The family of Jia Qingyun, a farmer whose ancestors came to Guandong Province, returned to their hometown of Shandong Province with their three children due to the difficulties of life in the Northeast, and settled on the seaside of the town. However, facing the land where their ancestors had lived, they did not have land of their own. Nor did they have a household registration or a house. They can only face the sea and tenaciously start life again. Director Hu Jie records their hardships and their hopes for life.
Published in China in 1989, this book caused a sensation, reportedly selling as many as 300,000 copies. Described as the first "descriptive study" of the reality of China. In order to raise national awareness of the need for environmental protection, it examines the agricultural, environmental, and resource problems that China was likely to encounter in the course of modernization and predicts that the future would likely be even worse. The book was banned immediately after publication.
This monograph by Sun Liping, a professor at Tsinghua University, was published by China Literature Publishing House in 2003. The author systematically analyzes a series of changes in Chinese social life since the 1990s. The book discusses the meaning and characteristics of fractured society; the formation and background of fractured society; widening income gaps and the formation of vulnerable groups; the new urban-rural dual structure; trust crisis and social order; social conflicts and institutional innovation, etc.
The tradition of matchmaking is still prevalent in northern rural areas today. This film records the story of Yang Xiuting, a matchmaker living in Guan County, Shandong Province. It describes how, due to economic reforms, rural people went to cities to find work. Subsequently, young people began to choose their own spouses. Thus, the ancient profession of matchmaker not only faces challenges, but also encounters new problems.
Luo Xiaojia, a young Yunnan Yi girl was trafficked to the plains of Shandong at the age of 17 and forced to marry a young farmer in the area. The film documents her family life in the unfamiliar Shandong countryside and her longing for home. In her tenth year in Shandong, she finally fights for the opportunity to return home. After a 4,000-kilometer journey, she returns to her hometown of Yunnan and sees her mother, whom she misses day and night. However, she struggles with conflicting emotions, and returns to Shandong with a mountain song that her mother sings for her. This movie reflects the sad fate of trafficked women in China and the social psychology that follows these tragedies.
In the fall of 2005, residents of Taishi Village became increasingly frustrated and angered by the sale of land by village officials; hundreds of villagers signed a petition calling for the removal of the village chief. The villagers occupied the village committee’s financial office and expressed their demands through sit-ins and other forms of protests. The government dispatched the police to arrest village activists, but the villagers insisted on starting a formal recall process. The government finally sent a team to the village to verify the signatures for the petition.
<i>The Taishi Village</i> recall incident generated attention from Chinese and foreign media, and caused uneasiness among local government officials. On September 12, 2005, police arrested dozens of villagers who were participating in a sit-in in the village committee room. Despite the pressure, villagers elected a committee to remove the village committee director. The government then dispatched more men to exert pressure, forcing elected members to withdraw one by one. Hired patrol teams eventually drove lawyers and reporters out of the village.
This documentary records the protest scenes and tragic ending of Taishi village’s movement for autonomy, and presents the surging rights consciousness in rural areas in Guangdong. This incident demonstrates villagers’ ability to exercise their right to vote and the government’s inertial approach to grassroots democracy movements.
This documentary is in Chinese with Chinese subtitles.
Due to poverty in rural areas in Henan Province—part of China’s Central Plains—many farmers contracted AIDS by selling their blood. This documentary dives into the lives of these AIDS patients, depicting the manner in which they cope with life, officials’ responses, and the stories of volunteers who helped the infected villagers. The filmmaker visited several villages with high incidence of AIDS, interviewing and recording people’s accounts of how the “plasma economy” arose. This documentary presents the living condition of families and individuals, especially women and children, who contracted AIDS due to blood donation and blood transfusions, and demonstrates the formation of grassroots organizations.
This film is in Chinese with both Chinese and English subtitles.
This documentary tells the story of the lives of three families of coal miners in the mountains of eastern Sichuan. Winner of the 35th Margaret Mead Movie Director's Award in 2011. Directed by Liu Yuanchen.
Wukan is a village in Luwei City, under the jurisdiction of Shanwei City, Guangdong Province. From 2011 to 2016, Wukan villagers have continued to fight to protect their land and fight for villagers' rights. Facing strong pressure from the government, some even paid with their lives. In the process, the villagers had elected their own villagers' committee by one person, one vote to practice their democratic rights. Although the protests were eventually suppressed, the impact was far-reaching. Ai Xiaoming rushed to the scene at the beginning of the Wukan incident and left this precious record.
Author Xin Hao Nian tries to analyze the modern history of China since the Xinhai Revolution. He pointsout that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a restoration of the authoritarian system, and the Republic of China (ROC) represents China's road to a republic. The first volume of the book defends and clarifies the history of the Kuomintang (KMT), arguing that the KMT is not a "reactionary faction" as claimed by the CCP. The second volume criticizes the revolution and history of the CCP. The book was first printed in 1999 by Blue Sky Publishing House (USA) and reprinted in June 2012 by Hong Kong's Schaefer International Publishing. It is banned on the mainland.