January 18, 2007

China from the Inside

Damn, I wish I could be back in the US to see this. There’s a lot of good browsing to be had over at that link. Go there now.

Thanks to the reader for the tip, and thanks to PBS for continuing to do great things even as the current administration tries to choke it off.

Baked by @ 3:33 pm, Filed under: General

The Discussion: 9 Comments

1 By Luke

This just an old BBC series about China that aired in the UK last year.

It’s interesting viewing, but nothing new.

January 18, 2007 @ 4:19 pm | Comment

2 By OtherLisa

Richard, it’s already available on DVD…let me know if you want a copy. I missed the first episode so I’ll definitely be buying it for the office.

January 18, 2007 @ 4:46 pm | Comment

3 By richard

Thanks Lisa – bring a care package the next time you come to China! Luke, it may be old in the UK but not the US.

January 18, 2007 @ 5:37 pm | Comment

4 By Philip Sen

Looks good – but has anyone ever noticed how the same interviewees crop up time and time again in these shows? I could swear that half of the people in the previews also feature in the CBC series ‘China Rises’.

It’s good that there civil society is growing in China, but it seems to consist of the same 20 people – or maybe they are the only 20 with the guts to speak out to the Western media.

January 18, 2007 @ 6:11 pm | Comment

5 By THM

My wife and I watched this program together last night. PBS did an excellent job of covering the environmental issues, imo. As for my wife, she was somewhat shocked by much of what she learned about how environmental pollution is affecting her people.

The segment on political issues was every bit just as shocking as well. It helped that she was able to hear people speaking their own thoughts in Chinese, rather than only being able to hear English translations of what they were saying. She was pretty upset by everything, but then when she heard Wen Jiabao speaking she was quick to point out that even he had mentioned that China has a lot of problems….

I suppose some sort of credit should be given to the government too, because according to PBS, they had the permission of the government to do the interviews and filming that made this documentary possible.

January 18, 2007 @ 10:00 pm | Comment

6 By nanheyangrouchuan

Very little credit to the chinese gov’t. After the environmental episode (in which we saw xichuan province propaganda officials hounding a water resources professor about his inquiries regarding trees planted per acre…and a stupid local boss try to shift blame for his complete lack of knowledge), there was an episode on political freedom. Peasants got to speak out against local bosses, but regarding Tibet all we got to hear was the “party line”.

January 19, 2007 @ 3:32 am | Comment

7 By Matt S

Watched it last night- and despite the effect of three glasses of wine (a man is allowed his vices, no?) I found it quite compelling. Its strongest suit, in my opinion, was that it didn’t focus on only the massive coastal cities but instead showed ordinary life in some of the poorer inland areas. The propaganda chief bit in Chongqing was indeed the most interesting part- hard to believe sometimes, isn’t it?

January 19, 2007 @ 7:20 am | Comment

8 By Chip

Just out of curiousity, is it difficult to mail something like this into China? I don’t know how much they check the mail here.

January 19, 2007 @ 9:52 am | Comment

9 By Raj

Who are PBS actually giving credit for it to?

It was a fairly good series for people that didn’t know that much – I thought it was good because it didn’t focus on the cities. I also quite liked the lawyer – he was quite blunt and honest about China’s future.

Chip, impossible to say – I’ve had letters with newspaper clippings about China in them “disappear”.

January 19, 2007 @ 7:58 pm | Comment

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