Zhan Tianyou (third from right in the front  row) poses with his colleagues upon the completion of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway in 1909. Zhan presided over the construction of the 200-kilometer railway line, which was the first rail link designed and built independently by China. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

A Xinhua photo exhibition in Hong Kong now offers a quick look back at China’s dramatic changes over the past century. More than 200 photos tell an epic, real story about how Chinese people have created a life of wealth and knowledge. A third of the pictures are a testament to the powerful bond between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, which have always stood by each other, through good times and bad. And that story continues. Check out the highlights of the exhibits selected by China Daily, but don’t miss the full version at the Hong Kong Central Library, available through Sunday.

Students enrolled in 1977 take classes at Tsinghua University in 1979. They were among the first students who took the gaokao — the national college entrance examination —after its return in 1977 after an 11-year hiatus. Many of these college graduates later became the backbone of China’s reform and opening-up in the 1980s. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

A swimming competition is held in 1951 at the then-newly built People’s Swimming Pool in Shichahai in Beijing. A total of 452 athletes, including workers, soldiers, cadres, and students, took part in the competition. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The first military sports games are held in Beijing on Aug 2, 1952, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army. Instead of a starter pistol, the race had a writing quiz. Athletes could start running when they completed the writing test. It was a method to promote the literacy rate. In 2020, the illiteracy rate in China dropped to 2.67 percent. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

A father teaches his son to ride a bicycle in Xinfan town, Sichuan province, in September 1963. In 1989, there were 220 million bikes in China, with 63 new bikes being produced every minute. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Residents of Beijing gather at Tian’anmen Square on Oct 1, 1949, to celebrate the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Ten Chinese tourists experience space training with zero-gravity flight on Dec 17, 2004, under the protection of Russian cosmonauts at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Space Training Center in Moscow. The tourist group was the first of its kind from China and Asia at large since the end of 1999, when the training program was first offered to tourists. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Hong Kong police and the Shenzhen frontier guard patrol the road known as Chung Ying Street and Zhongying Street, on the border of Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland, in 1985. Between them was the border stone laid in 1899 under the Convention Between the United Kingdom and China, Respecting an Extension of Hong Kong Territory. The unequal treaty “leased” the Chinese territory that later became known as “the New Territories” to the UK rent-free for 99 years, with the lease expiring on June 30, 1997. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Hong Kong’s then-chief secretary for administration, holds a panda cub during a visit to a conservation base in Wolong National Nature Reserve in Sichuan province on May 11, 2016. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)