China in a Torrent

There is no other country in the world who understands China better and who's more interested in China issues than Japan, so it did not surprise me that an in-depth 24-episode serial documentary called "China in a Torrent" (激流中国) was being intensively produced by NHK, Nipon's national broadcaster, to reveal the pain in the neck of its neighboring oriental lion.

The first four episodes that have already been aired respectively focused on the widening income gap between extravagant gazillionaires and poor “peasant-laborers” (temporarily contracted workers in cities originally from rural areas), the edgy Tai-Chi hands-pushing between courageous and insightful journalists and bureaucratic restrictions on media, the senior's sympathized dilemma between loneliness in the empty nest and strangeness in the care center in the aging society, and the intensifying conflict between the water-lavishing Beijing and its suburban people who live by the reservoir yet in want of water. And more to come in another 10 instalments which will last a whole year.

Sensational and fact-suspicious as it is, the documentary, particularly the episode on China's fast growing media industry, still serves well as a truth-exposing mirror. What makes me curious is the way they filmed the footages. A disguised micro-camera must have been used for most scenes, for none of the interviewees acted as if there were a lens in front of them. However, people's ignorance of the camera and the secret shooting itself, though also used for personal-attack-prone negative reports in China, poses the danger of a possibly one-sided story, so I really feel it a strong need for "angry youth", major spreaders of the afore-mentioned videos (some even volunteered the translation job to facilitate the spread), to calm down before showing any emotional upsurge.

Anyway, no documentary is omniscient, and this is a quality production. A technical question: how can the hidden camera be flexibly zoomed and focused while remaining invisible? I've never seen a better secret filming. Fascinating skills.