China 1980

A photographer on an American cruise ship visited ports along China’s coast in 1980 when the country was still largely stuck in Maoist isolation, and instead of photographing the passengers, he chose to take pictures of the locals he met instead. The result is a unique and precious window into a China that has been swept away in the development and modernization which has transformed its society and people in the decades since. Photographer Mike Emery largely focused on faces, but so many elements of this collection of more than 200 images are worthy of consideration. The street scenes, the buildings, the clothes and hair styles — all redolent of an era of Chinese history which was the turning point between a poverty-stricken past and a high-tech future.