History of China series by Micheal Woods on PBS

[danb]

I have seen a couple of episodes of History of China by Micheal Woods on my local PBS TV station. The first episode that I saw didn't give me a good first impression. I didn't like Micheal Woods as a host and didn't care for the way he was presenting the story. Not sure why but I happened to watch a second story about the Song Dynasty by him. It was so much better. In my book he went from a dud to an interesting dude. Here is a short preview of one of his show:

 

https://www.pbssocal.org/programs/story-of-china/last-communist-collective-china-2cc7ke/

 

This story was interesting to me because it gives me a visual of what the Communist was in part trying to achieve so many years ago. Also some of the buildings and living complexes are very similar to what I have seen in parts of Nanning. The communal Bulletin boards. The apartment homes, etc. There are stories about Nanjie Cun in Henan province.

 

A couple of his stories are on some of the different Chinese Dynasties. I don't know much of the different Chinese Dynasties but Micheal's show helped me understand Chinese history a little. It helped to put China's timeline in perspective to the European historical timeline. Also the visuals helped to remember the particulars. Danb

 

 

 

 

 

[danb]

Hello. I thought this video was pretty interesting and that it show some of the positive aspects of communist society/order in an old fashion collective/ commune. Woods said that: "there were real achievements" and "improvement in public health, education, women's role and status, social housing, free food and free education, etc. All positive aspects. After posting this topic I decided to look for some more info on NanJie Cun in Henan province. What I found was that Wood's story was perhaps the most positive video on Nanjie Cun. It was almost a PR video. I also went back and looked at Wood's video again. After viewing it several time I started to get a more balance view of the subject. Initially I focused on just the positive aspects. After seeing the video several times I saw that Wood was showing more of a + and - view. I was just blinded to the - side of the story. Interesting observation about myself and still an interesting video for me. Danb