One driver even disguised his lock-installation advertisement as a name that goes "Smart Fingerprint Locks", along with a contact number.
When Yan posted these on Weibo, they went viral, with strangers sharing their own encounters.
"Taxi drivers might be the only people we share intimate space with yet know nothing about," he reflects.
But their nicknames are their way to say this is who they are when they get to choose, he adds.
This early experience has somehow encouraged him to find more such revealing moments with his camera.
"That simple cycle — shoot, share, be seen — became my lifeline," he says.
His lens has framed commuters stopped at traffic lights, motorcycle taxi drivers idling outside stations, night owls haunting dimly lit streets and bystanders perched on railings watching square dancers.
It laid the foundation for his Long Story series.
"By intentionally stretching the images into a long vertical format, I mimic the 'long scroll' aesthetic common in mobile feeds, while extending the viewers' gaze to give narrative weight to these transient moments," he says.
The train station luggage photo in the series was inspired by his curiosity about if people still took slow green trains, as high-speed rails have sprawled across the country.
