Before couples take that long-awaited walk down the aisle to say “I do,” no engaged couple can skip out on that premarital photoshoot. The hopeless romantic in me has planned my wedding down to almost every detail (I mean, who hasn’t?). So even if my current love life is practically non-existent, I still dream of what my engagement photos will look like. Thank goodness for Pinterest! I’ve seen everything from couples going totally retro for their engagement photos with pinup do’s and pompadours, to couples who go for a totally modern “straight-out-of-Vogue” stylized shoot. However you want to commemorate this special time in your life, one thing’s for certain– your photos must stay true to you and your loved one.
This is certainly the case for Tibetan newlyweds, Gerong Phuntsok and Dawa Drolma. However, they didn’t expect for their wedding photos to leave such a mark amongst the Chinese netizens’ hearts. Their photos–much like their own lives–are juxtaposed in the hustle and bustle of the city with the quiet rugged side of a Tibetan village.
What makes the young couple’s photos so sentimental? Well, looking back at history, the relationship between China and Tibet has been a hostile one. In 1951, China’s communism sought to strip Tibet of their nationalism and Buddhist cultural identities in order to “return” Tibet back to the motherland. The years following the Tibetan Uprising of 1959 have been difficult for Tibetans to make a living within China because of the prejudices built on Tibet and China’s shared history. Seeing the success of a Gerong Phuntsok and Dawa Drolma, and the duality of their lives puts into perspective the progress of the Tibet-China relationship.
“Maybe we represented thousands of young people from ethnic minorities, who left their hometowns to pursue a ‘modern life’ but chose to return to tradition after feeling a void in the heart,” Phuntsok states in this BBC article as a response to the images’ popularity. “I think we found an echo with other web users. As we fight for our dreams, some of us get lost. So we wanted to say with the photos: stick to your beliefs.”
All photos courtesy of www.zhangzishi.cc.
