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Throughline

A Dream Of Modern China

Throughline

NPR

Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.715K Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2019

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

China is a world superpower today. But just over a century ago, the country was in complete turmoil — foreign powers had carved up the country, the ruling dynasty was losing control, and millions of citizens were struggling to survive. However, that political chaos inspired a nationalist movement that reshaped China as we know it, and it was led by one man - Sun Yat-sen.

Transcript

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0:00.0

We're gonna start this episode with the story from a Chinese fable

0:06.2

There used to be an old man who had a farm and

0:11.2

He was cultivating this farm, you know

0:13.6

But he had a lot of problems because there were two mountains that were blocking his way

0:18.9

One day he decided get rid of these two mountains, you know

0:22.1

And these mountains were huge. They were gigantic

0:24.4

So he got outside with his sons and they were starting you know dismantling the mountains taking them piece after piece stone after stone

0:33.0

This old man had a head of neighbor and neighbor

0:36.6

Got outside and says oh you foolish old man. You will never get rid of these mountains

0:45.3

The old man and his two sons continue to work very very hard and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked and they worked

0:54.4

And then at some point heaven had mercy on them because they worked very hard and they got rid of the mountains for them. They removed the mountains

1:03.4

The old man is the Chinese people, you know the two mountains are the two obstacles that we have to fight

1:09.6

You know imperialism and feudalism in other words the weight of the Chinese traditional past

1:15.8

Yes, and imperialism foreign domination and if we work hard

1:21.8

Heaven will have mercy on us

1:27.5

China's economy has grown faster than that of any other major country once poor and under developed the Asian giant has now grown

1:35.4

And only to be the United States

1:38.2

All for an overland link from Eastern China. There's so much in China that we don't get and we haven't gotten from the Western perspective

1:45.8

Beijing will not deviate from its one party system or take orders

1:50.8

From any other country

1:54.2

You're listening to through line from NPR where we go back in time to understand the present

2:05.2

All right, shall we talk about China?

...

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