May you live in interesting times

My how apt this ancient phrase feels these days. I've been enjoying a series of films and documentaries BBC's Newsnight has been showing recently on democracy around the world and China. All the programmes possess common themes of change, upheaval and uncertainty in what seems like a tumultuous world right now. Ironic that the BBC itself is facing dramatic upheaval as it shows the films with the threat of the axing of 2500 jobs in a revolutionary cost cutting move to haul the institution into the 21st century.

Watching one of the China films I can't help but appreciate my fortune by being born just a few years later in England so that I didn't have to wait back in Jamaica like my brother. Xiao Zhang's little girl doesn't fare so well as I did, as her mother follows the 150 million migrants to China's coastal boom towns to seek a new life for herself and her family.

China: White Horse Village

White Horse Village - part one

White Horse Village - part two

Return to White Horse Village

Villagers Fight Redevelopment


Why Democracy?

Why Democracy? Japan

Why Democracy? Bolivia

Vote for me: Democracy in a Chinese classroom [watch]

Why Democracy? Kenya

Why Democracy? Pakistan