Beijing Confidential

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Sociopolitical Documentary narrated by Brian Stewart and published by CBC broadcasted as part of CBC Our World series in 2007 - English narration

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This week, we look at fascinating, complex China through the eyes of the always outspoken and penetrating writer, Jan Wong, whose life has been intertwined with that country's history since the 1970's. She talks about her search there for a woman she denounced thirty years ago when she was a Maoist and her discovery of a new China that is rich, powerful, and increasingly ambitious about its global role.

Although China is still a one party state, you'd be forgiven if you traveled there and didn't realize it had ever been run by the Communists.Cities like Beijing and Shanghai, in particular, now seem like monuments to entrepreneurialism and capitalism.The 2008 Olympics in Beijing next year, is often described as China's giant "coming out party", a celebration of its booming economy, and its transformation into a modern world power. the government there is being very careful that nothing spoil the party. So it hasn't enjoyed international media coverage of the recent scandals over toxic Chinese exports, like toys, toothpaste and food... about alarming pollution in big cities and the criticism over human rights abuses inside the country, as well as the propping up of corrupt governments like Sudan, which is supporting genocide in Darfur.

Jan Wong knows the good and bad of China. She has lived there through some of the toughest times, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen massacre of 1989, and she's also seen the joyous leap in the 1990's of so many Chinese people toward perhaps the highest living standards in their history. She has recorded this transition in numerous best selling books, always vivid in their analysis, but also funny and with a nuanced understanding of Chinese society as it really is.

Brian was glad to sit down with her recently and hear about her latest journey to China last summer and the book she produced. Her quest this time was to find a woman she had gone to school with in Beijing in the 1970's and whom Wong had, in her youthful ideological fervour, denounced to school authorities because the girl just wanted to see the United States.Jan Wong went back thirty years later to find out what happened to her and see if she too has shared in the Chinese economic miracle...

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File Name ........... : 071118.CBC.Our.World.Beijing.Confidential.XviD.mp3.festering.leper.avi
Total Size (MB) ... : 288.97 MB
Duration .............. : 00:22:45
Video Codec ....... : XviD MPEG-4 codec
Resolution .......... : 640 x 464
Aspect Ratio ....... : 1.37:1
Video Bitrate ...... : 1647 KB/s
Framerate .......... : 29.970 FPS
Quality Factor ..... : 0.185 B/px
Audio Codec ....... : MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3)
Audio Bitrate ...... : 128 KB/s
Channels ............ : 2 Ch
Sampling Rate .... : 48000 Hz
Ripped by ........... : festering leper