Sunday, July 29, 2007

Ordinary Chinese People Coping With Tumultuous Change

e-glob, Washington (DC) - I watched a great interview with Robert Gifford who wrote "China Road".

»National Public Radio China correspondent Gifford journeyed for six weeks on China's Mother Road, Route 312, from its beginning in Shanghai for nearly 3,000 miles to a tiny town in what used to be known as Turkistan. The route picks up the old Silk Road, which runs through the Gobi Desert to Central Asia to Persia and on to Europe. Along the way, Gifford meets entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on China's growing economy, citizens angry and frustrated with government corruption, older people alarmed at changes in Chinese culture and morality, and young people uncertain and excited about the future. Gifford profiles ordinary Chinese people coping with tumultuous change as development and commerce shrink a vast geography, bringing teeming cities and tiny towns into closer commercial and cultural proximity; the lure of wealth is changing the Chinese character and sense of shared experience, even if it was common poverty. Gifford notes an aggressive sense of competition in the man-eat-man atmosphere of a nation that is likely to be the next global superpower.« Vanessa Bush
more contextually

1 comment:

haplif - Frank Kalder said...

Yeah, that's an accurate review!

I watched already several TV documentaries on the old Silk Road and what's going on in modern China. Most recently they showed an area in the northwest where, due to deforesting etc., sand storms haunt the cities so that people need masks. The old cult spectacles with prescribed rituals and costumes are only visited by a few oldies. The Chinese youngsters don't frequent them any longer while they prefer now western style discotheques and so on...

I'll watch the second ZDF documentary part, this Tuesday, on China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.