Dear Old Days | Ryoji Akiyama | Seisodo 2019 [REPRINT]

"The original edition of this book was first published in 1983. The Japanese photographic film maker Konica (then Konishiroku Photo Industry) commissioned Ryoji Akiyama to visit China for shooting, as a sales effort to enter the Chinese market. The support of the China Photographers' Association enabled Akiyama to travel around China extensively in 1981 and 1982, when the Cultural Revolution had only ended few years ago and the country was largely underdeveloped. The published book portrayed the children in Beijing, Chengdu, Kunming, Guangzhou, Hainan Island, Shanghai, Suzhou, Guilin, Harbin, Urumqi, Turfan and Hohhot.

In the 1990s, China started its dramatic economic and social transformation. The images in this book evoke strong emotion among the people who have grown up in this unprecedented time of change. Not only innocent expressions on the children, but everything in the background was instantly linked to their personal memories and turned into an object of nostalgia - buildings, clothes, school bags, tableware, even garbage bins." - from publisher's website.