Travel with NPR reporters as they cover stories at home and around the globe.
Here in China, our Beijing correspondent Anthony Kuhn is something of a star. His deeply fluent Mandarin and tough questions of government officials at Beijing press conferences have meant his videos get thousands of views on China’s YouTube equivalent, Youku. At a recent wedding he attended, the bride and groom had Coke cans personalized for all their guests. Anthony’s says: “National Internet star.”
-Miranda Kennedy, Morning Edition editor
Photo: Miranda Kennedy/NPR
The most remote place we have visited on this trip to China is Gujiao - loosely pronounced goo-jow’ - a small city in the mountains a little more than 300 miles southwest of Beijing. It is in a valley that brings the Appalachians to mind. Like many an Appalachian city, Gujiao is long and narrow, spreading for miles along the river between the mountain slopes. Also like many Appalachian cities, Gujiao includes sprawling brick industrial plants and steel mills, some dead and some still operating - and the big historic business is coal. The entrance to one of the underground mines is right on the edge of a densely populated urban neighborhood within the city itself. But China is deliberately producing less coal than in years past, trying to boost alternatives instead. And Gujiao is going through a transition. In a park at the center of town, we discovered Liu Tai Xiang. He’s 55, a former mining engineer who has since retired. He spends some time now as a saxophone teacher, and on Saturday was instructing four students in the park. Coming down a hillside, we heard the notes of what sounded like a very familiar classical Western song. One of the students was learning to play it. We asked if she would play for us; she did not, but Liu Tai Xiang said he would.
-Steve Inskeep, Morning Edition host
Video: Steve Inskeep/NPR
The Chinese government is aggressively pursuing policies to limit China’s production and use of coal, to try to get a handle on the pollution that clogs many of its cities. But coal is still a source of proud nationalism. At the coal museum in Shanxi province, China’s largest coal-producing region, the museum shop sells lumps of coal, carefully set in an orange satin lining inside a gift box. Every child’s nightmare vision of a Christmas present.
-Miranda Kennedy, Morning Edition editor
(Photo: Miranda Kennedy/NPR)
Shenzhen is a balmy southern city that links Hong Kong to China’s mainland. It’s known for its high-tech industry parks, and, more importantly, for its malls. This outdoor shopping center is lit up with spectacular lights all evening, including this walkway which really should be called a love tunnel, leading, where else? To a Uniqlo. Right next to an H&M. Last night the mall was full of families with small children and teenagers gawking at a very cute male singer-songwriter, who performed an amplified song set under fireworks-style lights.
-Miranda Kennedy, Morning Edition editor
(Photos: Miranda Kennedy/NPR)
Workers at the BYD factor in Shenzhen, China stream out of work at the end of their shift. For more on BYD, see our previous post.
-Miranda Kennedy, Morning Edition editor
(Video: Alyssa Edes/NPR)
At the BYD factory in Shenzhen, China, line workers stream out at the end of their shift. BYD stands for Build Your Dreams, and the dream it is trying to build is a clean China. These workers—there are over 30,000 of them just at this Shenzhen campus—are manufacturing parts for electric cars, taxis, buses, and solar panels. Most of them will be sold in China, as part of the government’s plan to run the whole country on what they call “new energy vehicles” one day. The debilitating levels of pollution in China’s major cities led the Chinese government to say it wants 20% of its fleet to be electric by 2025. An electric-run China would be good for BYD, which is far from a global brand, although last year it manufactured and sold more electric vehicles than anyone else worldwide, including a fleet of electric buses in Los Angeles. As further evidence of its ambitions—Leonardo Di Caprio is the BYD brand ambassador. In this photo, he shows off BYD’s monorail, China’s first.
-Miranda Kennedy, Morning Edition editor
(Photos: Miranda Kennedy/NPR)
NPR listeners are all over the world! We just flew from Beijing to the southern city of Shenzhen and for the second time here in China, people have asked if we work for NPR.
When we first arrived in Beijing, one listener recognized Morning Edition Host Steve Inskeep and came right up to shake his hand. In Shenzhen, another group saw our bags and asked if we work for NPR. They’re listeners to member station WGUC in Cincinnati. It’s cool to feel the impact of NPR worldwide.
-Alyssa Edes, Morning Edition producer
(Photo: Alyssa Edes/NPR)
You get to know a city better when you ride its subway. We returned from an interview in Beijing through its underground. Even for a veteran of the New York subway the system, it’s massive—so many interlocking lines that the subway map looks like a bowl of spaghetti. We changed trains twice and hurtled through many stops and were never near the end of any of them—and a trip of an hour or so through the city’s notorious traffic was cut possibly in half. The system’s epic scale is apparent from the moment you approach a subway entrance: hundreds or even thousands of bikes are parked outside, handlebar to handlebar along the sidewalks, sometimes for blocks. People bike to the subway and descend. Inside the crowded cars, we absorbed constant sensations, including this one: the racing trains project ads into the dark walls of the tunnels, so we could see them through the windows.
-Steve Inskeep, Morning Edition host
(Video: Steve Inskeep/NPR)
Happy Halloween from Beijing! In the city’s Sanlitun neighborhood near our hotel, dozens of people were dressed up as devils, emperors, and zombies among other things. This giant display of glowing wings attracted a horde of people taking photos of themselves as angels. Minutes after I snapped this, police officers gruffly told the man pictured to move along — apparently because he and his friends were attracting too much attention with their costumes.
-Alyssa Edes
(Photo: Alyssa Edes/NPR)
Morning Edition is in China, ahead of President Trump’s arrival next week. Trump will visit China in the dead center of his 12-day, 5-country tour, the longest trip by an American president to Asia in 25 years. We’re here exploring China, the world’s other great superpower, ahead of his visit to try to understand the economic, political, and geostrategic challenges China presents to the U.S. From the western province of Shanxi, China’s coal country, and the industrial megahub of Shenzhen, we’ll look into how China is managing its need for power while still trying to control environmental pollution. We’ll look at how the Chinese government tips the balance in favor of its own electric car companies, and why U.S. companies like Tesla are happy enough to trade that marketing edge for the ability to to manufacture and sell their cars in this, the world’s second-biggest consumer market. How did China become the biggest U.S. competitor on the global stage? What can Trump do to contain China’s soaring economic ambitions, while also keeping China close? After all, no one is more aware than the U.S. of the need for China’s help when it comes to North Korea, the greatest national security threat to the U.S. In the coming weeks we’ll present thoughtful stories and live coverage ahead of and during Trump’s visit to China, featuring the work of co-host Steve Inskeep, Shangai correspondent Rob Schmitz, Beijing correspondent Anthony Kuhn, editor Miranda Kennedy and producer Alyssa Edes.
(Photo: Alyssa Edes/NPR)