China Revealed -- Light On Substance, But Oh, The Scenery
Yesterday, I blogged on the heavily publicized and anticipated Discovery Channel television show, China Revealed. I ended up watching it last night with my inquisitive nine year old daughter. We both enjoyed it. Her much more than me.
The show is light on substance, but long on beauty. The filming and the quality of the picture are the best I have ever seen on TV. We watched it on a 42" flat screen HDTV, and for the first time since I have owned this, I wished for an even larger television. The clarity was incredible. I do not know what techniques were used, but the pictures just popped out of the screen. It is worth watching on an HDTV for the filming alone. I have never seen rice paddies look so beautiful.
As promised, the show focused on the following:
The rice farming family briefly talked about how much better off they are since reforms. The Shanghai real estate developer, Vincent Lo, briefly showed off Xin Tian Di (Xihu Tian Di) Shanghai's famous entertainment district, which he developed. The kung fu master was quite interesting. I found it particularly interesting that his best Kung fu student wanted to become a police officer or security guard, not a Buddhist monk. The Beijing imperial bow maker was interesting too, because of how he had managed to preserve the art he loved despite the Cultural Revolution. The story of the gymnast and the migrant worker were also quite good, but I have seen and read too many such stories already.
The saddest part of the show was when the migrant worker returned to his village after having been away in Shanghai for the past year. Throughout the show, this worker had talked about his love for his daughter, now three years old, and of how her smile lit up his life. But when he returned, she no longer recognized him.
For those who have been to China and know it at all well, there is little if anything to take from this show, beyond the amazing scenery and the too short sketches of the people. But my nine year old absolutely loved it and I am sure many others will as well.
I did get the sense it was pretty watered down so as to be able to be shown in China. Not that I expected it to be political, but beyond its lightly showing the differences between rich and poor, it was pretty upbeat the entire time. But oh, the scenery.
