I know I’ve written plenty about “change” and “China,” but there’s just always so many new aspects, and more importantly, so many new individual stories unfolding that it is a subject that is hard to avoid for long. For me at least.
Especially with the Olympics less than two months away (can you believe it? I still remember when the countdown clock in Tiananmen Square displayed more than two years away!)，the spotlight will shine on a changing China. What will that China represent? Where will the pendulum settle in that on-going dichotomy between “tradition” and “modernity,” between “honor” and “self,” between “values” and “wealth”?
These were only some of the questions that the most recent PBS Frontline special, “Young and Restless in China” shed light on. Over a four year period, producer Sue Williams followed the lives of nine individuals from a multitude of backgrounds in their journeys to find their place within the ever-changing Chinese society.
As PBS Frontline generally does, the portrayal of these characters’ lives were intimate, full of raw emotion, and real, and at least from a surface level, represented journalism at its very best. What I particularly liked about this feature was that it spanned both a breadth of individuals — an up and coming rapper (really quite good actually), two migrant workers, a public interest lawyer, a Chinese-educated MBA, two foreign-educated entrepreneurs, and a divorcee — and depth. One theme that resonated continually throughout the film was the struggle to balance personal values with the “way that things have always been done.” A point that Lu Dong, an investment banker/consultant turned entrepreneur, repeatedly brought up was the growing need to fulfill the spiritual hunger in China. “China,” he says, “is now a society with no beliefs, and no role models.”
This is echoed in the words of Miranda Hong, a marketing executive for a local mutual funds company, when she talks about the government’s annual “happiness index.” “When Chinese talk about happiness, it’s about their ability to buy the things they like; it’s a practical happiness”
Definitely a must-watch for anyone interested in China today, especially in its social transformation.
Here is a preview:
e.piphany 