PBS's China Week Feature
For five nights, July 11-15, 2011, Tavis brings you stories from the People’s Republic of China. Taped in Beijing and Shanghai, the series examines the growing superpower’s economic boom and its challenges, including the complexity of U.S.-China relations. The series will feature the following:
Mon. 7/11 – A report on Chinese innovation, technology and the economic boom
Tues. 7/12 – An examination of China’s challenges, including pollution and poverty
Wed. 7/13 – A conversation with Andrew Ballen, an expat who’s bringing hip-hop to China
Thurs. 7/14 – A look at 101 Middle School, one of China’s top schools
Fri. 7/15 – A wide-ranging panel discussion with four prominent Chinese-Americans
China – The Challenges
In tonight’s continuing series on China, Tavis talks environmental issues with Kongjian Yu and examines some of the challenges facing modern China. He also takes an inside look at the lives of migrant workers and their children and their struggle to better their lives.
Considered China's leading landscape architect, Kongjian Yu has been an urban and regional planning professor at Peking University since '97 and is the founder and dean of PKU's Graduate School of Landscape Architecture. He's also the founder of Turenscape, an award-winning firm with a practice that covers architecture, landscape architecture and urban design. He holds a Doctor of Design from Harvard's GSD and has lectured at more than 30 universities worldwide.
During the trip, Tavis visited a migrant workers' compound on the outskirts of Shanghai, where he talked with some of the workers and their families and came to realize the extent of the country's migrant challenge, as people come from the countryside to find work in the cities. This episode also looks at the U.S. media focus on China's growing wealth and the problem of its widening income gap.
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