Category: China

Natural World is a classic wildlife series which tells in depth stories of incredible animals featuring award winning photography in some of the most extraordinary places in the world. Episode Pandas of The Sleeping Dragon - Wolong Shan, in Sichuan province is China's main panda reserve, which is home to giant and red pandas and giant salamanders, as well as golden monkeys. Focuses on the predicament of the giant panda and on the lesser known red panda. The giant panda's digestive system is more suited to meat eating yet, because it feeds almost exclusively on bamboo, which has a low nutritional value, the animal must feed virtually around the clock to survive. Other animals that live in the forests include parrot bills, bamboo rats, golden monkeys, tufted deer, wild dogs, golden pheasants and the takin, a distant relative of the musk ox. The giant salamander, known as the water dragon, ...
Watch Now

A departure from other documentaries that observe history as the actions of great men People's Century considers the Century from the view of common people. Most persons interviewed were ordinary men and women who closely witnessed various events and they give personal accounts how developments in the Twentieth Century affected their lives. The opening credits depict various images from the century and a very short introduction. Episode 1 Age of Hope 1900 - At the beginning of the twentieth century the world was stable and certain, but unequal. The Paris Exhibition of 1900 symbolises the optimism of a peaceful age when affluence is rising and people have faith in new technologies like electricity. The United States becomes the most powerful country in the world, destination for many immigrants from Europe. Compulsory education in many countries had led to a literate population exposed to new ideas, leisure and consumerism through newspapers ...
Watch Now

In Chinathere exists an astonishing place. A burial ground to rival Egypt's Valley of the Kings. In 221 B.C., China's first Emperor united warring kingdoms into a nation that still exists today. To memorialise this achievement, he bankrupted the national treasury and oppressed thousands of workers to build one of the world's biggest mortuary complexes. China's second dynasty, the Han, inherited the daunting challenge of building larger tombs to command respect and establish their right to rule without running the nation into the ground. Although no Han emperor's tomb has been opened, the tombs of lesser Han aristocrats have revealed astonishing things and at least one corpse so amazingly well preserved some believe Han tomb builders knew how to engineer immortality ...
Watch Now

A departure from other documentaries that observe history as the actions of great men People's Century considers the Century from the view of common people. Most persons interviewed were ordinary men and women who closely witnessed various events and they give personal accounts how developments in the Twentieth Century affected their lives. The opening credits depict various images from the century and a very short introduction. Episode 20 Great Leap 1949 - Communism helps modernise China, but the decisions and personality cult of Mao Zedong has a traumatic affect on Chinese society. Mao's Chinese Communist Party defeats the Chinese nationalists after co-opting the support of China's peasantry. Driven by ideological furveor, the Chinese people are mobilised to develop the country, although many ill considered initiatives like the Great sparrow campaign and the Great Leap Forward bring famine and chaos to China. Mao directs mass movements to attack what he perceived ...
Watch Now

How did an Indian Buddhist shrine influence a Japanese pagoda? How are Italian pigs and cowry shells related to porcelain? These intriguing questions are investigated in Artifactsa series that explores the origins and hidden connections among the art and artifacts of the great cultures and belief systems across Asia to understand the impact of calligraphy, porcelain, architecture, metallurgy, wood block printing and silk on Asian history and on the history of the world in general. Episode 1 A Brush with Wisdom - Enter the hidden world of Chinese painting. In China, they say to understand painting you need to understand calligraphy - the art of writing Chinese characters with a brush ...
Watch Now

For 27 years Mao Tse Tung held absolute power. This is the first full account of his life ever shown on television. This documentary shows the tormentbeatings and killings of Mao's cultural revolution and the terror and famine that preceded it and killed tens of millions. For the first time Mao's intimates speak out including, his granddaughter, his doctor, his valet, his english teacher, his bodyguard and commrades of his early days in the communist party. Together they provide the keys, not only to China's past, but to an understanding of China today. Hosted by Philip Short, BBC correspondent and author of Mao: A Life. The first half of the documentary covers the course of the Chinese revolution up to the Cultural Revolution. The second half covers the Cultural Revolution to Mao's death ...
Watch Now

How did an Indian Buddhist shrine influence a Japanese pagoda? How are Italian pigs and cowry shells related to porcelain? Why did the ferocious warriors of Mongolia wear silk underwear? These intriguing questions are investigated in Artifactsa series that explores the origins and hidden connections among the art and artifacts of the great cultures and belief systems across Asia to understand the impact of calligraphy, porcelain, architecture, metallurgy, wood block printing and silk on Asian history and on the history of the world in general. Episode 2 Sacred Spaces - Chinese buildings evolved from simple shelters into complex, magnificent structures with great, swooping roofs, stately columns, and rich detail. And to start this story at the beginning, we have to leap back two millennia, to when the brilliant tyrant Qin Shihuang becomes the first emperor of a unified China ...
Watch Now

Time Life's Lost Civilizations combines cutting edge digital effects technology (for 1995) with powerful dramatization. Dazzling spectacles re-create rituals and events original location cinematography in 25 countries. Computer graphics make lost worlds live again! Episode 5 China Dynasties Of Power - Witness the glory of ancient China's greatest rulers and the secrets of their giant tombs. Learn the ruthless military tactics and weapons technology of these all powerful rulers and discover how the building of the Great Wall would unify that nation ...
Watch Now

How did an Indian Buddhist shrine influence a Japanese pagoda? How are Italian pigs and cowry shells related to porcelain? Why did the ferocious warriors of Mongolia wear silk underwear? These intriguing questions are investigated in Artifactsa series that explores the origins and hidden connections among the art and artifacts of the great cultures and belief systems across Asia to understand the impact of calligraphy, porcelain, architecture, metallurgy, wood block printing and silk on Asian history and on the history of the world in general. Episode 3 The Mystery of Porcelain - When pieces of Chinese porcelain were first seen in the West, they were so rare and exquisite that they very quickly became more valuable than gold. Why? Because Europeans really had no idea how porcelain was made, and the medieval Italian merchants who first brought porcelain to Europe couldn't believe it was man made ...
Watch Now

The First Emperor The Man Who Made China follows the rise and fall of Chin Shi Huang China's legendary first emperor. The Discovery Channel was allowed unprecedented access to Emperor Chin's underground burial complex that spans over seven square miles. The team employs cutting edge technology such as ground penetrating radar combined with CGI to illustrate the design and layout of the largest unopened tomb in the world ...
Watch Now

How did an Indian Buddhist shrine influence a Japanese pagoda? How are Italian pigs and cowry shells related to porcelain? These intriguing questions are investigated in Artifactsa series that explores the origins and hidden connections among the art and artifacts of the great cultures and belief systems across Asia to understand the impact of calligraphy, porcelain, architecture, metallurgy, wood block printing and silk on Asian history and on the history of the world in general. Episode 6 Silk The Thread Connecting East and West - This amazing fabric has captivated human imagination for over 2000 years. Throughout history, it has clothed the rich and powerful. But more than this, it has been a form of currency, a tool of diplomacy, a badge of rank, and a fabric of the divine ...
Watch Now

A departure from other documentaries that observe history as the actions of great men People's Century considers the Century from the view of common people. Most persons interviewed were ordinary men and women who closely witnessed various events and they give personal accounts how developments in the Twentieth Century affected their lives. The opening credits depict various images from the century and a very short introduction. Episode 18 Picture Power 1963 - Governments, advertisers and revolutionaries seek to exploit television's ability to instantly communicate compelling messages to mass audiences. Television allows people to vividly witness Queen Elizabeth's Coronation, the 1960 US Presidential election, the moon landing, the Munich Olympics, the Tienanmen Square Massacre, the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and the Gulf War. Advertising, education programs, and series like Ramayan, Dallas and Oshin influence society by changing perceptions and habits. The introductory scene showed the impact of television in communicating the ...
Watch Now

In The Ascent of Money Niall Ferguson traces the evolution of money and demonstrates that financial history is the essential back story behind all history. By learning how societies have continually created and survived financial criseswe can find solid solutions to today's worldwide economic emergency. As he traverses historic financial hot spots around the world, Ferguson illuminates fundamental economic concepts and speaks with leading experts in the financial world. Episode 6 Chimerica - Niall Ferguson investigates the globalisation of the Western economy and the uncertain balance between the important component countries of China and the US. In examining the last time globalisation took hold, before World War One, he finds a notable reversal, namely that today money is pouring into the English speaking economies from the developing world, rather than out ...
Watch Now

A departure from other documentaries that observe history as the actions of great men, People's Century considers the Century from the view of common people. Most persons interviewed were ordinary men and women who closely witnessed various events and they give personal accounts how developments in the Twentieth Century affected their lives. The opening credits depict various images from the century and a very short introduction. Episode 26 Fast Forward 1997 - Governments around the world liberalise trade and withdraw from intervening in the economy, giving new opportunities to those who are skilled, industrious and adaptable, but disrupts the social order for others. In the United States, Proposition 13 is the precursor to Reaganism, and the inequalities that later emerge lead to the LA riots and the rise of gated communities. Russian society struggles to adapt to a market economy, and in Bosnia and elsewhere the demise of socialism revives ...
Watch Now

Documentary series about the hopes and dreams of a group of children at three schools in rural Chinait takes as its subject one small town in rural Anhui, and focuses on their lives during the course of a single academic year. The schools are schools like many thousands of others across this vast nation, but through the individual stories of hardship, joy and success, an extraordinary portrait emerges, not just of a group of children and a town, but of a side of the Chinese nation seldom seen. Episode 1 The Year of the Golden Pig - The children and teachers of the rural town of Xiuning are about to welcome you into their lives, and reveal a place full of vitality, challenges and great humour. Chinese School discovers just what makes Chinese people tick, what they dream of and what gets a laugh. This is China as the Chinese ...
Watch Now