CHINA: Portrait of a People
by Tom Carter
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Book Reviews of CHINA: Portrait of a People
Book Review: 9 out of 10 Confucianists agree China: Portrait of a People cures autism.
Summary: 5 Stars
What Peter Hessler did in his memoir River Town, Tom Carter does with China: Portrait of a People. A new wave of camera-toting expats will soon come to China hoping to follow in Carter's footsteps.
I write this within a week of coming back to America after a year of teaching English at university in southern Hunan. While it was a wonderful experience, I was eager to get back home and move on to bigger and better things. But then Carter's book came in the mail from Amazon. My immediate reaction: every expat coming to China should have one for the inevitable day culture shock strikes; the book should come wrapped in white paper with a red cross and the instructions: "For prevention and treatment of culture shock. Open if you have any of the following symptoms..." Just paging through it compels me to return to see what I can see, do what I can do, and meet whoever I can meet.
About the size of a Wendy's ¾ Pound Triple with Cheese and just as juicy, Carter's China: Portrait of a People is the perfect gift for old China hands and armchair explorers alike. But before I tell you why, let me first say that I have beef with his book. While the author has clearly gone above and beyond the duty of any artistic photojournalist, he has neglected to document two very important regions: China's renegade province Taiwan and the California Special Economic Zone. Despite these glaring omissions, I give the book five red stars.
The photography pulls the reader along a journey filled with joy, wonder, sadness, awe, and cognitive dissonance. What fun! Pictures of people from all social strata doing all manner of things capture the essence of this unique time in world history. As I read between the lines (or looked between the photos?), it struck me just how social savvy the author must be and how much social support he must have had in order to complete such a journey. The photography is intimate; like good literature, readers see into another's soul, feel another's feeling, and experience a moment in the life of another person. Nine out of ten Confucianists agree China: Portrait of a People cures autism.
While each picture is worth 10,000 words as one reviewer already noted, the well written prose complements the imagery. Captions provide snippets of the subject's story and interesting tidbits of Chinese history, culture and trivia. The prose is informative, witty, literate, and peppered with anecdotes about some of the hardships endured during the author's travels. The factoids presented herein will make any reader an instant MVP on China Trivia Night and gain face with Chinese friends and acquaintances.
Carter backpacked 56,000 miles and visited 200 cities and villages to gather material for this book. So yeah, the author did a nice job going on a little holiday to take some pictures of China. But I still have two questions. Does he like Chinese food and does he know how to use chopsticks?
Book Review: When a Pixel Portrays a Hundred Thousand Words
Summary: 5 Stars
A picture painted a thousand words. That was before Tom Carter started taking them. Now, it seems, a pixel portrays a hundred thousand - and that's for those of us with limited imagination!
I first came across Tom's work through his travel writing while doing some background research for EATING SMOKE - a book about the time I spent `roughing' it in Hong Kong and China. Not only did Tom's unrestrained generosity and supercharged positivity towards people and place change the course of my life (in the first of many kindly returned e-mails), but upon purchasing CHINA: PORTRAIT OF A PEOPLE it became immediately apparent how this philanthropic aura extends to the subjects he captures through a lens.
Tianjin to Tibet, Shanghai to Sichuan, Hong Kong to Henan, Tom takes you on a serendipitous journey - river deep, mountain high, citywide, countryside - to reveal the relationship between a vast, enigmatic and relatively unknown land and its incredibly diverse population.
From the birthplace of Chinese civilisation on the banks of the Yellow River, to the birthplace of Shaolin kung fu on the sacred peak of Song Shan, to a proud mother soon to give birth in the Year of the Golden Pig . . . to the growth of the Christian Movement in Hong Kong, rice in the paddies of Nanjing and consumerism in Hangzhou . . . to the demise of traditional housing in Jinan, the death of a puppy in Siberia's frozen wastes and the resting places of honoured ancestors in Macao, his images usher you full-circle through all walks of life in all of the Middle Kingdom's thirty-three provinces.
Tom's discerning eye combines the deliberate, the subtle, the fortuitous, the impromptu and the random to create a candid and affecting collage that juxtaposes young and old, shiny and crumbling, ancient and modern, humble and brash, happy and sad, and beauty with - the occasional - frank ugliness to provide an exceptional up-close-and-personal incite into a proud people whose individuality differs greatly and whose way of life stretches across a millennia, and shows a country so swept up in the paradox of global capitalism that, if not careful, it will look upon CHINA: PORTRAIT OF A PEOPLE in the not-too-distant future with nostalgia as the pre-eminent historical record.
This book took me on a truly remarkable voyage; one that many will be delighted to complete in armchair comfort as they flick through its pages, awestruck by such an undertaking and grateful for its profundity, while others will reach for their backpacks, further inspired to set out and snatch a peek at this extraordinary country and meet some of its colourful inhabitants for themselves.
My only criticism of Tom's contribution is when he says `The snapshots in this book are not meant to be works of art.'
If this isn't Art, Tom . . . then I don't care to see what is.
Book Review: "The camera don't lie"
Summary: 5 Stars
A complex microcosm of the world is captured in the faces of those who comprise a quarter of Earth's population, depicted in this kaleidoscopic composure of life. Perhaps Shanghai Province is the most diverse. Smiles and sad faces greet readers, mimicked by stressful expressions on those of "China's Wall Street" investors. Carter has concocted a Rubik's Cube-view of China.
The Magic City of Hong Kong features "the best of Beijing and Bangkok, London and Las Vegas, New York and New Delhi. [T]here truly is nowhere else in the world like Hong Kong...China's wealthiest city." Originally a Portuguese colony, neighboring Macau has taken on the flavor of Las Vegas, where mega-hotelier Steve Wynn influenced Vegas-style over-the-top gaming resorts in China. The "Chinese have turned Macau into their own Sino-Sin City."
Carter chooses to depict China's peoples as they are: the hopeful, the deformed, the sad, those who toil in coal mines and "pink-light" districts. And the coldness of steel reflected in the faces of military personnel. This is a study of China, portrayed by the artistic eye of the photojournalist. As lyrics from Daniel Powter's song, Bad Day, would have us believe, "the camera don't lie." The soul of China is captured by Carter's camera and journalistic text. Perhaps the overwhelming charm of the camera to make people smile unites more than political open-door policies could ever fathom.
Carter's camera captures Xanadu, "the summer palace of Kublai Khan." A "rowdy drinker" in Chaoyang, Beijing Province, laughingly offers American-born Carter, who now lives in Beijing, the American single-finger salute. In shadows of gleaming glass-and-steel towers, ancient tiled pagoda-temple roofs crumble from neglect.
This is a somewhat voyeuristic view of the peoples who are the soul of China. The 33 chapters coincide with China's equal number of provinces. Most notable is the ever-present smile a camera generates. Contrasts abound: A street cleaner who earns $800 a year is featured daydreaming in front of a luxury-car dealership.
Poetry introduces each chapter/province, and not only the pictorial kind. From Chapter Ten, Zhejiang Province, poetic prose lures the wanderlust:
Lady Zhejiang here we must part,
For the next province awaits my embrace,
Sad wanderer once you conquer the East,
Where do you go?
Imagine capturing the spirit of fifty states in six hundred pages. Twelve pages for New York State would include only two for New York City. California would use up one pixel for each city and town.
Tom Carter has truly portrayed the "Portrait of a People." This is a must-read pictorial journey of eternal China.
---Reviewed by L. Dean Murphy
Book Review: The Lao Wai seal of approval
Summary: 5 Stars
Having lived in Asia for 5 years and in China for the past 2 years (in Shanghai) I obviously come to Tom Carter's China: Portrait of a People with more than a simple layman's interest. I chose to live in China at this time because I wanted to experience first hand the remarkable (re)emergence and rapid change of a people and a nation. Few nations offer as much panoramic scope and such a vivid canvas as China. It is a study in extremes, from the glittering megacities of the future like Shanghai and Shenzhen, to the exotic minority cultures in Tibet, Yunnan and elsewhere, to the agrarian, grinding life of the average Chinese farmer that has remained largely unchanged for millennia, Tom Carter has captured it all. His keen eye has served him well in going beyond the usual 'postcard' images one so often sees of China, to capturing the unexpected and revealing images that tell one so much about modern China. To take just one example, punks in China, who knew?! Well all of who live here for one, but since that doesn't neatly fit the cliche image of China most foreigners expect in movies and images, you don't see it much. (Don't worry though, there are plenty of gorgeous, stunning photos of the 'postcard' variety that you'd expect in a book this size about China.)
Perhaps the most important quality Carter brings to this project is that most precious of resources: time. Plenty of photographers or photojournalists may come to China to take some great pictures, but few, if any, have devoted the 2 years and thousands of miles that Tom Carter has. Others books might try to mimic the scope of China: Portrait of a People by combining the work of dozens of photographers but there is unmistakably something to be gained by seeing this vast nation through the eyes of a single artist and his vision; Carter brings a unity of vision and a hard-earned eye for what makes China tick that no casual visitor could hope for.
China is the unavoidable nation in the 21st century. It is no longer simply a topic for adventure-seeking travelers or businessmen and diplomats. Even if you have never been to China or know little about it, it is affecting your life in ways large and small. And it will surely only do so more in the years ahead. So do yourself and those around you a favor and start learning more about it now. Tom Carter's China: Portrait Of A People is a fine place to start - or continue - peeking behind the silk curtain at this fascinating country. And unlike a dry foreign affairs book, this book has the added bonus of teaching you about China while providing a feast for the eyes with its lush visual spectacle. I enthusiastically give it the (semi) Official Lao Wai Seal of Approval.
Book Review: China's People, Candid, Spontaneous
Summary: 5 Stars
Far removed from cliché, China: Portrait of a People is an unbiased look at the real China in all its diversity: no artificial syntax, no deliberate panegyric. Carter, not a professional photographer, is able through photographic art to display the human reality of China with its myriad multiplicity.
The compelling photographs while technically excellent are significant in that they are not deliberate, not photoshopped, and capture candid, unposed people in spontaneous moments of time. As such, China: Portrait of a People affords a rare view of the contemporary realism of China.
The photographs give visual form to the way in which the usefulness of the pastoral and the power of the urban industry have impacted upon individual people. The contrast between the carefree optimism of everyday farmers and well-heeled urbanites of the big cities is a microcosm of the diversity of China and her people.
The 800 plus photos throughout the 600 plus pages do indeed illustrate the real China. Carter without political occasion or agenda left the tourist track well and truly behind to document people both in cities and in remote and hard-access areas, visiting China's 56 ethnic groups in 33 provinces. That he did so on foot and over two years is apparent in the in-depth portrayal of human realities.
China: Portrait of a People is a comprehensive study which has not in any way been disinfected. Images of beggars and the poverty-stricken are shown in all their veracity alongside images of the resplendent Zhaung, Bai and Yao minorities in lush mountain regions. The reader sees what Carter sees. You will encounter the nomadic Drokpas of Tibet, the brilliantly adorned and elusive Akha people who surface only on market days, the lively Muslim Uyghurs of Xinjiang in the distant northwest, and the 35,000 miles in between.
Although China: Portrait of a People focuses on people - not surprisingly given the title - architecture is seen in juxtaposition: the traditional rooflines of Tibet's prosperous city, Shigatse, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, the equally traditional Old Town of Lijiang, Yunnan, built in the late Song Dynasty and the early Yuan Dynasty, the Hakka walled villages in Fujian, the contemporary cities of Shanghai and Shenzhen.
We see also dramatic landscapes - the Bamboo Sea in the southern Sichuan Province, the Dragon's Spine Terraces which are the Longji Titian rice fields, the other-worldly mountains reminiscent of Avatar's Pandora.
China: Portrait of a People surely has enormous anthropological value but to the tourist, Chinaphile, coffee table book reader, travel or photography enthusiast, this book is a must-have.