CHINA THEN & NOW
MAID & CHILD, NANJING 1981
In 1981, the People's Republic of China was on the cusp of major change. The Third Plenum of the Eleventh Congress late in 1978 had seen Deng Xiaoping's return to power and a new line proclaimed. When I first went to China almost two and a half years later, the new line had begun to be implemented, but ordinary people were not yet sure that it would triumph, and the new policies endure.
The first, sometimes tentative shoots could be seen in, for example, "free markets" -- as in a farmers' market in Yan'an. Under Mao Zedong the exploitation of labor had been frowned on, but in Nanjing I found a lower-ranking cadre who had a maid for his small child (above).
Cremation had been promoted in Mao's "New China." Burial in graves was discouraged as wasteful of scarce land. Yet in Ji'an in June 1981 I came across an early-morning funeral procession, which quickened its pace and tried to escape notice when discovered.
More generally I recorded both the distinctive city scenes and historical sites and the everyday activities of farming and eating and buying and selling and transporting goods to market and living life.
Now these photographs and many others taken in 1981 and since are being collected in a book: HERE BE GIANTS.
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Nice black and white!
ReplyDeleteThank you! As I was posting this, I was thinking how different the emotional value of the photograph would be if it were in color.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time (I started taking pictures when I was eight), I thought it was magic that I looked down into the camera and saw color, but the photographs came out in black and white.
I love color too!