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Verilynot asked me of any good documentaries out there.
Quick answer: not really.
Like any story, history biases towards who's telling the story. Most Americans would agree that history prior to the founding of the United States isn't heavily politicized.
Western-style scholarship of Chinese history had little interest until the past couple of decades. Various elements of Chinese history is still being heavily debated.
For instance, Confucius is still a touchy subject with the Chinese government. A couple years ago the Chinese authorities removed a statue of Confucius at Tiananmen Square. (Click here make Confucius disappear.)
I remember one documentary in high school about the boxer rebellion heavily bias towards the West. I remember the video narrating a terrified American woman describing the Chinese invading the international section of Beijing.
There are a few documentaries that I recommend about modern China:
Young and Restless in China
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/youngchina/
This documentary is about the story a few average people in modern China.
Tankman
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/view/
This talks about the implications of Tianamen Square to what we see today.
Who's Afraid of Aiweiwei?
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/ai-wei-wei/
About the dissident artist Aiweiwei
中国国宝档案 Chinese Treasure Files
http://www.youtube.com/user/LionTavern?feature=watch
This youtube channel has 10 seasons on aspects Chinese history translated to English. Although I would be very careful with bias. I'm skeptical of some of the modern scholars presented in this video.
台北故宫 The Taipei Palace Museum Series
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnDg0ttxKyk
The opening of each episode has a horrendously cheesy theme song that makes it sound like a Korean drama. But this documentary series is my absolute favorite on Chinese artifacts. Not only are the academic sources reputable and cross-checked with Western standards, each episode always tries it's best to talk about how the artifacts are relevant to the modern viewer. Many of my blog posts on Wordpress were inspired by the themes of this documentary series. Unfortunately, the subtitles are only in Traditional Chinese. I wish youtube had a method or means for amateur translators to translate foreign material...
Anywho, I hope this helps! Feel free to leave your comments!
Wow, thank you for sharing so many links! That's incredibly helpful :).
ReplyDeleteI've just been watching the documentary about Ai Weiwei; it's a fascinating insight into his life and art. There's a BBC documentary about him, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcRodOfu_s8
Chinese Treasure Files looks great! Thanks for the warning about bias; I would find it hard to judge the reliability of a source, since I don't know that much about Chinese history.
I see what you mean about the theme song to The Taipei Palace Museum Series, hehe! I do like the animation, though :). Hopefully one day an English translation becomes available!
I'm not sure whether you'll have seen this already, but there was a BBC series about students in China a few years ago. Unfortunately most of the videos have been removed, but a few episodes are still online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfjvESuKf80
I've bookmarked Tank Man and Young & Restless to watch later :). Thank you so much for all your help!