CCTV 9 Documentary channel

。。。nearly a decade later。。。

I think this 50 minutes 2024 CCTV 9 documentary deserves breaking the long thread silence. "Wisdom of China: Laozi" presented by Bryan van Norden. It is quite exceptional in many ways, no less because it was actually produced for and aired on Chinese Central TV.  Prof Van Norden teaches Chinese Philosophy and Chinese Classical Literature at Vassar College N.Y. and Wuhan University, and has published several books on classical Chinese and Chinese phylosophy. To judge by the comments on You Tube, the program seems to have been well received by Chinese viewers - no mean feat!

This is the original episode shown on CCTV 9:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_15s8nbwl4

It's almost entirely in Chinese with Chinese subs, I found it quite clear and the Professor's command of Chinese is a joy to hear. 

Here is the mainly English version that very recently appeared in You Tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvglQJDrgJI&list=PLFZtry6b0WR4LQ8T53tlAgxIyIrnAM-sg

Thanks, @Luxi I will have a look. 

On 11/24/2025 at 5:58 PM, Luxi said:

the Professor's command of Chinese is a joy to hear. 

His pronunciation is indeed impressive! But we're only going by the scripted bits he narrates off camera - or are we? Do we ever see him speak ex tempore in that video?

On 11/24/2025 at 9:18 PM, sanchuan said:

Do we ever see him speak

Only one short sentence dialogue with a market trader…not clear enough.  But I still prefer to believe it is achievable.

I didn't watch the entire video, I sort of skipped around, but I don't think this foreign professor is the narrator. The narrator sounds like a native speaker and like a professional broadcast voice at that. I know he introduces himself in Chinese at 00:35, but I think the viewer is supposed to realize its a VoiceOver person saying it. The only place I actually saw him speak was at 00:50 and he sounds like a typical Laowai: "你说的很好“ with typical Laowai pronunciation. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I don't think he has a strong command of Chinese language. The video is certainly interesting though.

On 11/25/2025 at 7:58 AM, suMMit said:

I don't think this foreign professor is the narrator

😢😢😢...sad, but you're absolutely right @suMMit. Much too good to be real. I'll have to keep on searching for that elusive role model and evidence for the impossible. 

At least the content is interesting and the presentation is good.