From Publishers Weekly
The China framed by Kubota's camera lens is neither a collectivist utopia lurching toward a high-tech future nor a consumer society adopting capitalist ways, trends overplayed recently in the Western press. Instead we glimpse an immensely varied, post-feudal China struggling to modernize in the face of persistently low living standards. One hundred eighty-five candid color photographs show ferryboats and junks; meat shops where slaughtered cats and dogs are sold as food; careworn peasants, student artists, nude bathers, duck farmers; ancestor worshippers, devout Muslims and Tibetan lamaists. Kubota, born in China but launched on his photographic career in the U.S., traveled through the People's Republic from 1979 to 1984. He roamed from northwestern deserts to Manchurian forests, from ice-fishing in subzero temperatures to tribal "water festivals." Yet, somehow, the Chinese people and the country's political climate remain elusive in all of this. November 25
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The 185 photographs presented here are chosen from 200,000 that Kobota took in China between 1978 and 1985. He filmed all regions, including tropical Kishuangbanna, Guilin's mountains (from the air), the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, and the snow and smokestacks of northern Manchuria. He generally saw people in group activity, whether at prayer or wrestling or bicycling to work, and he waited for the precise moment to photograph. The results are superb, calling the viewer to pore over the wealth of detail in foreground and background. Captions are essential; unfortunately they are segregated at the end. Even so, this sets a new standard of excellence among photographic books on China. Elizabeth A. Teo, Moraine Valley Community Coll. Lib., Palos Hills, Ill.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
