up the yangtze
I saw the documentary, Up the Yangtze tonight. It covered the impact of the construction of China's Three Gorges Dam on the lives of the peasants who had been living along the river, and China's rush into modernization. For the most part, the focus was on one family, however there were several other character portrayals which added to the story. Overall, its fairly bleak stuff. The father was basically a dirt farmer who lived in a shack made up of boards with a tin roof. As the story progressed and it became clear that they were going to have to abandon their riverside shack as the waters rose, the father no longer could even farm. Instead, he was attempting to scrape by breaking up large rocks, barefoot. The daughter wanted to pursue a higher education, but was sent to work on a tourist boat to earn money for the family. She had a fairly rough time adapting to life on te boat, but did ok. The differences between the Chinese who were prospering due to the dam's construction were also striking. And then there were the tourists (mostly Americans) who were stereotypically loud, ignorant & obnoxious. This was well made stuff, but by no means uplifting.