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Episode details

World Service,13 Aug 2018,53 mins

Born in Prison, Destined for Crime?

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Deborah Jiang-Stein had always known she was adopted, but didn't know where she'd come from. That was until she was 12 and found a letter hidden at home. She was shocked to find out that she was born in prison. Deborah felt it was her destiny to become a criminal like her biological mother. She explains how she escaped a life of crime. In south-western China, in the city of Chengdu, a new centre is opening where you can experience what it's like to be in an earthquake, and how to increase your chances of surviving one. Dai Guohong,has been helping train the staff by telling them about his own experience of the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Dai was trapped for 50 hours and witnessed one of his friends pass away. The Inca civilisation that emerged from the highlands of what is now Peru and stretched over vast swathes of South America left many mysteries when it died out. One of them is the khipu - a knotted string device used as a way of communicating and recording events as there was no written language. Professor Sabine Hyland from St. Andrews University is on a mission to decipher what they mean. (Image: Deborah Jiang-Stein. Photo credit: L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth.)

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