D J Clark Multimedia Stories

Over the past six weeks China Daily reporter D J Clark has been walking the Beijing waterways, discovering five unique day walks that have taken him to all four corners of the city. In the last of seven videos Clark talks to the author of “Beijing’s Forgotten Waterways” and shares some of his discoveries.

Since the 11th century in Beijing, dynastic emperors built moats to defend their city walls, and it is a loop of these waterways that makes up the last of the five walks in this series. Once again it is Kublai Khan and his grand architect Gou Shoujing that we have to thank for building the moats, most of which still stand today in various states of repair. In part six of Walking the Beijing Waterways, D J Clark takes off along the Yuan dynasty circuit.

In part five of Walking the Beijing Waterways, D J Clark starts near the international exhibition center where the Bahe river spills out into the northern moats and heads 12 km east out beyond the 5th ring road to where the river meets the second airport express way. Of all the walks this one takes him the furthest from the city center and in doing so he passes through urban and increasingly rural communities.

In part four of Walking the Beijing Waterways, D J Clark starts where the last walk finished, at the entrance to Yuyuantan Park under the old CCTV Tower in the far west of the city. It's the longest of the five walks at 26 km and takes a full day to complete. Divided into two sections, the first follows the Yongding River to where it meets the city moats of the Qing Dynasty and follows them in a horse shoe around to the Beijing Railway Station where it meets the Tonghui canal. The second section follows the water east towards the Grand Canal.

In part three of Walking the Beijing waterways, D J Clark takes off on a 13 km western walk that is broadly divided into two halves. The first is a pleasant stroll through the vast grounds of the Summer Palace and around the Kunming Lake. The second consists a long straight walk south along the wide Jingmi Canal which sits below the busy western edge of the city.

In part two of Walking the Beijing Waterways, D J Clark takes off on a central route that loops around a series of lakes and moats which takes him into the heart of the city and the walls of the Forbidden City.

Often the best way to explore a new city is by foot and Beijing is no exception. Although the city gets a lot of bad press for it’s high levels of pollution, it also has clear days and a lot of parks and paths to explore. In this video China Daily reporter D J Clark introduces five different one day walks using the myriad of canals, rivers and lakes to guide him away from the traffic and discover areas of the city few visitors get to experience.

Kesha is from a small village in Nepal’s western hills. She continues her traditional proffession of tailoring. She is a widely respected community leader in her district of Parbat and also advocates for rural entrepreneurs at the national level.

Chitrakali comes from the Magar community in the western hills. She has taken her traditional skills in collecting and weaving wild Himalayan stinging nettle, and turning the "allo" fibres into a multitude of products. She now provides indirect employment to hundreds of women in her district. She is a highly successful entrepreneur and community leader.

Devaki is from the hills in Nuwarkot, north of Kathmandu. Born into the highest Brahmin caste, her family lost all that they had during a major flood. She now lives on a small piece of land, where she leads a workshop and cooperative, weaving Nepal’s traditional "dhaka" cloth.

Pinki is from the Maithili community of Nepal’s eastern Terai (plains). Her story shows the changing family dynamics especially in conservative Hindu societies of the Terai. Her enterprise is based on an old traditional practice of making bangles from a native tree-sap called ‘Laha’.

Parbati Rai truly represents a modern Nepali woman living in rural eastern Nepal. Unlike your stereotypical village woman, she is very outspoken, highly independent and a local martial arts instructor.

Mina comes from a ethnic caste of Kumal, which for generations has produced clay pots. Now with cheaper plastic products coming from India and China, they have lost their traditional livelihood. She now runs her own beauty parlour in remote western Terai (plains).

Durga is from a marginalised ethnic group known as Danuwars, from the inner-Terai of eastern Nepal. She has endured a difficult life, living with disability with limited support in her rural village. She now runs her own enterprise making daalmot (snacks) for the district market.

Pawa is from a small Badi community on the outskirts of Dailekh bazaar. The Badi people are one of the most discriminated and oppressed sub-castes in Nepali society. Considered "untouchables", they are placed at the bottom even amongst other untouchables. Their community has begun small-scale pig farming to improve their livelihoods.

Kalpana is a former ‘Kamaiya’ (bonded labourer). Now, she runs her own tailoring enterprise, providing employment and training to other former female bonded labourers.

Nestled in the mountains of north Sichuan, the Jiuzhai valley is possibly one of China’s most picturesque landscapes. In winter the waterfalls ice up and the snow covered mountains gleam in the lakes below, truly a magical experience. In a short interview with Sichuan travel expert Brian Glorioso, China Daily discovers that escaping into the Jiuzhaigou wilderness is a little harder than you would imagine.

You Zhong Ding Da, was born in Jianpan village, one of just a handful of small Tibetan communities within the Jiuzhai Gou National park. He has grown up seeing his home valley in northern Sichuan Province change into one of the China’s most popular tourist destinations. China daily reporter D J Clark met him at the Zharu Monastery and asked him what the place meant to him.

Cecilia Chen worked for ten years in public relations until one day she decided to give up her day job, pick up a camera and notepad and take to the road. She is now one of a new breed of freelance Chinese journalists who are tapping into the growing independent travel market, wandering the world and publishing stories of their adventures. China Daily’s D J Clark caught up with her at her latest exhibition in Beijing.

Ten finalists competed in the second Jiuzhai Zhuoma beauty contest that ran for more than 50 days across Sichuan’s famous mountain region. The final ten contestants had been narrowed down from a shortlist of 100 by online voters who were asked to select their favourite competitor as the event ran throughout January.

Taking in the pristine Borneo Rain Forest is unfortunately very much an endangered experience. The promise of quick profits from cutting it down and selling the wood has outweighed the international calls for preservation. That is in most areas except the small state of Brunei. The oil rich sultanate has been busy extracting it’s natural resources from under the ground leaving the forests above untouched. D J Clark went to investigate.

More than 2.5 million people, 41 percent of Ningxia's population, are living in the region's southern mountainous area, which the United Nations listed as one of the most uninhabitable places in 1970 due to its extreme environment. The government, which brings a considerable amount of aid to the area every year, identifies more than 1 million residents as being below the poverty line. Local people and the government, however, are looking for a sustainable way of to draw the local people out of the poverty trap. China Daily's Peng Yinning went to investigate.

Following announcements from Beijing and Shaanxi on contingency plans for heavily polluted days, China Daily reporter D J Clark sets out to investigate what he can do to protect his family at home.

Nestled on the Hunan Guizhou border, Fenghuang is a small but beautiful city deep in the Tuo Jiang River valley. For one week in December it hosted the biannual Phoenix photography festival with 160 exhibitions showing over 300 photographers and 6,000 photographs. D J Clark went down to Hunan to investigate.

Freelance photographer and writer Cecilia Chen has visited both the north and south poles and have been surprised at the growing number of Chinese tourists she found there. In this short video Cecilia talks about her visits to the poles and why she feels they are worth the effort in getting there.

Zhang Lian was born and brought up on a small rural farm in Ningxia Hui Autonomous region. Tired of farming he left his village to start a new career writing poems, first in hand written books and then later in printed volumes. To sustain his creative lifestyle he peddles his books around the local county towns, going door to door selling his poems.

Local village imam, Yang Yinping from Sha Tupo village in Ningxia province, China, explains why halal food is important for the Hui community. Yang is expanding his animal husbandry business to accommodate a growing demand for halal food but claims that some food labelled ‘halal’ in China does not meet the standards Islam demands.

This video traces Bhushan Tuladhar a recycle enthusiast who has turned his home in the suburbs of Kathmandu into an example of how individuals can make a real difference to their environment.

The first in a new series on “Reacting to Climate Change – Stories from Asia” this video traces green architect Clifford Espinosa in his quest to cool down the 16th century Malate parish church in Manila without using air conditioning.

Angelique Songco, a dive master and director of the Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, the largest marine park in the Philippines, is intensely feeling the effects of global warming and combating it with a variety of measures.

this video traces park volunteer Erik Suheri who is hoping the planting of lost of lost Mangrove forests to the north of Jakarta will help prevent a future catastrophe as sea levels rise around the city.

Over the past 25 years Rajendra Singh, known as India’s rainman, has built more than 4,500 earthen check dams to combat water shortages across northern India.

Amir Hossain was once a farmer on the banks of the Meghna river but as the banks collapsed and the water levels rose so he saw his farm and his home swallowed by river that had supported him.

Le Hoang Viet, an innovator, has invented a more efficient way to burn rice husk in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta kilns, that no longer pollutes the environment.

Mei Han is in charge of Lian Wei defences that runs along the West River in Zhaoqing, Guangdong. She is in a constant battle with an increasingly unpredictable climate. Some regions of China are facing unusual amounts of rain, which threatens the livelihoods of millions of people in the Pearl Delta.

The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Mr C Y Leung, attended a flag raising ceremony held in Golden Bauhinia Square at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC), Wan Chai on October 1st, China National Day. This was followed by a reception held at the same venue and hosted by Mr Leung. In the evening the city celebrated with a fireworks display across the harbor.

Hu Wuqiang was born into a family of potters from Tongguan, Hunan province, that spans back over 1,200 years. Lately he rediscovered a Tang Dynasty process of creating red stains on large pots, fired in a dragon kiln.

Bali, also known as Island of the Gods, is a land of many opportunities for the adventurous traveler in search of a paradise getaway.

There is a saying in China that goes “Food is like Heaven.” As the balance of the population shifts from the countryside to the cities so more and more people are being denied the opportunity to control their own “heaven” but is this about to change? With rising global populations and a lack of land to expand rural agriculture governments are starting to look at their cities as an unlikely place to site new farmland. D J Clark investigates how this is playing out in China.

Over the past 20 years horse riding as a sport in China has been on the rise, since the 2008 Olympics where China was represented by six riders in the Hong Kong arena. China Daily reporter Peng Yining took the short drive out of central Beijing to Xiwu International Equestrian Club, out near the airport, where around 40 of the 200 members are younger than 18 years of age to find out what was driving young people to learn this ancient sport.

A global drought this year has affected some of the world’s largest food producing countries leading to lower outputs and increasing prices of cereal crops around the world. China has so far managed to keep its cereal food prices steady thanks to large reserves that draw on bumper crops over the past few years. In this video China Daily reporters D J Clark and Jia Fan visit local markets in Hebei province to find out how rising food prices would affect peoples daily lives.

As the world moves closer to December 12th 2012, the final date of a 5,125 year long ancient Mayan calendar. So China’s media has been increasing its coverage of UFO sightings around the country. Although scholars agree the date has no association with cataclysmic events occurring in 2012, rumors have claimed we are approaching the end of the world and with this, speculation of an Alien invasion. In this video D J Clark sets out to investigate whether these UFO sightings have any credibility.

Guidebooks advise against a trip to Nepal in July and August. It’s the height of the monsoon. But desperate to escape the Beijing summer heat D J Clark shunned the advice and booked a ticket to Kathmandu only to be pleasantly surprised at the possibilities of holidaying in the rain.

Feeling a little jaded, by all the athleticism of the Olympics, D J Clark visits the Temple of Heaven Park in southeast Beijing in search of some more elderly Chinese sports. In the small alleyways that wind around the ancient temple he found Sun Wenxia practicing Dahuagun beneath the western gate. Could this be a possible contender for a future Chinese made Olympic sport?

In the third video in the series, D J Clark goes to Taoranting park in the south of Beijing where he discovers a sport invented in Shanxi 20 years ago that combines tai chi with badminton. Rouliqiu can be played as a competitive sport across a net or individually as a form of therapeutic sport. It’s hard to explain in words but all is revealed in the video

In the second video in the series, D J Clark goes to Zizhu Park near Beijing's National library to find Zhang Liguo, to seek Jiang Li Guo, A Tai Chi master from Chen, the oldest of five schools of this ancient martial art in his search through the Beijing parks to find a potential future Chinese Olympic sport. Though more commonly associated with a form of slow meditative movement the sport can be competitive and Jiang believes it's promotion to an Olympic event would reap a lot of benefits.

In a small courtyard on the north side of the Jingshan Park, that overlooks the Forbidden city in Beijing, a small group of leisure entrepreneurs practice a new sport they hope will resonate with soccer fans around the world. It’s called triple J. D J Clark dons a pair of shorts and goes down to see whether this newly created game has a chance of making it as a future Olympic sport.

The 15th July is an auspicious day in Brunei. The streets and buildings of Bandar Seri Begawan are lavishly decorated in yellow, black and red with pictures of Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, at every turn. Officials dressed in traditional attire await the motorcade carrying the royal family for the grand parade around central stadium in Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin square. It’s the King’s 66th birthday and everyone in this small, wealthy country is out to celebrate.

Perched in a small corner of Borneo island, 1,500 KM directly south of Hainan province, lies the small but wealthy country of Brunei Darussalem. The 400,000 inhabitants are blessed with some of the largest oil fields in Southeast Asia making it, one of the wealthiest countries (per person) in the world. The country is made up of two small slivers of land separated a part of eastern Malaysia. It boasts two worthwhile attractions. The capital of Bandar Seri Begawan, with its striking mosques and picturesque water villages, makes for a relaxing days exploration. The city is small and easy to get around on foot, or by using the water taxis that take you out to the stilted villages in the Sungai river. Allow a good few hours to loose yourself in the maze of boardwalk paths that weave through the water villages. The second must see attraction is the pristine rainforest that has been left untouched, unlike much of the rest of Borneo. The stunning Ulu Temburong National Park is the easiest entry into the forest though you will have to join a tour if you want to avoid complex permits. Most tours go by boat from Bandar and last two days. Brunei is not a country with much to offer a long term holiday but worth a visit for a short break or while travelling through Borneo.

As the temperature warms up in the capital city, China Daily multimedia reporter D J Clark went out to capture some scenes of the old and new. Starting at 4 AM as dawn broke on top of his apartment building DJ took his bike and made his way from the Olympic park, through the old city to Tiananmen square and onto the central business district, finishing in a tall building overlooking the CCTV tower and Guamao.

British born Scott Mason stopped in Nepal on a round the world travel trip to try his hand at paragliding. There he had an idea of training birds of prey to fly with the paragliders so the passengers could get a first hand view of the birds in flight. Ten years later he runs a bird rescue centre, a guest house and parahawking trips for tourists visiting the picturesque town of Pokhara in central Nepal.