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City Lights

From: Jennifer Dunn
Length: 00:20:37

Members of China's floating population recount their hopes and challenges as rural-urban migrants. Read the full description.
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City Lights
From
Jennifer Dunn

Nightlights_small Dramatic discrepancies between economic development in China's rural and urban regions is creating tremendous incentive for villagers to migrate to the cities. Though recent shifts in government policies make it legal for them to do so, they still face a daunting series of social and financial challenges when they arrive. This piece explores the motivations, frustrations, successes, and failures of several women in both rural and urban Yunnan province, as they recount their experiences becoming part of China's burgeoning 'floating population'.

City Lights | 00:20:37

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Piece Description

Dramatic discrepancies between economic development in China's rural and urban regions is creating tremendous incentive for villagers to migrate to the cities. Though recent shifts in government policies make it legal for them to do so, they still face a daunting series of social and financial challenges when they arrive. This piece explores the motivations, frustrations, successes, and failures of several women in both rural and urban Yunnan province, as they recount their experiences becoming part of China's burgeoning 'floating population'.

2 Comments Atom Feed

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Will Thomson

Posted on December 20, 2004 at 07:48 AM | Permalink

Review of City Lights

It's rare to find a piece of China reporting this in-depth, sound rich, and pleasant to listen to. Journalists don't often do a good job reporting on rural issues, and especially on China, their reporting runs the risk of coming off as patronizing or unsympathetic. This piece also touches on difficult political issues without demonizing the Chinese government, another pitfall.

I'm a fan of its pacing -- it's voiced slowly, with several longer passages of Mandarin, which I think is interesting, even to audiences who don't speak the language. The majority of the voices are of women -- and the degree of connection formed between the reporter and subject is apparent. I'm curious about the circumstances of the interviews and wonder if this level of work would be allowed for full-time journalists in the country.

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Mary McGrath

Posted on April 02, 2004 at 07:54 AM | Permalink

Review of City Lights

China is the story of our time and what happens there in the next decade or so will surely shape the world we live in.
I think all journalism about China is incredibly important and this story adds quite a lot to what little I know about the people and the country. This piece could run cut down or perhaps as a series during Morning Edition or ATC; news pegs abound. It could use some smoothing out -- the naration and ambient levels were off in places.

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