During our weekly lunch we had as speaker Ms. Jocelyn Ford, a documentary director and journalist.
She is a Beijing-based award-winning public radio  journalist and filmmaker who has reported from Asia for three decades, including 15 in China. Her audio work can be heard on Marketplace, Radio Lab, The World and other U.S. public radio programs.
Director of the award-winning documentary “Nowhere To Call Home: A Tibetan in Beijing” Jocelyn Ford spoke about her work, and how her ground-breaking film paved a path to cross-cultural education and workshops for students headed abroad.
Her documentary on Tibetan views has been translated into 11 languages and won awards worldwide.
“Nowhere To Call Home: A Tibetan in Beijing” tells the story of Zanta, a widowed Tibetan migrant in Beijing whose life dream is to send her young son to school. When Jocelyn started filming Zanta and her seven-year-old son’s lives in Beijing, she assumed she’d never be able to show the documentary in China.

She tells the story of a Tibetan lady in Beijing, her struggle against plain racism in the capital (like being refused to rent an apartment), her views on her home town, her transformation into the jewelry business. While the topic seems controversial Jocelyn succeeded to show the movie in China. The movie makes us discover a world that most ignore or tend to ignore.
China never ceases to surprise. First came invitations to present her film at Xinhua News Service, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and various universities.  Following an enthusiastic response to screenings at high schools affiliated with the People’s University and Peking University, the Beijing-based journalist realized she’d stumbled on a way to have groundbreaking conversations on tolerance and inclusion with PRC teens.

The discussions on cultural sensitivity, diversity, tolerance and social justice were a catalyst for Jocelyn to develop full-fledged workshops and short films that help prepare PRC students bound for college overseas to integrate into diverse societies. She is now considering developing similar workshops for companies sending personnel abroad, and welcomes ideas.

So, we can say she covered a number of interesting topics, starting with her rather unexpected transformation from a radio reporter into a film maker. And the story of the Tibetan lady.

She has also worked on showing the challenges Chinese students face while studying abroad, the culture clash, the impulse to cheat, the lack of personal engagement and creativity.
See more here: CollegeSurvivalWorkshopb.pdf

Thanks Jocelyn for the talk!
Our big next event is on 22 May, see the flyer!