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The Current Transcript for September 29, 2017

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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GASTON BROWNE: We are the least of the polluters, but the largest of the casualties. The unfairness, injustice, and inequality are painfully obvious.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Gaston Browne is presiding over a crisis in his country. The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda says the international community should now forgive his country's debt. This in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, which reduced Barbuda to rubble just a few weeks back. Shortly after Irma came Maria, whose eye was set on the country of Dominica. And she left more than just physical devastation behind her. How are the people of small Caribbean nations coping and recovering? I'll speak with two prime ministers in just a few moments. In an hour, we are heading off to school in Shanghai where there's not a lot of creativity allowed in the classroom. Not even in art class.

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VOICE 1: I saw a teacher trying to demonstrate rain, barking at the students rain falls from the sky to the ground and it comes in little dots. If a student couldn't comply, she would tack the paper on the wall to shame the deviant children.

PC: The ins and outs of the Chinese education system and what we in North America should learn from it. And then for something completely different.

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[Sound: donkey neighing]

PC: Donkey lovers I know you're out there. Donkey skeptics, you too won't want to miss my conversation with filmmakers behind a lovely new documentary all about the humble beasts. That's in half an hour. Hi, I'm Peter Chattopadhyay and this is the Friday edition of The Current.

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'This is a humanitarian crisis': Hurricane-stricken Caribbean islands plea for international help

Guests: Gaston Browne, Roosevelt Skerrit

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GASTON BROWNE: Barbuda is 62 square miles. When Irma thundered over the island it was 375 miles wide. With gale force winds of 220 miles per hour. Barbuda did not stand the faintest chance against such size, such ferocity, and such intensity. The island was completely destroyed.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda did not mince words last week when addressing the United Nations. Gaston Browne’s small two island Caribbean nation was hammered by Hurricane Irma earlier this month. And in the wake of that storm, the entire island of Barbuda was evacuated to neighboring Antigua which sustained much less damage. Gaston Browne's country is still reeling and he wants the international community to pay attention. We have reached Prime Minister Browne in the capital of Antigua and Barbuda, St. John's. Prime Minister Hello.

GASTON BROWNE: Hi.

PC: Take us back to September 6th. What happened to your country that day?

GASTON BROWNE: Well, that was a most horrendous day for Barbudans. Luckily for Antigua we were spared here in Antigua, so Antigua is actually open for the business, we were only down for about a day. And we continue to accept tourists from right across the world. But Barbuda, I mean, it was a totally different situation. Barbuda was decimated. You have a situation in which an entire population had to be evacuated because the island was deemed to be uninhabitable. And we could not have left them there otherwise they would have been exposed to vector borne and waterborne diseases. And in addition to that we had a situation that after they got decimated by Hurricane Irma, there was another impending storm in Hurricane Jose. So having a situation with so much debris on the island and practically 95 per cent of the homes damaged, we had absolutely no other choice but to evacuate them.

PC: Prime Minister Browne you use words like decimated and uninhabitable. What does Barbuda look like? Paint me a picture.

GASTON BROWNE: Well it looks like a blown out city. Looks as though the island was actually bombed and, you know, the entire public infrastructure was destroyed and all of the telecommunications towers barring one are actually destroyed. Most of the lampposts broken and the wires thrown all around the ground. The desalination plant damaged, public utilities, the generators damaged, all of the public institutions, the airport, the seaport, schools, the roads are actually blown off, the fire station, the police station, all damaged, it was just literally carnage.

PC: How many people in your country were affected by Hurricane Irma?

GASTON BROWNE: Well luckily, you know, Antigua is a small island state with about 100,000 individuals. But, you know, Barbuda only has about 2,000 inhabitants, so just only 2,000 inhabitants. So in terms of the magnitude of the individuals affected you're looking at about 2 per cent of the country's population. But to evacuate them in less than 24 hours was a real challenge for us. Then the island remains uninhabitable and they are now being taken care of in Antigua. Luckily the Antiguans here undertook to accept I would say the majority of them in their homes. We have a few hundred in shelters and they have been fed by the government of Antigua and Barbuda. And we are now trying to integrate some of them temporarily in the work force here in Antigua. So for example a number of the teachers we have sought to integrate them into the school system because we had to take on 600 additional students here from Barbuda. But for the most part, most of them remain unemployed. So it is like running a big welfare system which has created a serious strain on public resources here.

PC: And how would you describe their mood?

GASTON BROWNE: I have to admit that they are very resilient people, still in relatively good spirits. I suspect too that the love and affection from the Antiguans and the fact that they have been accommodated in such a short period of time, they are very grateful and I think they remain hopeful that out of this you will get a bigger better Barbuda, one that will be climate resilient and we reposition Barbuda to be the only totally green island in the world. The UAE, United Arab Emirates, they have made three 3.1 million US dollars available already. And the government will be borrowing additional funds in order to introduce solar and wind energy, so that the Barbudan population will become totally reliant on green energy and will have fossil fuel generators as a backup.

PC: Well, I want to talk with you more about that. But let's just get a sense of the scope of the challenge of rebuilding. So how much do you estimate it's going to cost to rebuild Barbuda?

GASTON BROWNE: The official estimate at this point is in excess of 200 million US dollars. And I have to admit that is a major challenge, raising that level of funding for a small country is very difficult. Traditionally we have had a very high debt to GDP ratio by government came to power three years ago and we successfully reduced the debt to GDP from 102 per cent down to 75 per cent. But to borrow now another let's say 100-150 million US dollars will take our debt to GDP right back up to probably about 90 per cent and eroded all the gains that we made during the last three years. So that itself is a major challenge for us and we're trying to reduce the amount that we need to borrow by hoping that, you know, friendly governments and institutions will help us with some form of, you know, assistance.

PC: OK so 200 million dollars, US dollars to rebuild. What is Antigua and Barbuda’s GDP?

GASTON BROWNE: Our GDP is 1.5 billion US dollars, a small island. Our total annual revenue is about 250 million US.

PC: This is an insane amount of money that it's going to cost you to rebuild.

GASTON BROWNE: Exactly. It means that we will not be able to eat for a year, pay any debts for a year, do anything for a year in order to rebuild Barbuda.

PC: So as you say, you're looking for friends out there to lend you some money, to loan you some money at low interest rates. Where are you looking? Who is extending their hand to you?

GASTON BROWNE: We’ve had some preliminary discussions with the World Bank and they’ve indicated they can probably do about 10 million US. Caribbean Development probably another 15 million US dollars, that's 25. We've had some friendly governments that have made some contributions. The People's Republic of China two and a half half million US, Venezuela three million US, Kingdom of Morocco million US dollars. So in terms of commitments we have about 30 million US dollars in commitments now. We’re hoping--

PC: [interposing] The gap is 170 million.

GASTON BROWNE: [chuckles] Exactly. That is going to be a tall order. And there's no way we can borrow 150 million US dollars immediately without creating a crisis.

PC: You named a number of countries which have helped you out. None of them are the United States and Canada.

GASTON BROWNE: Canada made a contribution of 200,00 US. Your prime minister indicated that they will stand with us and we remain hopeful that Canada will come to our assistance.

PC: When a prime minister or leader of a country said standing with you, what do you want to see other than, you know, that sort of symbolic gesture? What do you want Canada to do? Has the Canadian government done enough to help you?

GASTON BROWNE: Well, I think that your prime minister, the Honourable Justin Trudeau would have understood my plea to him to go beyond a symbolic position. I mean, it's one thing to have him standing by us in a symbolic way. But as I indicated to him this is a situation of dire need, this is a humanitarian crisis in which, you know, require the assistance of a bigger brother in this hemisphere. And I said him it’s not a case that we are coming, you know, begging cap in hand, this is a plea based on need. This is not a situation in which we are trying to exploit the situation, this is just an absolute need.

PC: And what was his response to that?

GASTON BROWNE: Well, he did assure me that, I shouldn’t necessarily be making any discussions, private discussions publicly. But, you know, he did assure me that Canada will stand by us. And we're looking forward for some form of assistance to help us rebuild. Now, we understand too that Canada has its own challenges, so we’re not making any demands. Only saying here that, you know, whatever can be done we would appreciate it.

PC: We know that climate change and global warming has caused ocean waters to warm, that adds ferocity to hurricanes. So let me ask you about the climate change angle to all of this.

GASTON BROWNE: For us climate change is real and we are living the consequences of climate change. And what we are asking for is some level of improved responsibility from the profligate users of fossil fuels. Those who need to reduce their carbon footprint. And to ensure that we have less carbon in the atmosphere, less heat and water that will not give rise to these powerful, these ferocious and frequent hurricanes. It is an existential threat not only facing small states but the planet. And by working together we are protecting global civilization, we are protecting homosapiens, we are protecting human beings, human lives globally in all countries and all continents.

PC: Prime Minister Gaston Browne I know you have a lot of work to do to help the people of Antigua and Barbuda rebuild their homes and their lives, and I appreciate so much you making time for us. Thank you very much.

GASTON BROWNE: Pleasure. Thank you.

PC: Bye. Gaston Browne is the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda. He was in the capital St. John's. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you are listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Well less than two weeks after Hurricane Irma blasted Antigua and Barbuda, Hurricane Maria barreled through the Caribbean. And it was the country of Dominica which was directly in the path of that Category 5 storm. 27 people died on Dominica as a result of the hurricane. And dozens more are still missing. The country is grappling to restore electricity, running water, communications, and housing. Roosevelt Skerrit is the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica. And we have reached him in that country's capital Roseau. Hello.

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Hi. Good morning to you and of course good morning to your listeners.

PC: How does that resonate, what you heard from the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, how does that resonate with you?

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Well, you know, we have lived similar experiences, albeit in a much larger scale. My entire country has been devastated from the south to the north. 90 per cent of the housing has been destroyed, 100 per cent of our agriculture, 100 per cent of our forests. And as you know Dominica prided itself on protection of the environment. It has been a very very very difficult past several days.

PC: You said that 90 per cent of the houses have sustained some damage. What about your own house?

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Well, my house, the residence of the prime minister is no longer habitable. The entire roof collapsed very early during the hurricane and once my roof went, I said to some people, you know, when we wake up in the morning we're going to see serious devastation in Dominica, because my roof was properly constructed. And there’s not many roofs or structures which could have withstood that pressure from the winds. And the hurricane stayed in the country for about between four to five hours.

PC: That must have been frightening.

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Very frightening. Luckily for me I had sent my wife and my children to a different location. Otherwise I believe that they would have been injured or even killed.

PC: When you addressed the United Nations last week, you said “the stars are fallen, Eden is broken.” It's been just shy of two weeks since Maria ripped your country apart. How are you and your fellow country people, how are you doing? How are you feeling in the wake of the storm?

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Well, you know, people are still in shock. There’s profound anxiety. There is fear of tomorrow. We're pressing on. There's still many people who are staying in their homes, notwithstanding the fact that there are no roofs there. They are trying to patch it up with some plastic sheeting and tarpaulins. We have in excess of 2,800 people in public shelters, though this number could easily be 10,000 or even more if people decide to go to shelters. We are making progress in terms of clearing of the roads, because every village in Dominica was [unintelligible]. We only brought back power to the national hospital on Wednesday. We are hoping to provide the essential services in the city with power by Sunday. We have been able to restore, with the help of community people volunteers, some of the rural water systems. We have restored water in some parts of the city. So we push on, we’re pressing on. Our focus now is on delivery of supplies to all of the residents in the country, water, food.

PC: And unlike Barbuda where, you know, Antigua, Barbuda are a twin sister islands so people could evacuate and go to Antigua. Did most people, I mean where do they go? Do they just, you know...

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: There is no, you know, this is one of the points we’ve been making to the international community. We have nowhere to run. We are an island. I mean, when my citizens recount to me how they survived the hurricane, it is just by divine intervention we did not have thousands of deaths. I was speaking to a gentleman last night who said to me I spent the entire five hours of the hurricane at my home with the sky as the roof, getting wet and still in the strength of the wind. And he survived, you know. You know, you go to the Indigenous community, where literally 99 per cent of the homes were destroyed and flattened to the ground. And we had no deaths in that Indigenous community. You know, how does one explain that? It is purely by divine intervention.

PC: Prime minister, often when we talk about natural disasters or storms or things like that, we talk about, you know what, and I do want to talk about this, but the cost to rebuild, the stuff. What we don't often talk about is the emotional toll that this takes on people.

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Sure. I mean, it will take our citizens a lifetime to get over their experiences and the trauma. We are bringing in psychologists and psychoanalysts to assist through the coordination of UNICEF. But it is going to be very very very difficult. And I speak to young children, and they’re questioning the hurricane. And I spoke to an 85-year-old man who said look, I have lived in this country all my life and I've never seen this, I’ve never experienced this. So it is has scarred every one of us in this country and it's going to take us a very long time to get over this emotional, psychological scar.

PC: When you went to the UN, you also told the UN that the small nations of Earth, the small nations of the world need to know who has their backs. Who has Dominica’s back?

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: So quite a number of countries and individuals have been at our aid literally from the day after the hurricane. So we are very grateful for this. Our hope is that we will certainly, we will need more than this in terms of the reconstruction.

PC: The Canadian frigate, as you well know, the Canadian frigate HMCS St. John’s is there. What have we Canadians been doing to help you out?

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: They've been helping, they brought in food supplies, they've been helping. They’ve been helping very nicely with helicopter services because there's still communities that are inaccessible by vehicular traffic. There are some communities we can only get to by small fishing boats. So the Canadians have been very helpful in getting some of the supplies to some of the communities.

PC: Now that the immediate threat, and just the immediate threat of the hurricane has passed, I know there's much work to do. Do you worry that the world might forget about Dominica. To be honest with you most of us had never heard of Dominica or didn't know how to pronounce it till about two weeks ago. So are you worried that we're going to forget about you?

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Well that's always the fear of small island states, you know. And even in the discussion on climate change and conversations, which you will have to have it. You know, we keep saying to the international community you need to look at our own unique circumstances as a small island states. You know, if you look at our national debt, you will see that the bulk of the money that we've borrowed are for responses to storms, rebuilding our infrastructure. So we're very fearful that the international community will forget us and not provide us with the kind of help we need and the urgency of getting the help to us. I mean, when the majority of the schools have been destroyed beyond repair, and your infrastructure, you know, your hospitals, your health clinics, you know all of your tourism plans have been impacted. Some of them beyond repair. You’re going talk about hundreds of jobs that will be lost in agriculture. The rural communities of Dominica relied heavily on agriculture. You know, that one is going to take them some time to get back. So we’re really hoping that the international community will not forget us. I was able to receive a telephone call from Prime Minister Trudeau literally about two days or three days after the hurricane. We are optimistic and we’ll keep in the best thoughts in our minds that this time the international community will really demonstrate its seriousness when it speaks about climate change. And what needs to be done to make our world more climate resilient.

PC: Prime Minister Skerrit, also to you I want to say I know you're very very busy, thank you for making time for us today. Appreciate it.

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Sure. Thank you my friend, thank you.

PC: Take good care.

ROOSEVELT SKERRIT: Thank you, bye bye.

PC: Roosevelt Skerrit is the Prime Minister of Dominica. And we reached him in that country's capital Roseau. We do like to hear from you about what you hear on this program so do let us know, you can find us on facebook.com/cbcthecurrent, cbc.ca/thecurrent is where you need to go to email us, and on Twitter @TheCurrentCBC, and I'm there as well @Piya, P-I-Y-A. Alright, the CBC News is next. Then giving donkeys their due. The humble beast takes centre stage in a new documentary, it is called Do Donkeys Act? And it's narrated by Willem Dafoe. The filmmakers will join me to talk donkey. Stay tuned. I'm Piya Chattopadhay, you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. We're back in just a bit.

[Music: Extro]

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Documentary reveals donkeys as humble, dignified beasts, despite abuse

Guests: Ashley Sabin, David Redmon

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hi, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to the Friday edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

PC: Still to come, the Chinese educational system has a great record for producing top notch students especially in math and science. But is it too strict? And is it stifling creativity? In half an hour we'll meet a Chinese-American mom who found out for herself when she enrolled her son in a Shanghai school. But first, a tender hearted new donkumentary.

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WILLEM DAFOE: Inside this wild sanctuary that offers a sonorous glimpse into the reveries, melodies, and rhapsodies of a great donkey orchestra.

[Sound: donkey braying]

WILLEM DAFOE: Listen close to the trumpet as it pulsates into a thick broom. A brute braze.

[Sound: donkey braying]

PC: If that is not music to your ears then you're probably not a donkey lover. Willem Dafoe apparently does have a soft spot for the often underappreciated animals though. That's him narrating a new documentary called Do Donkeys Act? The film introduces us to donkey's recovering from abuse and from neglect. It was filmed at sanctuaries across the United Kingdom and Ireland, the United States and here in Canada. Over the course of the film you get up close and personal with these lovable animals, taking in their daily routines of eating, walking, sleeping, playing. The film is screening this weekend in Toronto at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema. And the filmmakers behind it Ashley Sabin and David Redmon join me now. Hello.

MANY VOICES: Hello.

PC: Ashley, you and David spent five years filming donkeys. Why donkeys?

ASHLEY SABIN: First of all, it was the challenge of not making a film on humans. We had come off a pretty intense production in Russia and Siberia and we frankly just didn't want to put our camera on human beings. We wanted animals. So we were sort of looking for that kind of story. And then David was googling in the middle of night as he often does. And he came across one of his favourite authors, Andy Merrifield, who walked with a donkey in France, in rural France. And that led us to the donkey sanctuary. And the sounds, the sounds of the donkeys were just so incredible that we jumped at it. We said we have to make this film and be around these animals.

PC: David, this film, there is nothing rushed about it. It is slow. You know, we talk about you know the slow movement this is slow filmmaking. There are long scenes unfold of donkeys just being donkeys. There is silence through a lot of this film. What do you want the audience to understand about these animals?

DAVID REDMON: Each person who experiences this movie will walk away with a different understanding, their own singular interpretation of what they want to walk away with. I do think the patience of the duration of the shot isn't something that we intend to test to an audience with but rather to immerse them into the experiences of the animal.

PC: You ask us to step into their shade and to listen closely. What do you want us to hear as we listen closely?

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[Sound: donkey braying]

DAVID REDMON: Each donkey and mule in the movie will communicate something different to to the audience. Speaking specifically to the shade, that's a quote from David Abraham, who is a writer of phenomenology of experience. And most phenomenologists, you know, try to understand interior experience, and what we're trying to understand is the exterior expressivity of the animals. Both through their body language, through an audience encounter with them and also through their thick braze as Willem Dafoe mentioned in the opening quote.

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[Sound: donkey braying]

WILLEM DAFOE: A thick brew. A brute braze. A strange braze. Mingle, nourish and gyrate myriad sounds internally stirring. Facets of air in the chest and animate donkey’s tongues.

DAVID REDMON: The poem that's in the movie is The Brute Grey. We're drawing upon a tradition and a history of phenomenological experience, where the encounter itself is what matters. The brute reality of messy experience.

PC: In one of the opening scenes we hear one of those caretakers that you just mentioned David, and they say welcome to heaven.

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VOICE 1: Heaven, welcome to heaven.

ASHLEY SABIN: You know, what sort of became pretty clear when we were editing and doing rough cut screenings is that there is this tension at the beginning when people were watching it saying what is this place? Where are we? And, you know, we don't give that up front. And so I think that sort of welcome to heaven is kind of a nod that, you know, what is this place? And where are these animals? Because I think our relationship to animals has become very very complicated. A lot of documentaries that you see that come out are about slaughterhouses. So we got asked from, you know, pretty early on is this a slaughterhouse? Until people slowly realized OK the humans have good intentions with the animals and that in fact it is a sanctuary. People are really uncomfortable with not knowing what the space is.

DAVID REDMON: That opening clip that you just played is the first introduction of the donkey to the sanctuary. And so what we're trying to do is place the audience into the shade of the donkey. That is see the encounter for the first time as the donkey experiences it. And have that question what is this place? What's going to happen here? Where are we? We imagine and projected some anthropomorphism onto the donkey that maybe they're asking the same questions. And so there is mutual empathy built into the movie on behalf of the audience and also the animals.

PC: I want to play a little more tape.

SOUNDCLIP

WILLEM DAFOE: This one is blind. The other one was stabbed. By teenagers playing a game of stick the knife in the donkey.

[Sound: donkey braying]

WILLEM DAFOE: 400 blows on the donkey's flesh. The cruel radiance of what is sometimes unspeakable.

PC: Ashley and David, I mean, that is heartbreaking. That donkey was stabbed 400 times. What kind of lives are these animals living in before they arrive at the sanctuaries which you profile?

ASHLEY SABIN: I mean, you just don't know. So we would that, I was actually pregnant at the time. And so you think about like being around animals that have been abused, abandoned, neglected et cetera. You would think that you would, you know, you would be concerned especially being pregnant to be around them. But the way that donkey behaviour is is they completely mask their previous kind of relationship with humans until, you know, they feel threatened. So in this space they're sort of trained to retrust humans again depending on their degree of abuse. And I just found it really amazing that like we had no idea of their backstory, you know, we had no idea what they had saw, felt, smelt, touched, experienced. And so here they are now in this really sort of idyllic retirement home. But what they were experiencing previously you just don't know, have no idea. A lot of the shots of like the close ups of the eyes. I mean, it's like there's a soulfulness to how they watched and looked at us and then looked at each other and engaged with all the different humans that are their caretakers that I found incredibly moving.

PC: You might not always know the backstory to each of the animals but it is quite clear that they suffered. What does the kind of abuse tell you about how we sort of collectively writ large view donkeys?

DAVID REDMON: When you go back in history really what's given significance in the foreground is the horse, you know, the stallion. But if you look at centuries upon centuries of the movement of civilization, from rocks to heavy objects, it's always the donkey and the mule that provides the background of the labour and the intensity of that kind of work. So the history of the donkey, I mean, it's biblical it's embedded in civilization. There's a great history in the UK of donkeys residing alongside beaches that give rides to adults and children, and that's imbedded in the collective memory as well. Today there's the emergence of these sanctuaries across the world that are present to act as a buffer against the decimation of, you know, not only the ecological and environmental world but also the animals, you know, in this world.

PC: If you're just joining us, I'm speaking with Ashley Sabin and David Redmon. They are the filmmakers behind a new film, it is called Do Donkeys Act? I, you know, we’ve spent some time talking about the animals themselves and we’ll continue to do that, but I want to ask you about the people in the film. And I want to begin with the narrator, it is the unmistakable Willem Dafoe. What's his interest in donkeys? I mean, was he interested right away in the project?

DAVID REDMON: Well, we reached out to Willem through his publicist and then they immediately got back to us and said Willem's interested in this project and didn't really say why. Finally when we met Willem the first thing we talked about was one of his earlier movies in which he played Christ. And he told some stories about his encounters with donkeys on location where that movie was shot. And again, this is the third time we brought up biblical references but none of us who made the movie, I mean, we're agnostic, you know, we could be atheist, but there are a lot of biblical references in the movie. And this is something that we had to give attention to because it came from the caregivers primarily.

PC: Just if you're wondering what film Willem Dafoe was in, the Biblical film, it was The Last Temptation of Christ, Willem Dafoe played Christ in that.

PC: I'm glad you brought up the caretakers and what sort of, where they sort of come to this from David. Because in one scene we see the arrival of a rescue donkey at a sanctuary and it's eventual integration. And there is this beautiful, I mean I think you would think of someone who works at a sanctuary to have patience, but it's just this beautiful unfolding and this care that you can just see. What did you, Ashley, what did you learn about the people who care for these animals?

ASHLEY SABIN: You know, it's funny because we put so much attention on donkeys [laughing]. You know, when we were in Guelph, first of all like it's proper a Canadian winter. So everyone is you know outside, it's, you know, it's like a donkey farm. It's like hundreds of donkeys and there's these young women that are caring for this open wound on this donkey. And so they're cleaning the open wound, and you know, you’re looking at these young women thinking like where in your life did you decide that you wanted to dedicate yourself to the care and rehabilitation of this animal? You know, it seems almost obscure, like, people don't think about it. And even when we were saying OK we're going to make this donkey film and telling people, they thought it was like a joke, when we’d say it they’d laugh, you know, like oh donkeys. In a way that's why our title is Do Donkeys Act? Because it's sort of that nod to like, just the comedic element that they've kind of got into, you know, that they, you know, do they act like ha OK, that's sort of a funny thing. But in reality they’re, as I said earlier, super soulful, sensitive animals that are completely contrary to, you know, sort of the stubborn buffoon that they have as a stereotype. For me personally seeing these young people that are dedicating themselves to these animals was just like unbelievable. You know, like how can you spend so many hours with a donkey and be so patient with them? Because that's actually at the heart of it. The reason that they have the sort of stereotype of being stubborn is because they don't do what us humans want them to do always. They're actually very intelligent. They make their own decisions. So if you're pulling a donkey and you want the donkey to come with you, it may not necessarily want to come with you.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: donkeys braying]

ASHLEY SABIN: You know, also known another fascinating thing to have watched at the sanctuary is that like, they're all taught, you know, the behaviours and they’re around the behaviours of the donkeys so much that they're able to sort of read off of their body language and figure out OK, well they don't want to go that way maybe they'll go this way and then maybe we can negotiate, you know. And so that was also equally interesting, to see the negotiation between the caretakers and the donkeys. That patience from both sides is pretty amazing, because like you said, we live in a pretty impatient world.

PC: I was also struck at a scene where a donkey is being pet and stroked endlessly by a devoted caretaker. And I just want us to listen to a bit of that.

SOUNDCLIP

WILLEM DAFOE: A landscape of hidden wounds that can be traced, healed, and felt. Bodies remember.

PC: I was really struck by bodies remember, it's a powerful line. What do we know about the consciousness of a donkey? What did you learn?

DAVID REDMON: Well, I think what we meant by that specific line was that consciousness is embedded in the body and most of the time we're taught that consciousness is in the brain or in the head, but bodies remember. Bodies retain traces of the past, scars of the past, wounds of the past. I would say in that one specific scene maybe it’s a bit of both. It's both rehabilitative, it's pleasurable, but it could also be slightly uncomfortable for the donkey. But it's part of the rehabilitative process, where the donkey is learning to trust a human again. Because previously it was abused and it can no longer trust people. So part of that massage therapy that's going on is both restorative for not only the human, who may or may not have also been abused, but also for the donkey. And it establishes a relationship based on understanding and trust through touch.

ASHLEY SABIN: And I sort of want to comment on that because there's this scene that on a shooting level will forever be, you know, in my mind. When we went out there with a photographer to take some stills and then David was there as well, we were all shooting in the field. There's this scene where they do the stampede and it's a very young group of Irish donkeys. And it was the first time that they had been out in the field since winter time.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: donkeys stampeding]

ASHLEY SABIN: They were super amped, they were super excited to go outside, and so they started taking off running in the field and we’re all out on the field. And all of a sudden, I started realizing that there was a stampede forming and it was going straight for them. You know, are these animals aware enough of their space that they’ll move out of the way? And they did. It was amazing to see. Like they veer out of the way. You see it, and it’s a pretty small moment but it forever will move me as a filmmaker. Just the respect that they had for the space that these two humans are in and that they went around it. You know, they didn't go plowing through it. They went around. For me I just had a profound moment of just wow their awareness is just incredible.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: donkeys stampeding]

PC: This documentary really, well maybe it champions the donkey, but it's more of getting we humans to understand the donkey. And as we've been talking about, you know, you present what many have seen through the history of time as a simple beast of burden or an animal that is mocked into the sort of dignified and noble creature that it actually is. And so if we use in this case the donkey as a symbol for human relationships with animals, with animals who are bred to serve us, what do you think our treatment of them says about us human beings?

DAVID REDMON: Everywhere I’ve been, Palestine, China, Mexico, the US, England, everywhere we've made movies we've come across donkeys and mules, even New Orleans, New York City. And they've always just sort of been there on the margins. So I'm not, even my mom when the movie came out sent me this photograph of when I was a child. I grew up on a farm and we had a donkey and I don't remember having a donkey. And she said, you know, maybe this is why, you know, you decided to make this movie. It just astonished me that I didn't remember. How can I not remember that at the age of four? Maybe that's part of it, that we have a tendency to forget. The movie really gives attention to memory. It asks us to remember. Remember what we do but also how we’ve been. And then at the same time there's other ways of relating to each other and it doesn't have to be on abuse or negligence or exploitation. Although I think all of those three characteristics are embedded in humanity. It's part of what we do to each other. You know, donkeys are exploited, humans exploit other humans. Donkeys are enslaved. You know, humans enslave other humans. So this film really does give attention to how there is another way to exist.

ASHLEY SABIN: No, I think also it's interesting like when you think about donkeys coming, you know, originally from Africa being these wild animals that are herd animals and would travel in packs, to then being somehow used some kind of labour on a farm and being brought into this sort of more solo existence. To then either being neglected, abandoned because it's too expensive them, it's more expensive to keep than to just let them go. To then being at the sanctuary that also sort of in a way like tries to rehabilitate and contain them. So it is sort of interesting and if you just look at the path of historically of the donkey, I think the donkey sanctuary is a fantastic thing but it's as a result of, you know, taking this animal into our possession for the betterment of, you know, quote unquote like human civilization. So it's complicated. It's not like there's a sort of easy way of understanding, you know, our relationship to other animals because it just it sort of weaves in and out of like how can we use this oh, we don’t it anymore, we’ll put it to the side. Oh wait we have to do something with that because you can't just neglect it and leave it, it’s a life, it’s aware, it’s sentient.

PC: Ashley and David thank you. I appreciate your time and for talking with me this morning. Thanks a lot.

DAVID REDMON: Thanks for having us.

ASHLEY SABIN: Thank you.

SOUNDCLIP

[Sound: donkey braying]

PC: Ashley Sabin and David Redmon's documentary is called Do Donkeys Act? And it is playing this weekend at Bloor Hot Docs in Toronto.

[Music: Rolling Stones]

PC: How’s about some Rolling Stones for you on the Friday edition of The Current. That is Beast of Burden from the Rolling Stones from 1978. Alright, coming up in our next half hour, what you could learn from the Chinese school system. We're going to meet a Chinese-American mom who enrolled her son in a Shanghai school. You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current. We're back in just a bit.

[Music: Extro]

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Hi again, I'm Piya Chattopadhyay and you are listening to the Friday edition of The Current. Coming up in just a few moments, what's it really like inside the Chinese educational system and Chinese classrooms. But before that I want to tell you about an interview you won't want to miss next week here on The Current. Anna Maria Tremonti will be speaking with Satya Nadella on Monday. He is the CEO of Microsoft and his company was one of the first to sign onto a lawsuit challenging US President Donald Trump's move to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the immigration policy.

SOUNDCLIP

SATYA NADELLA: I absolutely, obviously have the personal experience of benefiting from this enlightened immigration policy and I definitely have that empathy. But I also have I would say as even a CEO of a company like Microsoft, the understanding of why this is core to American competitiveness. America has always benefited from having been the destination for the best and the brightest and skilled immigration from all over the world. You know, when I look around at Microsoft we have people from over 100 countries, from Eastern Europe, from China, from India, all contributing to American technology that's in fact being exported all over the world. And I think that's fantastic. I also believe that America has stood out as the bastion of hope for those who need it most. Both of those in fact give America, I believe, the unique stature it does have in the globe and that's something that I think we all care deeply about.

PC: You can listen to Satya Nadella the CEO of Microsoft’s conversation with Anna Maria Tremonti. That full interview will air here on The Current on Monday.

[Music]

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What the West could learn from Chinese teaching methods: author Lenora Chu

Guest: Lenora Chu

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: You're listening to the Friday edition of The Current on CBC Radio One and Sirius XM, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay.

SOUNDCLIP

TEACHER: Now we’re going to talk about reflection. OK can you write down the title please? Do not waste us time.

STUDENT: Who’s she talking to?

[Sound: muffled voices]

TEACHER: There are a few principles we need to look at but don’t have much time. I do not tolerate such behaviour. You see this is why you guys learn less than the Chinese students learn. This is why. Because you slow the teachers down.

STUDENT: Excuse me.

TEACHER: We have to wait until you stop talking.

STUDENT: You can’t say that. You can’t say that.

TEACHER: I’m still waiting.

STUDENT: That’s like a massive insult.

TEACHER: I’m still waiting.

PC: That is from the BBC program Are Our Kids Tough Enough? In which British children are taught by a teacher from China using Chinese teaching methods. And as you can hear, it doesn't go entirely smoothly. China has the world's largest school system and it has been hailed for repeatedly achieving the best math scores anywhere in the world. But despite the academic successes, there remain questions and criticism of the Chinese educational style. Lenora Chu is a Chinese-American writer and a journalist who enrolled her own son in a Chinese school in Shanghai, where they live. She wrote a book about the experience, it is called Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School and the Global Race to Achieve. Lenora Chu joins me from Los Angeles. Hello.

LENORA CHU: Hello. Thank you so much for having me on.

PC: When you just heard that tape there from the BBC program Are Our Kids Tough Enough? What are you thinking about?

LENORA CHU: [laughs] You know, I'm thinking about teacher authority and I think that was, as an American as a Westerner, the toughest thing for me to understand and grapple with. So our son when he was three entered the local Chinese system, and the first week his teacher forced him to eat eggs. Now, he hates eggs and I'm thinking to myself how did she get him to do it? So I marched off to school to confront her about it. I say in the West we don't use methods of force. And she says oh how do you do it? And I say well we explain the benefits of eggs and we incent them to choose. And she goes does it work? And of course I have to admit that it doesn't. So this sets up sort of a culture clash and I spend pretty much the next few years dealing with this question, you know, what do the Chinese, what price do they pay to produce their smart kids? You know, is there something we can learn from them?

PC: OK, so your son whose name is Rainey, you enroll him in a very good school in Shanghai at the age of three. And it sort of gives you and your husband a close up view of how that educational system works. But how did you make that decision? That we're going to put him in a Chinese state run school rather than an international school, as you guys are Americans.

LENORA CHU: Well I like the idea that he would learn Mandarin right? This is the most spoken language in the world and the world is getting smaller. And I like the idea that he would be bilingual. International schools are also incredibly expensive in Shanghai and we really weren't in a position to, you know, go in that direction. So it was really a leap of faith in a lot of ways. I liked the discipline of the Chinese way, their respect for education, all these legendary things that we sort of talk about. But of course the experience is very different on the ground.

PC: You went to school in the United States, yes?

LENORA CHU: I did. American public schools.

PC: OK. So like were you thinking uh this is just a bit of an experiment, we'll see how it goes. Like did you have hesitations?

LENORA CHU: Absolutely and that's why, you know, some of these early interactions with the teacher, that's why I started to launch basically this journalistic investigation. I happened to have the language skills and the opportunity to look into some of these questions, you know, are the Chinese really not creative or are they doing something right in the classroom? And that's, you know, that took me on this sort of journey. I discovered a lot of negatives that in fact the Chinese are working on themselves. For example, I got into a preschool classroom, I couldn't get into my own son’s classroom, in the book you'll see I struggle with the administration for months about trying to get an observation. But I did get into another classroom and what I saw, I saw a teacher trying to demonstrate rain. And this is how she does it, she's barking at the students saying rain falls from the sky to the ground and it comes in little dots. And what's worse is if a student couldn't comply she would tack the paper on the wall to shame, you know, to shame the deviant children. So clearly kids learn very quickly not to express any original thought in the classroom.

PC: This is art class?

LENORA CHU: This is an art class for toddlers and it was a very traditional Shanghai classroom.

PC: So these kids are like four-ish and if they draw rain how their mind sees rain.

LENORA CHU: There’s no hurricanes, there are no monsoons, there's no figure to rain, like it doesn't rain cats and dogs. Right? I mean, you know, so clearly--

PC: What about sideways rain? I mean I'm just trying to think of all the pictures I see.

LENORA CHU: No sideways rain.

PC: OK.

LENORA CHU: Yeah nothing. So, you know, rain you can draw rain in many different ways, right?

PC: It rains in many different ways.

LENORA CHU: It does, typhoons, you know, all kinds of things. It doesn't rain tears, you know, there's no purple rain, you know, Prince would be sad.

PC: [laughs]

LENORA CHU: So, you know, clearly there are some downsides to unblinking obedience of this authority figure which is the teacher. And the Chinese are trying to change their system. I do have faith that they're really really working on it. My son’s own school called itself a laboratory for education reform, which I found hilarious, because you know the whole world is hailing China for its PISA scores. But the Chinese think themselves that they have a lot to work on.

PC: Right. The PISA scores is this international sort of academic ranking of how students in various countries are doing.

LENORA CHU: Exactly.

PC: OK.

LENORA CHU: And Shanghai came in number one in the world in math, reading, and science.

PC: OK, where did America come in?

LENORA CHU: Low. Middle of the pack. You know, they tested nearly 70 countries and America was right in the middle.

PC: Any idea where Canada came in?

LENORA CHU: Better than America. But not, you know, not in the top ten.

PC: Alright. But, you know, PISA is not, PISA is one measure right? I think PISA is one measure of achievement and it's only one measure. So we do a lot of things right in the West that we should celebrate.

PC: Alright. So Rainey starts school, you're not allowed to watch him in preschool, you got to go to this another class. The kids are oh, told they have to draw rain in a certain way and your child is force fed an egg in the first early days of school. So he comes home and says what to you?

LENORA CHU: You know, it's funny, in toddler speak he’s telling us what he likes and he doesn't like. And in the beginning few months he really really hates school. The force feeding, you know, I grew up in a very strict Chinese household and there were things that I was forced to do that I didn't like to do, like study math, you know, go into AP algebra. You know, the force feeding really really I had trouble with, but I didn't really understand what was happening until I got into these other classrooms and I started digging a little deeper. I eventually started befriending Chinese students at higher levels of education to see how they were processing their experience. And another downside that I found was, you know, the Communist Party's political control in the classroom. You know, they censor their textbooks. They insert passages that, you know, Shakespeare is only presented in snippets. You know, you can't access Camus or Proust in, you know, an abridged form. So there's a lot of downsides. But here is why I kept my son in, I started to notice little behaviours like he would hail the teacher as he sailed through the entrance gates. He started packing his own backpack. The Chinese really believe in early math and he was doing counting at a really early age and I liked that. So, you know, as a parent--

PC: Did he like it?

LENORA CHU: He did actually. And that's the thing. The biggest thing that I've learned from this journey is the Chinese really believe in this sort of hard work ethic in the classroom. And in the West studies shows that we're more likely to believe in talent. He was always told every single day that you can do this if you do the hard work, if you put in the effort. And I really liked that message. And I had faith that this particular school was working to change hard enough that we would benefit from the balance that they were trying to achieve.

PC: You refer to the education system in China as a governing technique, is how you put it. What do you mean by that?

LENORA CHU: You know, the party is intensifying its control in the classroom. I once watched a political class where the teacher was trying to tell them, talk to them about the morality of civic service, of being a public servant. And then the students were saying well our leaders cheat and steal basically. You know, a couple of years ago a foreign investigative journalist uncovered, you know, massive corruption at the top levels of political leadership. So the party, as its opening up, as China's opening up to the world, they're getting a little bit I would call it scared. They're scared about having their students go out. I think they're a little bit concerned about Western ideology coming back into their classrooms and they're trying to clamp down on that. And I do think that it's going to backfire. You can't tell a Chinese student that the Japanese are devils when the Chinese student can go to Japan, especially the urban elite Chinese, they look around, they're not seeing Japanese devils and they're picking up a taste for sashimi. You know, there's more information coming into China and I think the party is going to have a very tough time with this conflict.

PC: I want to talk to you, because within this governing technique the teacher is sort of almighty. So I want to talk to you about the teacher. How is the role of the teacher different in the Chinese school system than in the United States system, public system, or the Canadian one for that matter?

LENORA CHU: If you talk to most teachers in the West, you'll find that they spend a lot of time managing the behaviour of their children, of their students, especially in the early years and a little bit less time teaching. You know, the Chinese teacher it's flipped. They don't really have to manage behaviour and they're delivering content. And I think that's kind of a downside of the Western classroom. But what teachers are good at in the West is listening to their kids, really listening. We're so good at that. The Chinese know we do this better. I had lunch with an academic a couple of years ago who worked on China's national math curriculum and he leans in and he says, you know, what math scores in the West might be bad but when they love a subject kids love it from their heart. So, you know, we do a lot of things that the Chinese are actually looking at and trying to import into their classrooms. And that's one of them.

PC: It's interesting that you bring up math scores, which are lower than most people would like in our country. In fact this province, Ontario is revamping its math curriculum. And, you know, we often look to countries like China or other Asian countries whose children and students are doing very well in math.

LENORA CHU: Right. And, you know, it's funny in China there's a word for family education. And if you look at studies in the West, mothers and fathers at home are working more on reading. In China they're working on both reading and math. You know, they're counting with their kids from a very early age. You know, how many pebbles are in this stack and let's move it over to this stack. And by the time they get into kindergarten or primary school they actually have a lot of the basics. And that gives them a little bit of a leg up. The other thing is frankly the teacher centred classroom is a little bit better for teaching subjects like math and algebra and chemistry and computer programming. Studies have shown that, because you actually need to demonstrate procedures. You know, kids aren't going to learn math through discovery learning. So you really have to find that balance and that's what the Chinese do well.

PC: What happens to children who have, you know, you talked about Western teachers focus on behavioural problems. It's one thing of a kids just like, you know, kind of acting out every now and again, but children are different. There are children with actual learning challenges and have behavioural problems because of really deep seated things. There's a reason for them to do that. What does a Chinese education system provide for those kinds of students?

LENORA CHU: That's a great point. They do very very little. You know, if a child has, you know, autism or has some kind of special need or learning disability or is dyslexic the Chinese system does absolutely nothing for them. And that is a major problem. I've met a lot of activists in Shanghai who are working to change this. But in general the system has no process for even identifying these kids. And they should frankly because people are dropping out of the system.

PC: It’s swim or sink.

LENORA CHU: It is in a lot of ways. Here are the numbers, there are 18 million babies born in China every year, imagine that right? And at the very top of the ladder is a university degree. Now to get into a tier one college there's really only a few hundred thousand that make it up to the top. So you have 18 million at the bottom, a few hundred thousand at the very top. That's high stakes.

PC: Hm. There is another player in all of this, aside from the educators and the students, and that of course is parents. What is the relationship with Chinese parents or parents who have children in Chinese public schools, and the teacher or the principal for that matter?

LENORA CHU: You know, I was terrified of my son's principal.

PC: [laughs]

LENORA CHU: I tried to get all kinds of things, you know, for my son and get them to change all sorts of policies and I basically was shut down at every turn. And that's not necessarily good. But you know the principal expects a lot from the teachers. In our orientation she actually said we don't pick children we pick parents. You know, I once met a mother who bought two flutes one for the daughter and one for herself so she could practice alongside her child. You know, that's what they expect from parents is complete involvement and it's a little intimidating.

PC: If apparent goes to school and says to the teacher look my young daughter, whatever her name, she's coming home crying, she doesn’t like going to school I'm having a hard time, she doesn’t want to do her homework. The teacher says what to you as this little girl's parent?

LENORA CHU: So first of all you have to believe that the teacher believes the kid can learn it. That's very different. If it's something like math, the Chinese teacher is more likely to believe in an effort. And so that means she's going to spend extra time with that child and she's also going to expect parents to, it's called bushi ban which basically, you know, work on this at home or hire someone to come into the home and work on it. So there's a lot of effort spent on getting this kid up to speed in the early years. But of course once that child starts falling out of the system there's very little safety net.

PC: And that pressure is put on the parent, like it’s your child, you've got to be part of this education system and the education of your child, you've got to help me help them?

LENORA CHU: Absolutely.

PC: OK I want to ask you about another term. There's this Chinese concept I think it's called chi ku, which translates as eating bitter. What does that mean?

LENORA CHU: That’s right.

PC: What’s chi ku?

LENORA CHU: That is that sort of belief that hard work pays off. There's a connection and actually there is a longitudinal study where they followed, you know, ethnic Asian youth and they followed white Americans, and they found that the ethnic Asian youth believe in this connection between chi ku or eating bitter and achievement in the classroom. And the funny thing is in the West we get it wrong in academics. We overemphasize talent, you know, oh Johnny doesn't have the genetics for math that's OK it's not that important anyway. But we get it right in sports. If, you know, what’s Johnny’s time in the 100 metre dash? OK he's falling behind a little bit, that just means he needs to work harder. Imagine if we could transfer that belief into academics.

PC: Hm. We've been talking and a lot of what you've been saying is sort of I think a lot of people's image of what goes on in a school in China. But help us understand some of the misconceptions, the biggest ones that people have about the education system in China.

LENORA CHU: I think what people should understand is that it is true that creative expression, there's just no room for it. If you're told how to draw rain from three-years-old, there's not going to be a lot of room for creativity in the classroom. But I have hope because the Chinese, It doesn't mean that they're not having creative thoughts in their minds. And I've seen that once individual students can get into an environment that encourages expression, you know, they do really well. One of the kids in my class goes off to the US and, you know, boy is that an eye opening experience for her. And she is thriving.

PC: What opened her eyes?

LENORA CHU: She was able to read Shakespeare unabridged for the first time. She was taught very different things about the Merchant of Venice in China than she was in the US. You know, the Chinese tend to use the Merchant of Venice as sort of a propaganda lesson. But in the US she was allowed to write essays, she was allowed to express herself in new ways. And here's another thing, the Chinese love this. In the West, what is it like in Canada? Do you get to walk from classroom to classroom? You know, history and then the bell rings and you walk over to math and the faces around you change.

PC: I think so when you get into the upper grades.

LENORA CHU: That's right. And so the Chinese don't do that. You know, can you imagine what it's like to sit in the same room for six years with the same students all day long? And when this girl Amanda came over to the US and the faces change. I mean there's just like a movement, you know, a dynamism that she really loved about the Western classroom that she didn't have in China. So that's one of the things that Chinese are actually trying to copy.

PC: We played that tape off the top from the BBC which is reflecting on the British system. And very similar in many ways to the US system and the Canadian system. The British government for its part is rolling out a 41 million pound program over the next few years to implement Chinese and other Asian teaching methods in more than 8,000 of its primary schools. What do you think about that?

LENORA CHU: I think there's going to be a parent revolt just like I did. You know, it's really hard to understand that the Chinese way is going to require more memorization in the early years. But have some faith because if you look at the research, you know, learning actually happens when you commit certain pieces of knowledge to the back of the brain. You know, lately we're saying oh we don't need to know things you can just Google it or look it up, you know, you can even ask Siri. But that's not true, the science doesn't show that. So I think that we have to adjust our thinking a little bit around these issues. Discovery learning is fantastic and in the West we're so good at that. But try something a little bit different in the early years, cement that knowledge, you know, and then move on.

PC: What you say a lot of people will take umbrage with and say, you know, well first of all that this is a clash of cultures in a sense. The Western sort of mindset about learning has become at least, you know, about creativity it's not about orthodoxy and churning little robots who can't think for themselves and do everything by rote, and that makes a good society, a democratic good society. You say what to that?

LENORA CHU: It's true that in the West we’re so good at listening to our kids and that makes them really good contributing citizens. China is not good at that. And they're paying the price, frankly they know this. And the Communist Party is going to have to understand that if you encourage critical thinking you might encourage, you know, rebellion individually, that's just the way that it happens right? So China's grappling with this and the West we’re grappling with it. But look what's happening, there are more Chinese coming to North America. The Ivy League is taking eight times more Chinese than it did a decade ago. And so there is going to be a culture clash just like I experienced over in China. And I just would like to say let's try to open our minds a little bit. But you know have more faith in our kids, have more faith in our kids.

PC: It’s not just you like as a journalist that experiences this in China. I mean in your own household your husband, his father is of European ancestry while you have Chinese roots. And here's your son American but going to school in China. So from what you've observed and researched and lived Lenora, what would be an ideal meeting point of East and West when it comes to education?

LENORA CHU: I love the early expectations for kids. The belief that they can learn difficult concepts. And I would say no on unblinking obedience, you know. Let's try to find that middle. And so my son gets the Chinese way during the daytime and he comes home to us and we're doing soccer and tennis and we're drawing and we're taking him to museums. You know, I grew up with the opposite influence. I had this great American public school education then I came home to my very strict Chinese parents. This is a conversation that educators all over the world are having. They're coming to China to learn the best parts of the system and seeing what they can do back home with it, and it's going to be a little uncomfortable.

PC: Your son Rainey’s in what grade now?

LENORA CHU: He's in third grade, he’s doing really great.

PC: Still in the state run system?

LENORA CHU: Yes, yes, still the state run system. We're not sure, you know, as some of the party propaganda gets intensifies, you know, in the later primary years we might pull him out at some point. You know, he is starting to rebel against, a little bit against the amount of homework that he has. [chuckles]

PC: As children here do too.

LENORA CHU: Yes. Yes. And, you know, it's not like it's killing him yet. And so I'm watching very closely. But at the same time, you know, there's an upside and a downside. Now he has 1,500 characters in math, I'm sorry in Chinese. He's perfectly bilingual. He's doing math at basically a fourth or fifth grade level, you know, compared to the US. So there are upsides and downsides. It's just no situation is perfect and we're evaluating it month by month.

PC: Lenora Chu thank you. Nice to talk to you.

LENORA CHU: Thank you so much.

PC: Lenora Chu is a Chinese-American writer and journalist. She's also the author of Little Soldiers: An American boy, a Chinese school and the Global Race to Achieve. We talked to her from LA. And The Current will delve further into education. Next week on Tuesday Anna Maria Tremonti will host a phone in asking how well are our public schools doing when it comes to students with special needs? Call in to share your experiences, whether you're a student or former student, a parent or teacher. We'll be talking about children with learning disabilities and autism, ADHD, physical and mental disabilities, and giftedness too. That's coming up next Tuesday on a special edition of The Current. And now a word from the team that made this show this week.

[Music: Credits theme]

INES COLABRESE: Hi, I’m Ines Colabrese, one of the producers here at The Current. This week the show was produced by Idella Sturino, Howard Goldenthal, Kristin Nelson, Yamri Taddese, Ashley Mak, Karin Marley, Samira Mohyeddin, Mary-Catherine McIntosh, Pacinthe Mattar, and Willow Smith. Special thanks to our network producers Katie Parsons in Halifax, Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg, Michael O'Halloran in Calgary and Anne Penmen in Vancouver. The Current’s writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Ruby Buiza is our interactive producer. Transcriptions are provided by Rasha Shehata. Our technical producer Gary Francis. Our presentation producer is Lara O'Brien, and our documentary editor is Liz Hoath. Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto, and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar.

PC: And that is The Current for this Friday. Alright, we're going to end things off today with a little more donkey inspired music. This is the American country musician Jerrod Niemann with his song Donkey.

[Music: Jerrod Niemann]

PC: I’m Piya Chattopadhyay, thank you so very much for lending us your ear here on the Friday edition of The Current.

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September 29, 2017 Full Episode Transcript

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