncle’s movements as he switched the machine tools on and off with a foot pedal.

My grandmother worked at Wool Mill No. 1 in Ningxia, and my aunt at Wool Mill No. 2. The former produced blankets for export, while the latter made wool fabric. As a child, my outfits were all custom-made from the finest wool, for a very low price.

Photographing abandoned factories is not something I’d say I’m addicted to. Sometimes I find it dangerous, monotonous, and exhausting. But there’s always that pull of emotion. When I see a factory I’ve photographed vanish almost overnight, the feeling is beyond words. As a descendant of the Third Front, how can I possibly not tell these stories? The strategic confidence and industrial foundation China enjoys today were built by the Third Front workers, an entire generation that endured more than their fair share of hardship. People today will talk about the cutting-edge fighter jets flying over Chengdu, but do they know they were produced by a Third Front factory?

I’m still working to harness the power of photography to piece together this monumental historical event. We forget too quickly, and I hope that my work can draw more young people’s attention to this history. Some people see my work and say I’m nostalgic. That always fills me with indignation, so I’ll always correct them: “It’s not about nostalgia; it’s about making sure we remember.”

As told to reporter Li Xiang.

A version of this article originally appeared in Jiemian News. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.

Translator: Carrie Davies; editors: Wang Juyi and Hao Qibao.

(Header image: The auditorium at the Qingping Machinery Factory, Chongqing, 2020. The site was designated as an immovable cultural relic in 2023, and some of its buildings are still in use. Courtesy of Song Zeyi)