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Storyville: Marriage Chinese Style: When My Child Is Born

Marriage Chinese Style: When My Child Is Born

06/09/2010

BBC Four - Storyville, Marriage Chinese Style: When My Child Is Born

Documentary about a Chinese couple with a young baby striving to live a free life.

Documentary about a Chinese couple with a young baby striving to live a free life in the face of a harsh reality filled with the restrictions of a very traditional society.

How much freedom can there be in a marriage? How much freedom can there be in a Chinese marriage? Long and Jun get married when the two find out that she is pregnant. She wants to have her child (only one is allowed under the Chinese policy) and Long agrees to become a parent, too. But the two of them still have to acquire doctorates in order to be able to teach in a Chinese university. 

Jun is a beautiful English-speaking translator with a speciality in Virginia Woolf novels. As she tells a class of students, Virginia Woolf, in her quest for freedom, should be a model for all women. Meanwhile Long, who is bored of reading about Karl Marx, fretfully tries to satisfy the university authorities. 

After the baby is born (a girl) Jun's mother arrives on the scene. All Chinese mothers expect to take care of their grandchildren. Pressures pile up on both Long and Jun. Will Jun leave her baby with her mother, in order to go to Australia where she can gain the further qualification that she needs? 

This is a remarkable, intimate film about two people who want to have freedom and happiness at the same time. You may think this sounds like a western story, but it isn't - it's all deeply Chinese.

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