The village and the girl

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-dd0e6fd5-12fc-4a4a-a0eb-4ef064900f92

by ac2u • 11 years ago

135 54 11 years ago

bbc.co.uk

ocdtrekkie2• 11 years ago

I was going to read the article, but all the Verge-tastic CSS is too distracting.

Nadya• 11 years ago

Having CSS disabled doesn't help unless you go through the effort of removing images as well, as they are repeated twice (and sometimes 3 times). The paragraph structuring is also terrible.

ocdtrekkie2• 11 years ago

Firefox's reading mode is also confused.

kelvin0• 11 years ago

Why do they feel the need to have stories with the scrolley page css of doom? I want to read the text, maybe with a few intersparsed pictures ... please bring back sane reading format of websites.

savanaly2• 11 years ago

A living advertisement for browser extensions like Readability, Clearly, etc. that actually allow you to read articles like this.

stephengillie2• 11 years ago

Or just disable Javascript.

Everyone's trying to outdo "What is Code" and so we'll be dealing with this kind of journalistic showmanship for the next few months.

Edit: The article is very well written and truly touching. It feels like reading The Good Earth all over again. In another way, it reads like a story about American Settlers from the 1800s. It's sad to hear about people abiding solely through subsistence farming, but it's heartening to hear they're surviving.

And from the comfort of an office building, I feel obligated to reflect on my relative privileges. They are beyond realistic counting. This imbalance fills me with unresolved guilt.

savanaly2• 11 years ago

I just tried disabling javascript but it did not have the desired effect of removing the "parallax" type effect when scrolling. I tried one of the two browser extensions I mentioned, Clearly, and it worked well.

steve-howard• 11 years ago

"What is Code" was quite noisy, but I think the trend has been going on since at least "Snow Fall": http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/

I dislike the trend towards adding animations to articles, as I find it very distracting, but their continuing popularity makes me think I'm probably in the minority.

stephengillie2• 11 years ago

Sorry for putting the edit in this comment. I didn't realize how much it would detract from the conversation. Now that I've seen the downvotes, it's too late to edit.

patmcguire• 11 years ago

Wow, I really hope that brick-scroll doesn't catch on.

PlzSnow• 11 years ago

These "immersive" stories will disappear once the realization that the ROI on them doesn't work. Expensive to create, but no income generated because no-one reads them because they are annoying.

The only companies left using them will be those with no concern about ROI such as here; the state-funded BBC.

I'm sure it looks good on the designer's CV though. Who cares about the people who have to actually read the content...

nfoz• 11 years ago

That's what I used to think about all-flash websites.

They did go away, more or less, but only because the Web became that same pixel-per-pixel full-designer-control application platform, with all the same obnoxious problems that made us hate Flash, minus the binary blob.

The overwhelming majority of websites would be better served by simple HTML3 with no javascript at all. Or rather, their users would be better served.

thaumasiotes• 11 years ago

the Web became that same pixel-per-pixel full-designer-control application platform, with all the same obnoxious problems that made us hate Flash, minus the binary blob.

Browsers now disable right click?

prawn• 11 years ago

Not sure the story would have made it as far on HN if it was presented more plainly. It would be just another long-form piece that didn't draw in enough people.

astrange• 11 years ago

I didn't have a single problem reading this article.

metasean2• 11 years ago

Ditto. Normally Ghostery will block at least one script site that is necessary to view pages like this. But this one worked fine, even though Ghostery blocked ChartBeat, DoubleClick, iPerceptions, NetRatings, and ScoreCard.

tomtang0514• 11 years ago

Agreed. However I didn't find it makes the whole experience better either.

yitchelle• 11 years ago

I had a difference experience to you. Although I didn't get much out of the embedded videos. The still photographs had more impact for me. Just my $0.02. It is a good article.

metasean2• 11 years ago

Built with Shorthand

Site: http://shorthand.com/

I couldn't find a feedback link, but there is an employment email address - jobs@shorthand.com - It'd be interesting to hear their response to some of the feedback here.

bruceb• 11 years ago

I will differ from most of the comments here, I enjoyed they layout and thought it added to the story. I am on a desktop with FF.

As for the story it is a solemn reminder millions of people work hard jobs and make life easier for others. I hope Xiao Zhang's life will continue to get a bit easier as the years go on.

tokenadult• 11 years ago

One of the things I liked best about this story is that it is based on reporting that has been following the same family over time for many years. That gives the before-and-after aspects of describing development of rural towns in China a lot of coherency and visual impact.

I too had no technological problems viewing the story, using desktop Google Chrome on a Windows PC with a lot of script blocking running.

p1esk• 11 years ago

I loved both the layout and the article. This was one of the best webpages I've visited, ever.

triplesec• 11 years ago

Definitely following on from the format that the NYT pioneered. IT's wel done, if you have a high-res modern desktop interface. Reminds me of trying to read WIRED in the 90s. Actually worth the extra effort.

I don't like the politically uncritical boosterish content, however.

cbd19847• 11 years ago

It's impossible to read, though.

Menge• 11 years ago

Maybe the interface is misguided, but it is difficult to pull-off to this level, and I find that it does give an overall feeling of connection to the memory threads of rural chinese life.

I am blocking the flash content; someone else must claim my great uncle's fortune. But it is still a great improvement on what was acceptable content degradation a few years ago.

(edit- So overall I'd say there is far from anything wrong with this article, and it provides an important type of impression that we lacked when I was studying rural china, decades ago.)

rthomas62• 11 years ago

Could we stop talking about the fucking layout and talk about the article?

China's culture, people, and most of all economy is opaque to most outsiders and I think it's fascinating. They built an entire city from nothing in just a few years, just... on a whim. Because the leaders thought that would be best for the country as a whole. It's fascinating and scary and amazing, and I can't think of another place that works even similar to this.

Yet it seems that us westerners largely ignore China except in terms of imports and exports. Why? Is it the language? The lack of widespread cultural exports? I mean most people know very little about China as a country compared to how important they are on the world's stage. In fact you could pick almost any other country with a respectable GDP and I could tell you a whole lot more about it.

blackbagboys2• 11 years ago

Well, it was probably also built because massive construction projects are an easy way to boost the GDP of administrative sub-regions and the career prospects of the CCP officials in charge of those administrative units depend upon whether or not they can show that they boosted GDP.

The motivations and dynamics at play are not really all that alien.

derefr• 11 years ago

the career prospects of the CCP officials in charge of those administrative units depend upon whether or not they can show that they boosted GDP

I would say, then, that it seems like this is a good idea so far!

denzil_correa• 11 years ago

Could we stop talking about the fucking layout and talk about the article?

Sometimes, we tend to carry the hacker attitude a bit too far.

cbd19847• 11 years ago

Could we stop talking about the fucking layout and talk about the article?

This is hard when it's unreadable.

cbd19847• 11 years ago

I can't be the only one who found it unreadable.

rokhayakebe• 11 years ago

Could we stop talking about the fucking layout and talk about the article?

But what if people here found the technology more interesting than the contents of the article. I understand your frustration, but it comes off as being impolite. If people are interested in talking about the font or the scroll than what gives you the right to tell them what to write about.

Now that being said, it does seem that Westerners know very little about China. That is due to many reasons I believe: 1) most people are not interested in learning about their own history, economy, geography, so it is hard to expect them to want to learn about another country. 2) the lack of role models or ambassadors; growing up in Africa we all knew a lot about the US mainly because of its economic strength, its history, but perhaps more importantly its ambassadors: pop stars, Michael Jordan and other NBA players, etc... I do not know many Chinese actors. I love Asian movies, I just re-watched IP Man I and II yesterday, but I am not even sure those actors are Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc... China could do more to further promote its Arts and Culture. I suspect many people think most Asians to be Chinese, similarly to how most people will never know the difference between a Liberian and a Nigerian and a Senegalese. 3) Distance: China seems (mentally) just far from everywhere; far from Africa, far from Europe, far from America. I know it is not that far, but it just seems so. 4,5,6...n

Edit: 4) Honestly Asian seems un-approachable, or at least not very approachable. I could strike conversations with a European, a Southern American, an American, an Indian, a Turkish, but most Asians seem to not want to talk to you. Now this entirely something I was either fed to believe, or it is my own false assumptions. I just have this belief, but I know its enirely wrong because I can count at least 4 to 5 truly awesome Chinese, Korean, I have known in the past 5 years. Heck I even lived with a Chinese family in the US. Lovely family, but from the outside had you told me this I would have laughed at you. I hope I can truly undo this, and I fear many people are not engaging Chinese and learning more about them because of they have this entirely false belief.

gkya• 11 years ago

Regarding that last sentence, given that most such countries would be European countries, or one of the US or the Canada, it is clearly normal what is the reason you would have more words about it, it is simply a familiar culture. China's culture is fascinating because it is opaque, or rather, because it was opaque, but by now less so. By time, as westerners get to know it more and more, it will be less relevant and/or fascinating, and contemporaneously rot. As westerner tourists are fascinated by some places, these places quickly become fake, they become parodies of themselves and ultimately tourist traps. Eminönü, Venice, Napoli, others, southeast asia, in these places there has been left nothing authentic. The fascination and interest of westerner tourists is such a plague that it has killed some of the most characteristic and beautiful parts of the world. So I'd rather be happier if china went undiscovered, than it be discovered and used up.

pkkim• 11 years ago

It's funny you say that. I just spent about a month in China, particularly Beijing. Because Beijing is probably the center of tourism from overseas in China, you might think it's very touristy, and it is. But the domestic tourist market is so much larger than the foreign one that it's already, as you say, "discovered and used up." Other tourist sites in China are similar, though less so.

crdb• 11 years ago

China is big enough that foreign tourists are but a blip on the radar, despite frequent and cheap flights (I once flew Singapore-Beijing for SGD 17 return on Air Asia). You're talking about a place where even second rate "countryside" cities have the population of London or Paris.

Venice and other so called "traditional" cities have failed not because of the rush of tourists, but because they have attempted to freeze their prosperity in time. The Venetian Republic once was a world leader in trade, culture and prosperity, and today's historical monuments were yesterday's cutting edge skyscrapers. "Authenticity" merely represents a people's local solutions to the problems of survival and population growth, the cultures that have survived hundreds of years of competition; "foreign" habits are rapidly adapted if they are superior to the local option, which is why you don't see many ox carts left in Bali.

That Straits "kopi", the thick, overroasted, sweetened brew you have with kaya toast? It's like this because extremely poor Chinese immigrants bought low quality beans, the only ones they could afford, and roasted them with butter and sweetened them with sugar to try and mellow the bad taste. Nobody does it anymore as the region grew economically and coffee beans got comparatively cheaper vs, say, labour costs and real estate. In Vietnam, bicycles have been replaced by mopeds. In Mumbai, motorised autorickshaws have completely replaced the people-drawn ones (which I'm told still exist in places like Chennai). Does that make both cities less "authentic"?

Paris is my favorite example of a city that is so stuck in its past it refuses to acknowledge its own philosophy. Haussmann's razing and rebuilding of the entire city had purely modern ambitions: clean up the sewers that most of the badly built streets had become, reduce fire risk, accomodate higher population density, encourage trade via better transport infrastructure, and so on. But Parisians have arbitrarily decided that Hausmannian architecture - which was motivated by practical considerations - is "pretty" and refuse to approve anything that would help make Paris a more modern city (at least outside the Defense, and the Tour Montparnasse), forcing real estate prices through the roof and Parisians to endure hour-long commutes. One side effect is that the city is popular with tourists who can travel in time, of course. But would you rather be a Venetian or a New Yorker?

What makes China (and, to be honest, modern Southeast Asia outside the American party towns like Phuket) so fascinating is that it is rapidly opening to the world and attempting to pull several hundred million people into the middle class by any means possible. This, not the pretty grey hutongs or "characteristic" street meat sticks is what makes it an interesting place to see and do business in. In my humble ang moh opinion.

cbd19847• 11 years ago

Could we stop talking about the fucking layout and talk about the article?

Can you link to a readable version of the article?

cbd19847• 11 years ago

Flagged for language.

analyst74• 11 years ago

A very well written article, but there was one line that struck me, yet seems totally brushed off by the author.

"...his father killed himself by drinking rat poison after a family argument over money".

I can imagine, but will never truly understand the kind of hardship and turmoil the family suffered between greed, family value and survival.

oska• 11 years ago

I don't think it was “brushed off”. The main storyline in the article was the differences in lives and outlook across three generations of women: the main character, her mother and her daughter. The husband was a part of this story. The story of his father much less so. It was already a long article; the writer can't afford to branch out into the stories of all the surrounding relatives too.

cbd19847• 11 years ago

Flagged as unreadable.

letitgo12345• 11 years ago

If ppl are interested more in this topic, Last train home is a good documentary to look at.

placeybordeaux• 11 years ago

For those who want to read more:

Earlier BBC article about the building of Wuix New Town: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/5103100.stm

Looks like it's been a bit of a case study for the BBC.

sdrothrock• 11 years ago

they're unwilling to invest any more in the house in case it's earmarked for demolition in the next phase of city development.

This sentence stood out for me. It's interesting that China is pushing for urbanization for its people and that some of those people (like Xiao Zhang in the article) are impatiently waiting for the better life to come, but I wonder about the long-term consequences of this -- how many people will simply be conditioned to not improve/work on their lot in fear/hope that the government will provide?

cbd19847• 11 years ago

Is there a readable version of this article?

The village and the girl

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