As ancient as the great wall, and as enduring.
The story of china is the story of food.
(Farmers talking)
From the master chef seeking the ultimate meal...
To the student who defies his father to follow his heart,
In this booming nation, nothing rocks like a wok.
But some can barely fill theirs, as drought and desert stalk the country.
A rebel lawyer fights the factories and filth chewing up precious farmland...
An old saying proclaims "food is heaven".
But in its rush to riches, is china devouring its ability to feed its own people?
Author: edboy @ uestc 18_303
Of all the bustling places in this awakening nation,
None is as busy as a cantonese kitchen just before noon.
Food crazy guangzhou is a booming city of 10 million people and 10,000 restaurants.
Wizard of the wok johnson wong
Makes sure his 40 chefs stay on the cutting edge of the city's exotic cuisine.
This southern metropolis is the home of china's most famous export: cantonese food.
Although some of it might be a tough sell on the international market.
Johnson: anything that flies in the sky or walks on the ground,
As long as its back is facing the sky, you can eat it.
We attach great importance to the freshness of food.
Cantonese people love to eat.
Translation, they eat practically anything,
And the closer it is to being alive, the better.
Goose web, fish lips,
All manner of bugs...
Wong is kept busy dreaming up dishes for his affluent and demanding patrons.
Johnson: i'll try anything.
Like stuffing insects into bean sprouts... bees... bee pupas.
If you don't eat them, they will fly away.
And when he's not r5nning his restaurants,
He's wokking on his weekly television show.
Johnson wong: ok, ready.
(Banging skillet)
For wong, food is entertainment... literally.
Producer: okay, okay, okay.
A tv series, radio call-In shows, newspaper columns, food seminars...
Have made wong the ultimate celebrity cook.
Wong's grandfather was a kung fu master,
His mother sang chinese opera,
And his show is part jackie chan...
Part tom jones, part julia child.
It's all gobbled up by the newly prosperous chinese...
Those who have more food than they know what to do with.
Johnson wong: people are looking for new taste sensations.
We no longer see food as something to appease hunger...
Appeasing hunger is an old story.
On the other side of china,
Appeasing hunger is not an old story.
Mrs. Gao was only 15 when she came to this tiny village
To marry a man she had never met.
Their lives have been unending hardship,
With barely enough to eat, and even less water.
Mr. Gao: people living in towns or cities can have a bath.
No facility, no bath here.
The gaos live far away from the prosperous coastal regions,
In china's northwest. High in the parched and barren hills of the loess plateau.
Spectacular, forbidding,
The loess plateau was once a vast and verdant forest.
But over the centuries, demand for lumber and cropland stripped the hills of their trees.
Now the fertile soil, and the farmers who depend upon it for survival,
Are at the mercy of the sun and wind.
As drought and development claim precious farmland,
China may be losing it ability to feed itself.
At the gao's village,
The fields of corn and beans that cling to the hillsides hardly produce enough to keep them alive.
Unless it rains soon, they will produce nothing.
Mrs. Gao: the sun is so hot that the crops all dry up and die.
But if it rains, the soil turns soft, and the plants grow well.
It all depends on the rain here.
Inside their traditional cave dwelling,
Mrs. Gao prepares dinner.
Here, deciding what to have is not a problem.
Dinner is noodles, every night.
1 out of 8 chinese still lives in absolute poverty.
Just getting enough to eat is a daily struggle.
Mr. Gao: the day before yesterday, we had more than enough to eat.
As for the most delicious food, it's noodles... with meat.
For people like us, that's as good as it gets.
Even in what some are calling the chinese century, many people's biggest fear is still the fear of hunger.
A chinese legend tells of the artist who painted a cookie.
When he was finished, he wasn't hungry anymore.
It's li jin's favourite story.
The passion for food has shaped china's culture,
Its history, its soul.
It's a passion born of deprivation.
Li jin: being short of food gives you a specal awareness of it:
The look of it, the smell of it.
The pleasure of preparing a meal... the sounds,
E aroma of cooking, the anticipation of eating, the pleasure of tasting.
Hunger feeds the imagination about food.
For li jin, food is a source of creativity and inspiration,
As a painter and as a cook.
Li jin: carp represents the chinese ideal of beauty in a fish.
It has the typical beautiful shape, full and round.
He believes china's magnificent cuisine is a cultural treasure that must be preserved and celebrated.
Li jin: for chinese people, fish is associated with lucky things:
A prosperous life, abundance...
I love fish.
Food has always been central to the life and character of china.
So too has the problem of too many mouths and too little land.
Li jin: people were short of food for long periods in our history,
Because we have such a large population,
So food has always been a way to measure wealth in china.
Only the rich had good food to eat.
These artists are a part of China, they no longer has to eat to live.
but rather lest to eat
For generations, fish brought good fortune to the people of the guo river.
Now their fish nets sit empty, their houseboats lie rotting,
The water they live on poisoned, polluted by industrial waste.
For years, they've been fighting in vain to get compensation.
Now they are waiting for their last hope...
A crusading lawyer from beijing.
The spectacular economic boom that has created riches for so many has ravaged much of the countryside.
Lawyers wang canfa and zhang jing jing
Fight for the farmers and fishermen
Whose crops and catch are being destroyed.
They're headed south to anhui province.
Even in a country where over 60% of the rivers and lakes are heavily polluted,
Anhui has achieved environmental infamy.
The lethal discharges of its factories have killed crops, animals, even people.
As the train arrives in the ancient city of bozhou,
Wang canfa knows there are risks to their mission.
More often than not, local authorities side with the polluters,
And do not appreciate his interfering.
But to the poor and powerless in china's countryside,
This tiny man is a folk hero.
Gong huailing hoped for a good life when she married one of the gou fishermen.
Hope has turned to hopelessness.
Hu xuede farmed fish all his life.
Then adversity turned him into a fighter.
He tells wang the fishermen believe a leather tanning factory upstream is illegally releasing highly toxic waste,
But the local government is protecting it.
Surprisingly, this man would agree.
Pan yue is at the centre of power in beijing....
But he talks like no other member of china's government.
Pan yue: most officials got their high positions through pushing growth.
So it's very difficult to get them to change their approach.
China's vice minister of the environment is as outspoken as he is exasperated that on his watch,
China is becoming the world's biggest polluter.
Pan yue: let them choose the environment or a mercedes benz car,
They choose the mercedes for sure.
They want to be rich first.
The environment is their second choice.
Growth is what china has been all about for the last 20 years.
But it comes with a cost.
China must feed over 20% of the world's population with only 7% of the world's arable land.
And that land is disappearing... fast.
Paved over by progress.
Now, progress is moving west.
In mountainous sichuan province,
Arable land is concentrated in the large basin around its capital city and latest boomtown, chengdu.
This export processing zone is one of scores of industrial parks springing up like mushrooms on the flat and fertile plain.
Computer chips made by multinational giant intel.
It's sophie fan's pride and joy.
She returned to china from canada two years ago to help sell her hometown to foreign investors.
Chengdu: international hotspot.
The better sophie does her job, the more land will be lost.
Her pitch is simple... and successful.
Sophie fan: i will convince you that your business will make money.
It is the first thing i will tell you.
Over the last 10 years development has swallowed up 10% of china's arable land.
Sophie fan: i personally feel losing land to factories is a sacrifice.
If the benefits of developme to the public are greater,
I think people will understand that sacrifice is necessary.
Our life is better than before.
We have to sacrifice when we make progress.
In the bustling restaurants of chengdu,
Deals are done and development is celebrated.
Sophie and her team are there to enjoy sichuan opera and the local specialty: hotpot.
The fiery dish of duck broth and animal parts was originally a simple meal for the poor.
Now, a feast for the winners in china's development boom.
Zhen tian: what can i do? What can i do?
To stay alive, you must eat.
Zhen tian ren is one of theeosers.
One of 66 million peasants forced off their land by development.
His peach orchards were gobbled up by one of chengdu's new industrial zones.
But he's come back to his old neighbourhood,
Squatting in an abandoned farmhouse and surrounded by factories.
Even a stay in jail didn't deter him.
Zhen: they forced me into the car.
They took me to the police branch office.
They detained me for 12 days there.
It's unfair.
And i am also an idiot if i just wait for the government to be fair.
He knows it's only a matter of time before the bulldozers, and the police are back.
Zhen: this whole development thing is only for the government,
It has nothing to dowith us, the regular citizens, nothing.
It even makes us poorer.
The government gets richer,
While the citizens get poorer.
I am telling you the truth.
Now all over china, protests, and even violence,
Against land seizures and pollution erupt almost daily.
Under china's rise,
The losers eat bitter
While the winners eat well.
imei look like friends, but there's shatou is just outside beijing
Just a few of years ago,there's a palace for you.
Today,it's a republic the shatou ?? new palace
Along with the garden outside
A hundred of bule,there're some rome palaces in good manner
a sample of the possible china today,
if you have the money and the ??
all usual is big in new china
there's a very country venus salaam bride side???
and weddings
on behalf of all your friends and internation,???IBM,and many many friends
we'd like to wish you a very blessed marriage
The food is the ???
The dish name re?? a glorious well fun good luck
the golden arks b?? the good news
the dragon rised from the sea
all the special names are prefered,because in china you are watching you wait
all the best,??and viving the programer
there's a ??
and li lang is another kid enjoying happy meal
it's china little tampers only childern the ruler of a family of the china's middle class
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>>>
A visit to the world's biggest market for herbal medicine unexpectedly becomes a journey into his past.
If it grows, blooms or crawls, it's here.
The thousands of dealers would never let you doubt for a second that centipedes can beat a bad rash,
Or that dried human placenta can stop a headache.
Wang knows some of the exotic merchandise here only too well.
He grew up as one of five children in a poor peasant family.
There was never enough to eat.
Relief from the bitter struggle against hunger
Has been a constant dream for china's peasants.
For centuries they've beseeched the powerful river dragon to bring abundance and prosperity.
(Yelling)
(Drum beating)
But li zhifu and his parents are just here to enjoy the races...
They no longer need to pray for a better life.
They are part of the largest
Mass migration in human history.
More than 100 million peasants
Wh9ve abandoned the land
For jobs and opportunities
In china's cities.
The li family 5ed to call the miuo valley home.
Life here may seem unchanging,
But most of the adults have gone.
The villagers who remain are either too young or too old to leave.
When the li's make a rare visit to their family home,
Zhifu's father declares he's proud that he and his children no longer farm.
Li father: for sure i am proud of it.
Working with physical stsngth, blue collar work,
Is not as good as working with knowledge,
White collar work.
As a farmer's son with a university degree in computer programming,
Zhifu is living his father's dream.
But here zhifu spends his time,
As he did as a child,
In the kitchen helping his grandfather.
Computers are not where zhifu's heart is.
Zhifu: there is a saying in china, "food is heaven".
Eating is the most important thing in our life.
We say this at the dining table:
"No matter what kind of emergency happens, eat first, deal with it later".
Cooking is in zhifu's blood.
His grandfather became the village chef by helping his neighbours cook what little they had during times of hunger.
Risking his father's disapproval,
Zhifu has decided to follow in his grandfather's footsteps.
He will become a chef.
For him, preparing food is a link to the land and the village he's left behind.
Li zhifu: i still miss the old life.
When i go back home to visit my grandparents,
We celebrate the festivals together.
Those times are warm and joyful.
I miss those joyful times.
It's hard to find this closeness in the city.
People there are cold and detached.
Li father: i worked a lot on zhifu to get him to give up being a cook.
But he told me nothing is more important than food.
Finally i said if that's your decision,
Then try your best and do it well.
Maybe it is what he was born to do.
Zhifu will need more than inborn talent
To succeed in a place that takes its cuisine as seriously as china does.
He'll have to struggle.
On the gou river, wang the lawyer is in pursuit of the polluters.
Born in the year of the dog,
He has the inborn tenacity of a terrier.
He needs it.
He and ms. Zhang have traveled to the village closest to the leather tanning factory.
The two lawyers must prove that pollution from the factory is killing the fish.
Zhang is videotaping evidence to be used in court.
A few years ago, the farmers could swim in this river.
Not anymore.
Wang wants to get the silt tested for chrome and cadmium,
Two toxic heavy metals used in tanning leather.
But wang and zhang need hard proof.
For that, they must get closer to the fqctory.
Far to the south in guangzhou's fish market,
Singing chef johnson wong is tracking an elusive quarry also.
Something special, something wild and live.
But there's a downside to the economic prosperity that's madthim so successful.
One he's about to discover.
Pollution is taking its toll on canton's most sought-After delicacies.
Johnson: river fish are very popular.
But as pollution is increasing and water quality
Gets worse and worse,
Many fish are becoming inedible or even extinct.
China is already the world's largest producer of fish and seafood.
But the surging economy means china's enormous appetite for fish,
And the money to pay for it, is growing even faster.
Johnson: this is creating a serious problem.
Now demand for fish is exceeding supply,
And so the quality of the fish is getting worse and worse.
China is discovering the limits of its natural resources.
And johnson?
He may have met his match in that feisty big garoupa.
In this place of plenty,
It's hard to believe that china has any problem growing enough food.
If food is heaven,
The guangze u wholesale vegetable market is heaven's ate.
Food from all over china is meticulously cut,
Peeled, and readied for sale.
The volume is overwhelming,
The variety stunning.
But here again, prosperity threatens china's ability to feed itself.
The city of guangzhou lies at the head of
The sprawling pearl river delta in southern china.
It was here on this massive flood plain that china's economic miracle began.
The delta is one of the most fertile places in the world.
Now it is also one of the most industrializst.
Sandched between the factories and highways are the remnants of ls agricultural past.
Tiny markengardes that must feed the appetites of the huge industrial cities of the delta.
Here, as everywhere in china,
More and more food must be wrung out of less and less land.
The intense production is fuelled by chemicals.
Staggering amounts of pesticides and fertilizers.
At least twice the amount the west uses to grow its food.
On top of that, there are heavy metals.
In the air, in the soil and in the water.
Fields are often irrigated with the untreated wastewater of thousands of factories.
These vegetables will end up in the markets and woks of china,
Along with their chemicals and contaminants.
Tasty as they might look,
Many of china's crops are not edible by western food safety standards.
It's a long way from heaven,
According to the chinese government's environment chief pan yue.
Pan yue: china's economic growth looks like magic from the outside, but it can't go on.
It's creating huge problems.
These problems are leading us to disaster.
Pan yue doesn't flinch from the truth,
Even though his government isn't always happy to hear it,
And has demoted him in the past.
Pan yue: sometimes i feel alone.
I paid for what i did,
I'm prepared to pay more in the future.
I don't represent the mainstream of the government.
Still, i have hope.
Pan yue believes neither he, nor his country, has a choice.
Pan yue: if we can't solve the problems,
Then all of us will be finished.
We can't import water, we can't import air.
We live under the same sky, we are all chinese.
I cannot survive if a fisherman dies.
As china's growth continues,
It seems almost impossible that disaster can be averted.
Yet china's history is the story of impossibility surmounted.
The southern loess plateau is where chinese history began 5,000 years ago.
Now china's agricultural future is beginning again on these terraces.
Market economics has come to fields where, for centuries,
Peasants harvested only wheat and sorrow.
This is the face of china's future.
Dr. Xu wenbin doesn't know anything about farming.
But he doesn't see that as a drawback.
Dr. Xu: china is changing, its farmers are changing too.
The head of the local hospital in the city of luochuan took his life savings and bought 3,000 apple trees.
They've made him rich.
Dr. Xu the only thing you have to worry about is taking good care of the apple trees.
There is no worry about making money.
(Leaves rustling)
That rustling is the sound of china taking over the world market for apples.
It's taken them only a few years and an awful lot of bags.
In early summer, thousands of workers put every single fruit in a paper wrapper that protects it from disease and pollution,
And helps meet international standards.
Apples can generate 10 times the income wheat does.
So instead of growing so much wheat, china is buying it abroad,
And exporting high priced fruits and vegetables.
If dr. Xu has his way, his apples will be coming soon to supermarkets around the world.
You can also glimpse the future at this small provincial cooking school.
These young men are the carriers of the flame of china's great cuisine...
If they pass today's test.
Among them is li zhifu, the young man who left computer programming for cooking.
Today he may regret that.
They've got one hour to prepare four dishes.
Ju hua fish is a feat of cutting, breading and frying.
Done properly, it blossoms like a chrysanthemum when dropped into the hot oil.
Cooking in his grandfather's kitchen was never like this.
The finished dishes are run across campus to the waiting judges.
He hasn't done as well as he would have liked,
But zhifu is undaunted, his love for china's food undiminished.
Zhifu: i am happiest when i'm creating wonderful meals for others.
I think about how much joy my food will give them.
That is what will make me happy.
Lawyers wang and zhang intend to be part of china's future too.
As crusaders nipping at the heels of runaway growth.
When they finally reach the tanning factory,
They find piles of toxic leather waste.
They also find what they've been searching for.
But there's a problem.
It gets worse... there seems to be as much pollution above the factory as below.
Wang realizes that may let the factory off the hook.
The gou fishermen's long wait is not yet over.
But wang will not give up easily... he's won almost half of his 70 cases.
He believes that too many factories polluting too much may be China's present, but not its future..
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