HONG KONG TVB’s documentary series “No Poverty Land,” telling stories about China’s poverty alleviation, has attracted huge attention and earned a 9.5 out of 10 score on the Chinese reviewing website Douban since its premiere in late August.

The 12-episode documentary hosted by Janis Chan selected 10 representative poor areas on the Chinese mainland to show how those areas adopted different poverty alleviation methods, such as relocating people living in impoverished regions, enhancing the employment training, and supporting entrepreneurship and education.

The four-person shooting team spent three months filming in Hainan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and Ningxia, showing real lives in remote villages. The team described the poverty alleviation they saw in those areas as “a miracle,” a success achieved by people and governments through years of hard work.

In the show, Chan tells the stories from the perspective of a young urban person, communicating with locals in Mandarin and expressing her feelings in Cantonese. She also climbed a cliff-side ladder in the former “Cliff Village” in Sichuan’s Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and slided on a cable to cross the Nujiang River.

The inspiration for the show came from TVB’s director of News and Information Services Wong Shuk-ming’s experiences in Ningxia and Guizhou. She was astounded by the local roads built on complex mountainous terrain and felt that Hongkongers should see these to understand the changes in the country. During their trips, the shooting team members were also impressed by the updated environmental protection in the villages and by the efficient online shopping available in the communities.

The English version of the documentary is also being broadcast on TVB’s Pearl Channel. Wong said they will shoot more TV shows centered on the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and on the Long-Range Objectives to tell Hongkongers where they can find opportunities.(SD News)