Documentaries on China

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!