a documentary about Chinese village

[nimo_cn]

I am gonna recommend a documentary named "village diary", which is about Chinese peasants daily life. I tell as a person who grew up in Chinese countryside, the life presented in the film is real and vivid. althogh it's focusing on a village in northern China, which it's a little different from my village(i am from southern china), I still feel closely related to the people who have shown their life in the film. they are just like people around me, their life is what I have witnessed and once I have lived.

introduction: Shaoyu is an ordinary village in Yimeng Mountain area. Its 167 farming households fall under jurisdiction of Zhongzhuang Town, Yiyuan County, Zibo City, Shandong Province. Leading a modest life - neither poor nor rich - the villagers have preserved old traditions while maintaining close contact with the outside world. Nothing special - typical rural China.

Great changes have taken place in the farmers’ lifestyles in recent years as the country has progressed so dramatically, which has brought issues familiar to other rural areas in China.

Between 2012 and 2013, photographer Jiao Bo and his team spent almost 1,000 hours filming and photographing the village over 373 days, resulting in a two-hour documentary, Village Diary.

Early this year, Village Diary won awards including Best Feature-Length Documentary at the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival, Best Documentary at the 15th China Huabiao Film Awards, and Grand Jury Prize of the 3rd Chinese Documentary Academy Awards. “It is a great depiction of rural China, tremendously significant in recording details about such a transformational era,” commented a judge.

During their stay in the village, Jiao Bo and his team also took many pictures, freezing timeless samples of rural China.

http://m.v.qq.com/cover/i/i7sc2ih3x6qhzra.html?vid=f0019al8ax5

it has English subtitles.

 

[Armand2REP]

Even the Apple Festival was a ghost town... how sad.

 

[Raweg]

I am gonna recommend a documentary named "village diary", which is about Chinese peasants daily life. I tell as a person who grew up in Chinese countryside, the life presented in the film is real and vivid. althogh it's focusing on a village in northern China, which it's a little different from my village(i am from southern china), I still feel closely related to the people who have shown their life in the film. they are just like people around me, their life is what I have witnessed and once I have lived.

introduction: Shaoyu is an ordinary village in Yimeng Mountain area. Its 167 farming households fall under jurisdiction of Zhongzhuang Town, Yiyuan County, Zibo City, Shandong Province. Leading a modest life - neither poor nor rich - the villagers have preserved old traditions while maintaining close contact with the outside world. Nothing special - typical rural China.

Great changes have taken place in the farmers’ lifestyles in recent years as the country has progressed so dramatically, which has brought issues familiar to other rural areas in China.

Between 2012 and 2013, photographer Jiao Bo and his team spent almost 1,000 hours filming and photographing the village over 373 days, resulting in a two-hour documentary, Village Diary.

Early this year, Village Diary won awards including Best Feature-Length Documentary at the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival, Best Documentary at the 15th China Huabiao Film Awards, and Grand Jury Prize of the 3rd Chinese Documentary Academy Awards. “It is a great depiction of rural China, tremendously significant in recording details about such a transformational era,” commented a judge.

During their stay in the village, Jiao Bo and his team also took many pictures, freezing timeless samples of rural China.

http://m.v.qq.com/cover/i/i7sc2ih3x6qhzra.html?vid=f0019al8ax5

it has English subtitles.

Sorry but how to start it with English subtitles?? Everything there is in Chinese.

 

[prohumanity]

Interesting ! Thank you for sharing the documentary. People are innocent and simple in every corner of the world.
Color of poverty is the same whether it is India or China.
However, China has done a great job in uplifting people's lives .....a little more freedom is all that is needed to make it perfect.

 

[nimo_cn]

Sorry but how to start it with English subtitles?? Everything there is in Chinese.

that is commercial advertisement at the beginning, just wait until it's over.

 

[nimo_cn]

Even the Apple Festival was a ghost town... how sad.

life is always hard for Chinese peasants, the most troubling fact is that good harvest doesn't necessarily mean more money because price goes down as it is being shown in the film.

 

[nimo_cn]

Interesting ! Thank you for sharing the documentary. People are innocent and simple in every corner of the world.
Color of poverty is the same whether it is India or China.
However, China has done a great job in uplifting people's lives .....a little more freedom is all that is needed to make it perfect.

I always believe that poverty is the largest obstruction of freedom, eradication of poverty in rural area is what China needs to accomplish first.

"Farm work is a peasant's work, it's difficult to do anything else. Why do we take all of our support to your studies, no matter how hard it is? Actually, the land, ... People always say we peasants love the land. Hailong(his son), let me tell you something. Actually I have had absolutely no feeling for the land from the very beginning. But I have no choice, can't do anything about it. We have no one to back us up. We completely on our own, we have to work hard, and make the best use of our situation. Remember it, this land is worn out. It is infertile and not productive. So, I look forward to you. I am a loser in my whole life, I am almost 60. I have accomplished nothing. You are a real guy and in the real study period. So, you would better study hard. You may think I am not the right person to talk you through this. Lessons from failure are more valuable than those from success. It's all experience, this is my bitter experience."

Above it's what Du Shenzhong said to his son on the eve of Chinese spring festival. I believe 90% of Chinese peasant fathers of Du's age have said similar things to their sons and daughters, including my own father. If poverty continues in Chinese rural area, this kind of conversation will continue.

 

[Armand2REP]

life is always hard for Chinese peasants, the most troubling fact is that good harvest doesn't necessarily mean more money because price goes down as it is being shown in the film.

The saddest part is that it is engineered by the government to be that way. They have made it so hard for peasants to make a living on their ancestral homes all to drive them to urbanisation. It is a hypocritical policy as they still institute hukou that treat them as second class citizens in the place they want them to move to.

 

[nimo_cn]

The saddest part is that it is engineered by the government to be that way. They have made it so hard for peasants to make a living on their ancestral homes all to drive them to urbanisation. It is a hypocritical policy as they still institute hukou that treat them as second class citizens in the place they want them to move to.

Urbanization is the only way to solve the problem because land is not productive, and China has too many peasants.

It is always easy to blame Chinese government for the massive poverty in Chinese countryside, but I would rather say that poverty is simply inevitable. With per capita arable land so low, Chinese peasants simply can't be rich by just working on the land.

The price of apple going down is a response from the market, Chinese government does not manipulate prices of commercial crops, but food crops. However, prices of Chinese food crops are heavily subsidized, which means that they are higher than prices in global market.

Hukou is still being applied only because huge gap between urban area and rural area are still there, therefore hukou serves as a safty valve. And it's true, to some extent, that hukou has made it difficult to narrow that gap, but hukou is not the main factor that creates that gap, hence demolition of hukou won't be the key to narrow the gap.

 

[LordOfTheUnderworlds]

Why in most movies Chinese landscape is hilly covered with greenery and bamboos. Do most Chinese live in such terrain?

 

[Razor]

Why in most movies Chinese landscape is hilly covered with greenery and bamboos. Do most Chinese live in such terrain?

Yes China is very hilly esp southern china.

 

[Armand2REP]

Urbanization is the only way to solve the problem because land is not productive, and China has too many peasants.

It is always easy to blame Chinese government for the massive poverty in Chinese countryside, but I would rather say that poverty is simply inevitable. With per capita arable land so low, Chinese peasants simply can't be rich by just working on the land.

The price of apple going down is a response from the market, Chinese government does not manipulate prices of commercial crops, but food crops. However, prices of Chinese food crops are heavily subsidized, which means that they are higher than prices in global market.

Hukou is still being applied only because huge gap between urban area and rural area are still there, therefore hukou serves as a safty valve. And it's true, to some extent, that hukou has made it difficult to narrow that gap, but hukou is not the main factor that creates that gap, hence demolition of hukou won't be the key to narrow the gap.

Urbanisation is not an answer to economic problems. As demonstrated by Ordos you build a ghost city with no jobs, no one will come. The only reason anyone stays in the ghost cities is the government forces companies based in Guangdong and others in the East to go West despite increasing their transport cost and effecting profitability. They get subsidies but that is costing the taxpayer and an unsustainable model.

The reason people are buying less Chinese apples is because the quality is inferior to those that can be imported. Similar to the baby formula scandal something similar happened to Chinese apples wrapping them in bags with pesticides in direct contact with the fruit, the harvesters had to wear gloves and masks just to pick them. Chinese consumers no longer trust Chinese apples and prefer imports so they don't have to worry about falling sick.

Hukou was supposed to be ended last year, but it wasn't. It is a violation of their human rights to treat rural peasants as second class citizens in their own country. They cannot gain social mobility if they do not have the same rights as city residents. China maintains it because they need their 300 million man army of migrant workers so they can sustain the export economy because no else would work such jobs in such conditions. If hukou is demolished China will no longer be the "factory of the world."

 

[Raweg]

I always believe that poverty is the largest obstruction of freedom, eradication of poverty in rural area is what China needs to accomplish first.

"Farm work is a peasant's work, it's difficult to do anything else. Why do we take all of our support to your studies, no matter how hard it is? Actually, the land, ... People always say we peasants love the land. Hailong(his son), let me tell you something. Actually I have had absolutely no feeling for the land from the very beginning. But I have no choice, can't do anything about it. We have no one to back us up. We completely on our own, we have to work hard, and make the best use of our situation. Remember it, this land is worn out. It is infertile and not productive. So, I look forward to you. I am a loser in my whole life, I am almost 60. I have accomplished nothing. You are a real guy and in the real study period. So, you would better study hard. You may think I am not the right person to talk you through this. Lessons from failure are more valuable than those from success. It's all experience, this is my bitter experience."

Above it's what Du Shenzhong said to his son on the eve of Chinese spring festival. I believe 90% of Chinese peasant fathers of Du's age have said similar things to their sons and daughters, including my own father. If poverty continues in Chinese rural area, this kind of conversation will continue.

That's why Chinese ppls like indian films......we have so much masala, n emotions n life experiences in our films similar to that.....if u havent then watch some

 

[prohumanity]

Principles of economics are universal..be it china, US or India. Modernization and innovation is what makes a nation rich. We can get stuck in our old beliefs but that's the way to remain poor and deprived.
In USA, people embrace change and try to find new and more effective ways of increasing productivity and outcome. There is much less resistance to change compared to say..In India.

In India , people are rigid and stuck in old beliefs about their caste, region, language, old ways of farming and living.
The mindset is still archaic. Disregard for rule of law..corruption and dishonesty is rampant because it has become a norm. Recently ,in last 4 years, with new govt. there is hope that corruption, money laundering and cronyism will decline.

I agree, poverty is the biggest barrier to freedom...poverty is curse...there is no need to glorify poverty.
Its hard to understand China for Americans like me because information about real China is not freely available.
By the way, I saw a Chinese film about a royal family while travelling in plane ...boy..it was full of emotions of the mother (queen) It was about ancient Chinese values and traditions. Indeed, a great ancient civilization !