China Stories

Expert in his field...

3rd June 2008, Maria

Today was the hottest day of the trip. I'm not sure what the temperature was but it felt over 40 degrees. I can't lie, I was very nervous about our farming story. When we recce'd this location and met the farmer a few days ago, he was mono-syllabic and the farm, with it's few acres of trees, seemed unpromising to look at.

A surprise was in store.

Half way through the morning I asked if our newly talkative farmer could recommend a location where we could take a big wide shot of his fields. He said he'd take us to his other trees, before we knew it we had arrived at a clearing with two big irrigation lakes, line upon line of trees and a (misty) mountain backdrop - why we hadn't been shown this on the recce is a mystery, but I wasn't complaining as we spent the rest of the morning filming in this area.

Our farmer was earning a (relatively) good living from his decorative trees. I was genuinely pleased for him and his family, farmers in China deserve to share in the county's new prosperity, but I've got a niggling doubt about the morality of farmers being encouraged to switch from growing food to growing new cash crops in this time of global shortage.

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Extras.

3rd June 2008, Gerald

It's been so hot today. Not a great day to do a film about farming in the middle of nowhere with very little shelter from the sun. However, as our schedule is so tight we had to press on.

Poor Maria, she had such a hard time during her interview with the farmer. We were in the middle of a tiny wee farm with nothing but a couple of houses around. Should be easy enough to do an interview? Yes?

Erm, no. First the folk who live in the houses decided that they should sit out and get their mates around to watch us (also providing an ongoing commentary!), then about three kids walked through the shot at various times, then two old men and finally another old man with a heard of goats!

However, despite the interruptions it went really well. Another example of things not going quite to plan but we are getting kind of used to that by now!

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