A Confession About a Video Tape

A friend of mine in China recently sent me a videotape. She is a cinematographer for a local TV Station, she was involved in the making of a documentary in China and asked me to translate the script of the tape into English and to distribute it to my friends here in America.

I watched the videotape, it was about how children of migrant workers in China's big cities are denied city residence permit and thus cannot go to school. And it followed the stories of two such families and their efforts trying to get their 12-year-old and 14 year-old children the permit so they can start school. It was a serious criticism of China's "city-residency-permit" policy that forbids tens of thousands of children the chance for school because their families are migrant workers who are not official city-residents. The documentary was played on CCTV last month and received huge reactions from the public.

The documentary was professionally shot, very moving, and indeed shows many dark sides of this social problem. She told me that the program has already been translated into Japanese and was played on Japan's NHK network in Japan.

I have been thinking about this all night last night. First, I support paying attention to every disadvantaged group's interest, and I support exposing dark sides of a society, and I support her TV station to make such a documentary and I support Chinese Central Television (CCTV) to play it on the national channel. I think there should be a lot more of such documentaries played in China.

But to translate the program into Japanese and play it on Japanese TV? That is something else. That has the possible intention to uglify and demonize China, and has the possibly of being a political move.

You see, controlling the extent by which you do things sometimes is a very subtle art.

For the same videotape, if it's played in China, it serves as a way to supervise the government, and the director/cinematographer is a gutsy hero. But, if you sneak this tape overseas and play it on a foreign TV channel and amongst non-Chinese, then you are just the same as those democracy activists

What will a Japanese react after seeing this tape? He/she will first think: compared to Chinese children, how lucky our children are to be in Japan! Then, he'll think: how come the lives of Chinese are still so miserable and oppressed after 50 years of Communist rule? Then, he'll start to think: how ugly the Chinese gov't is! They are stripping children's chances for education! Taiwan should stay away from this ugly monster forever!

So my friend called me this morning, asking me how the english translation was going. I struggled with myself and finally had the courage to tell her, "Sorry, I cannot do this. From my experience these years in America, any negative report on China has the potential to be used as tools by anti-Chinese freedom activists, by Taiwanese separatists.... I have a psychological barrier for doing this, I have a conscience as a Chinese. I have a responsibility to support this current regime in China. But I do encourage you do spread this tape to every Chinese in China and make sure everyone sees it"

Today, that tape resides on my shelf and I have not showed it to any non-Chinese.