{"product_id":"china-1981-1982","title":"CHINA 1981-1982","description":"\u003cp data-start=\"66\" data-end=\"344\"\u003eIn the early 1980s, China felt like a country emerging from a long winter tentative, bright, and quietly hopeful. \u003cem data-start=\"182\" data-end=\"199\"\u003eCHINA 1981–1982\u003c\/em\u003e captures this fragile threshold moment, when Reform and Opening Up had just begun and the atmosphere of the cities carried a sense of awakening.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"346\" data-end=\"729\"\u003eThrough Akiyama’s lens, we encounter hand painted shop signs, red public telephones, and streams of young people gliding past on “Erba” bicycles the sturdy 28 inch frames that once defined urban mobility. Blue Mao suits move calmly through streets softened by morning mist. Laundry dries in pale sunlight. Dust lifts from pavements. The photographs seem almost scented with memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"731\" data-end=\"1099\"\u003eWhat makes this body of work so affecting is its restraint. There is no spectacle, no grand declaration of change only subtle evidence of a society shifting its weight forward. The expressions of young people are confident yet unguarded. Their presence embodies the emotional charge of the 1980s, an era later romanticized in literature as passionate and idealistic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1101\" data-end=\"1428\"\u003eFollowing the 2019 reprint of \u003cem data-start=\"1131\" data-end=\"1165\"\u003eChinese Children (Dear Old Days)\u003c\/em\u003e, Akiyama began revisiting and organizing his archive of negatives. Between 2020 and 2023, subsequent volumes \u003cem data-start=\"1277\" data-end=\"1295\"\u003eDear Old Days II\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem data-start=\"1297\" data-end=\"1316\"\u003eDear Old Days III\u003c\/em\u003e, and the special issue \u003cem data-start=\"1340\" data-end=\"1353\"\u003eEncounter\/A\u003c\/em\u003e extended the series. Yet more than 7,000 unpublished negatives remained.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1430\" data-end=\"1746\"\u003eRather than limit the narrative to “children,” this new volume broadens the frame. It returns to the moments when Akiyama instinctively pressed the shutter gestures, streets, faces, and fleeting urban details. Together, they form a portrait not just of youth, but of a nation poised between memory and possibility.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1748\" data-end=\"2145\"\u003eAkiyama’s photographs reveal both strength and delicacy: the humble sincerity of daily life, the unadorned beauty of cityscapes still marked by a previous era, and the quiet emotional undercurrent of transformation. His images resonate beyond geography. For viewers in China and abroad, they awaken something intimate and long forgotten, a reminder of how history feels before it becomes history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e+++\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLanguage: English, Japanese \u0026amp; Chinese\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFormat: Hardcover | 140 pages\u003cbr\u003eDimensions: 295\u003cspan\u003e x 250mm \u003c\/span\u003e| 630g\u003cbr\u003ePublication Year: 2025 | First Edition\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 978-4-909787-13-2\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Seisodo 青艸堂","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46593449722018,"sku":null,"price":255.0,"currency_code":"MYR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0687\/8521\/files\/CHINA_1981-1982_01_efd09f52-4184-484d-b192-26991733daed.png?v=1771213449","url":"https:\/\/zontiga.com\/products\/china-1981-1982","provider":"Zontiga","version":"1.0","type":"link"}