Curiosity Catch-Up #5
“The one thing I know for sure about China, is that we’ll never know China. It’s too big, too old, too diverse, too deep." - Anthony Bourdain
As promised, I went on my journey through China for the Curiosity Catch-Up this week.
We have a little bit of everything - politics, tech, manufacturing, food, and an amazing documentary covering most of it. In the words of the late, great Anthony Bourdain “The one thing I know for sure about China, is that we’ll never know China. It’s too big, too old, too diverse, too deep. There’s simply not enough time…it’s changing so fast”.
🎥 Ascension
I was looking for documentaries on China and came across Ascension by Jessica Kingdon. It is one of the most mesmerising documentaries that I have watched in a long time. One minute you are watching a montage of various manufacturing scenes, and the next you are in a bespoke sex doll factory where workers are casually chatting about the right amount of pubic hair. It also takes you to a business etiquette training session and butler training. These are just a few of the places and scenes in Ascension. It is a fascinating look into the pursuit of the Chinese Dream of prosperity. It received numerous nominations and awards, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Film.
📺 Politics, Food, and Culture
Both of these recommendations are 5-10 years old but they cover issues still pertinent to China today with some humour and food thrown in. We’ll start with Bourdain, which you can find on Prime Video. He explores a fast-changing Shanghai in Season 4 of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. It was released over a decade ago but it brings up the economic interrelationship of the US and China, China’s burgeoning tech industry, and even a quip about Trump long before he was considering running for president. Bourdain had a knack for discussing food, politics, and culture with everyone. I often wonder where he would be traveling and what he would be saying now.
John Oliver has a great episode on the effects of the one-child policy, which ended in 2015. Again, sex dolls feature in this one and the reason for them becomes apparent. It explains the reasoning behind the policy in the first place, the long-term effects, and what replaced it - a two-child policy.
🎙️ China Now
There are two podcast recommendations to get a feel about China’s current climate. The first comes from Al Jazeera’s The Take, which although recorded just a few weeks ago, is already out of date in terms of the tariffs situation. It discusses Chinese politics, the tech advances, as well as the general changes which journalist Tony Cheng has noticed since his last time in China a few years ago.
Another recommendation for general listening is The China in Africa Podcast.
📲 TikTok
Chinese TikTok has blown up over the past few weeks. Everything from demonstrating just how technically advanced it is (palm-based payments) to hilarious videos mocking America following the tariff increases with the ‘Chinese Trump’ and videos about their ‘peasant’ life (we can thank J.D. Vance for that one). There has also been the explosion of Chinese manufacturing TikTok. The Chinese are exposing where all big brand items are made in China before they get their fancy label put on them. Although this might be the case, there are also exceptional craftspeople in China, as Derek Guy points out in this X-Twitter thread (also, if you don’t follow him on X-Twitter, then you should).
I hope you enjoyed a very small journey through China. As Bourdain put it, it’s too big and there isn’t enough time to explore it fully.
Keep being curious!
Ax
If you have read this far, thank you! I would like to keep my writing project going (there’s a book in the works) so a small donation to my Writing Fund would be appreciated.