Yang Fei: The first person to point his lens at Zhangjiajie
Yang Fei Male, deceased, Xinhua News Agency reporter. [One of the narrators: Qin Zhengmiao, who worked as a tour guide at Zhangjiajie Forest Farm from 1979 to 1985. Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Fei came to Zhangjiajie Forest Farm in 1979, and he was the one who accompanied him throughout.] In the spring of 1979, Yang Fei, a 32-year-old Xinhua News Agency reporter, accompanied by Quan Huashan and Deng Jiaming, officials from the prefecture and county propaganda departments, came up to our Zhangjiajie Forest Farm. Farm director Liu Kailin assigned veteran forest warden Gong Baocai and me to accompany them throughout. At Huangshi
Yang Fei, male, deceased, Xinhua News Agency reporter.
[One of the narrators: Qin Zhengmiao, who worked as a guide at Zhangjiajie Forestry Farm from 1979 to 1985. Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Fei came to Zhangjiajie Forestry Farm in 1979, and he was the one who accompanied him throughout.]
In the spring of 1979, 32-year-old Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Fei, accompanied by prefecture and county publicity department cadres Quan Huashan and Deng Jiaming, came up to our Zhangjiajie Forestry Farm. Farm director Liu Kailin assigned veteran mountain watchman Gong Baocai and me to accompany him throughout. On the cliff face below Zhaixing Terrace at the top of Huangshizhai, he took a famous photo titled "Peaks Greeting the Guests," which was later published in People's Pictorial. At the time, Yang Fei chose the spot, Gong Baocai cut away the thorny bushes at the cliff edge with a knife, and I and the mountain watchman at the stockade, Xu Longyuan, tied a rope around Yang Fei's waist; the two of us plus Gong Baocai lowered him down the sheer precipice. After the shoot, the rope got stuck in a rock crevice and could not be pulled back up, making the scene extremely perilous. Everyone spent enormous effort, and when they finally pulled him up, Yang Fei's belly was scraped raw. That same day, we accompanied him to the Three Sisters Peak. On the way back, when we reached the back mountain of Tianjia Terrace, he was so exhausted that he kept crying out that his legs hurt and he could not walk anymore. He sat down on the path and dozed off, and in his drowsiness he saw that the rocks opposite, more than 500 meters away, formed the image of a couple. A kind of artist's special sensitivity instantly drove away the drowsiness, and he jumped up and shouted: "Look, everyone, don't those stone peaks opposite look like a husband and wife?" Then he proposed: "Let's name this landscape Husband and Wife Rock." As far as I know, he was the first to call out the name of the Husband and Wife Rock landscape.
[Second narrator: Qu Feng, a native of Longweiba Village, Wulingyuan District, one of Zhangjiajie's first-generation guides in 1980.]
When I was 11, a girl from our village married into the neighboring Zhangjiajie Village. By then I already knew that next to our Longweiba Village there was a Zhangjiajie State Forestry Farm. The following year that girl gave birth, and I went with my mother to drink the "bamboo rice wine." On the wooden partition wall of her home, I saw that those jumbled rocks of my hometown had been painted, and beautifully at that. In the lower left corner of the painting I discovered the words "Photography by Yang Fei," and I admired this man named Yang Fei immensely.
As I grew older, I too became a guide. Influenced by my boyhood, I paid special attention to inquiring about things related to Yang Fei. Only then did I learn that Yang Fei had stayed at Zhangjiajie Forestry Farm for a full 100 days that time! Some people in the know told me one after another some of his stories and details. For example, when photographing Monkey Cave Waterfall, because a dead branch blocked the camera's line of sight, Yang Fei wanted to risk going down to break it off. Old Gong, afraid of danger, had his only quarrel with Yang Fei: "Don't go. If you go, I'll die right in front of you." Seeing how serious Old Gong was, Yang Fei stopped and tried to make Old Gong happy, but while Old Gong turned around to urinate, Yang Fei seized the chance and, at great risk, broke off the branch and photographed a beautiful Monkey Cave Waterfall. They entered Shentang Bay three times, and each time Old Gong fired his gun as he walked. But what puzzled Yang Fei endlessly was that every time they entered the mountains the sun was bright, yet as soon as they reached the mouth of Shentang Bay they were hit by torrential rain and could never see its true face.
After Yang Fei left Zhangjiajie, he successively published more than 300 photographs of Zhangjiajie scenery and over 30,000 words of articles in various newspapers and periodicals at home and abroad. The most influential among them was the Zhangjiajie scenery photo that appeared on the cover of the American magazine National Geographic. He was the first to point his lens at Zhangjiajie and the first to promote Zhangjiajie through a large number of pictures and texts; his contribution is truly indelible! In 1987, Xinhua News Agency reporter Tang Shizeng came to Zhangjiajie. When people in the mountains heard that the visitor spoke Mandarin, they blurted out: Hey, you're from Beijing—do you know Yang Fei? The mountain people believed that anyone from Beijing must know Yang Fei.
Xinhua News Agency photojournalist Yang Fei came to interview at Zhangjiajie Forestry Farm relatively early. He was the first to point his lens at Zhangjiajie. Comrade Yang Fei climbed mountains and waded streams, taking many exquisite photographs for Zhangjiajie. On the cliff face below Zhaixing Terrace at the top of Huangshizhai, he took a famous photo titled "Peaks Greeting the Guests," which was published in People's Pictorial. He was the first to promote Zhangjiajie through a large number of pictures and texts, and was a man of merit in publicizing Zhangjiajie