Series description
Yulai Xu grew up in a family shaped by both care and restraint, where intimacy and distance overlapped. The photographer notes that in many Chinese homes, love appears as a ‘quiet sacrifice,’ the ‘fish tail,’ where children receive the tender belly and parents take the tail. This self-denial, taught as ‘for your own good,’ shapes how people learn love and worth, but also creates silent tension as emotions and expectations diverge. By gathering peers’ stories, Yulai Xu observed this fragile balance within family relationships.
Fish Tail
ShiLan Gu says ‘Learning an instrument that never suited me felt like being pushed into an arranged marriage before I knew myself, forced to adapt and obey. Nine years left only marks on my neck, and giving up was effortless. The pain shaped nothing and rewarded nothing, it simply faded, leaving no meaning.’
© Yulai Xu, China Mainland, Shortlist, Student Competition, Together, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Fish Tail
Li Yingying says ‘My family seems simple, yet complex. My mother sees herself as a woman of the new generation, she is independent, admirable, with her own career. As I grew older, I realised our values had quietly diverged. In childhood, she seemed perfect in every way, and I feared I could never meet her expectations.’
© Yulai Xu, China Mainland, Shortlist, Student Competition, Together, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Fish Tail
Wen Daoguang says ‘My father was always critical of my appearance, of my head, my skin, my height, and nothing escaped judgment. Shame and self-blame took root, and even as an adult I still struggle with this. I work out and I imagine getting surgery; I seek love though I know it’s unhealthy. I hate my father’s gaze, yet I can’t escape it.’
© Yulai Xu, China Mainland, Shortlist, Student Competition, Together, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Fish Tail
Mengxin says ‘My father was mostly absent, yet his rare appearances left strict expectations. I remember him smashing things: terror then, and now an echo within me when I near collapse. My mother’s steady love can’t ease my longing for affirmation. I’ve long defined myself through comparison, and I’m unsure if that’s a strength or a shackle.’
© Yulai Xu, China Mainland, Shortlist, Student Competition, Together, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Fish Tail
Hu Xinyi says ‘I’ve lived with self-preservation since entering boarding school 13 years ago. Distance from my parents became normal, and my life turned into constant moves, from school to school, city to city, country to country. I don’t know where to “return.” I feel like a fragile package in transit—sometimes marked as priority, sometimes lost.’
© Yulai Xu, China Mainland, Shortlist, Student Competition, Together, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Fish Tail
Lea says ‘I longed to see the world, but my mother always stood in my way.’
© Yulai Xu, China Mainland, Shortlist, Student Competition, Together, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards
Fish Tail
Chenqi Jiang says ‘Alcohol has been an inseparable part of my upbringing, present even in my earliest memories at family gatherings. Over time, it became a buffer between socialising and stress, sometimes out of control. Growing up lonely yet hating solitude, I now see the cycle I inherited. Today, I sincerely say: I will no longer overdrink.’
© Yulai Xu, China Mainland, Shortlist, Student Competition, Together, 2026 Sony World Photography Awards