CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews: Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace: Davina's DNA search show's been left behind by the march of science
Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace (ITV1)
Science that seemed miraculous a few years ago is now commonplace.
We would be disappointed if a complex paternity riddle couldn't be solved with a single DNA swab.
Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace is now in its seventh series, helping people abandoned at birth to find out who their real parents were.
And even presenters Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall no longer appear surprised when a five-minute genetic test matches an adoptee with blood relatives they've never met.
But the possibilities created by global DNA databases are now far more astounding than anything Long Lost Family has shown us so far.
Writer Barbara Demick spent years in China reporting on its cruel 'one-child-per-family' policy, which lasted from 1980 to 2015. Parents who dared have a second baby were punished with fines equivalent to several years' income. Officials from the Family Planning department smashed up their homes and confiscated their possessions — often stealing their children, too.
Many thousands of Chinese children were adopted by Europeans, Americans and Australians. At that time, it was unimaginable any of them would ever be able to discover their own roots.
'An adoptee finding her birth family seemed no more likely than locating a particular grain of sand,' wrote Demick, whose book Daughters Of The Bamboo Grove was reviewed in the Mail on Sunday last weekend.
African dish of the night:
Visiting a pizzeria run by an Egyptian father and son, on Tucci In Italy (National Geographic and Disney+), actor Stanley was startled to learn the first pizzas were baked for the Pharaohs.
Surely, if that were true, they'd be pyramid-shaped instead of round.
Demick interviewed one man, Zhou Changqi from Hunan province, who was desperate for news of the daughter taken from him and his wife in 2001.
He'd sacrificed everything in his search, and was now living penniless in a corrugated iron shack. 'I miss my daughter all the time,' he begged. 'I know if she's gone to America, I can't get her back. I'm not trying. I would like to get a picture of her.'
Incredibly, in 2022, a DNA ancestry service brought them together. Zhou's daughter, who grew up in middle-class Indiana, took a test for health reasons, checking for genes that indicated a higher risk of cancer. Instead, she found her birth parents.
Both stories in the first of the new series of Long Lost Family seemed unremarkable by comparison. A woman named Lisa who was left in another baby's pram in the late 1960s discovered she had three full siblings — all of whom were brought up at home by their parents, both now dead.
Fortunately, Lisa enjoyed a happy childhood with her adoptive mum and dad. She must have wondered, though, whether she was any better off for knowing she was the only one of the four to be abandoned.
And a man from Neath, 59-year-old Simon, learned that his birth mother was still alive — but that she didn't want to meet him. That, too, was an unrewarding outcome, though he was warmly welcomed by his extended family of cousins.
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BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
The Dating Game: How dating camp could help China's millions of single men
To say China's women are outnumbered would be an understatement. With a staggering 30 million more men than women, one of the world's most populous countries has a deluge of unattached males. The odds are heavily stacked against them finding a date, let alone a wife - something many feel pressured to do. To make matters worse, it's even harder if you're from a lower social class, according to Chinese dating coach Hao, who has over 3,000 clients."Most of them are working class - they're the least likely to find wives," he says. We see this first-hand in Violet Du Feng's documentary, The Dating Game, where we watch Hao and three of his clients throughout his week-long dating camp. All of them, including Hao, have come from poor, rural backgrounds, and were part of the generation growing up after the 90s in China, when many parents left their toddlers with other family members, to go and work in the cities. That generation are now adults, and are going to the cities themselves to try to find a wife and boost their Feng, who is based in the US, wants her film to highlight what life is like for younger generations in her home country. "In a time when gender divide is so extreme, particularly in China, it's about how we can bridge a gap and create dialogue," she tells the BBC. Hao's three clients - Li, 24, Wu, 27 and Zhou, 36 - are battling the aftermath of China's one-child policy. Set up by the government in 1980 when the population approached one billion, the policy was introduced amid fears that having too many people would affect the country's economic a traditional preference for male children led to large numbers of girls being abandoned, placed in orphanages, sex-selective abortions or even cases of female infanticide. The result is today's huge gender imbalance. China is now so concerned about its plummeting birth rate and ageing population that it ended the policy in 2016, and holds regular matchmaking events. Wu, Li and Zhou want Hao to help them find a girlfriend at the very least. He is someone they can aspire to be, having already succeeded in finding a wife, Wen, who is also a dating coach. The men let Hao give them makeovers and haircuts, while he tells them his questionable "techniques" for attracting women - both online and in person. But while everyone tries their best, not everything goes to plan. Hao constructs an online image for each man, but he stretches a few boundaries in how he describes them, and Zhou thinks it feels "fake". "I feel guilty deceiving others," he says, clearly uncomfortable with being portrayed as someone he can't match in reality. Du Feng thinks this is a wider problem. "It's a unique China story, but also it's a universal story of how in this digital landscape, we're all struggling and wrestling with the price of being fake in the digital world, and then the cost that we have to pay to be authentic and honest," she says. Hao may be one of China's "most popular dating coaches", but we see his wife question some of his he sends his proteges out to meet women, spraying their armpits with deodorant, declaring: "It's showtime!"The men have to approach potential dates in a busy night-time shopping centre in Chongqing, one of the world's biggest almost painful to watch as they ask women to link up via the messaging app WeChat. But it does teach them to dig into their inner confidence, which, up until now, has been hidden from view. Dr Zheng Mu, from the National University of Singapore's sociology department, tells the BBC how pressure to marry can impact single men."In China, marriage or the ability, financially and socially, to get married as the primary breadwinner, is still largely expected from men," she says. "As a result, the difficulty of being considered marriageable can be a social stigma, indicating they're not capable and deserving of the role, which leads to great pressures and mental strains."Zhou is despondent about how much dates cost him, including paying for matchmakers, dinner and new clothes. "I only make $600 (£440) a month," he says, noting a date costs about $300. "In the end our fate is determined by society," he adds, deciding that he needs to "build up my status". Du Feng explains: "This is a generation in which a lot of these surplus men are defined as failures because of their economic status. "They're seen as the bottom of society, the working class, and so somehow getting married is another indicator that they can succeed."We learn that one way for men in China to "break social class" is to join the army, and see a big recruitment drive taking place in the film. The film notably does not explore what life is like for gay men in China. Du Feng agrees that Chines society is less accepting of gay men, while Dr Mu adds: "In China, heteronormativity largely rules. "Therefore, men are expected to marry women to fulfill the norms... to support the nuclear family and develop it into bigger families by becoming parents."Technology also features in the documentary, which explores the increasing popularity of virtual boyfriends, saying that over 10 million women in China play online dating games. We even get to see a virtual boyfriend in action - he's understanding, undemanding and undeniably woman says real-life dating costs "time, money, emotional energy - it's so exhausting". She adds that "virtual men are different - they have great temperaments, they're just perfect". Dr Mu sees this trend as "indicative of social problems" in China, citing "long work hours, greedy work culture and competitive environment, along with entrenched gender role expectations"."Virtual boyfriends, who can behave better aligned with women's expected ideals, may be a way for them to fulfil their romantic imaginations."Du Feng adds: "The thing universally that's been mentioned is that the women with virtual boyfriends felt men in China are not emotionally stable."Her film digs into the men's backgrounds, including their often fractured relationships with their parents and families."These men are coming from this, and there's so much negative pressure on them - how could you expect them to be stable emotionally?" Reuters reported last year that "long-term single lifestyles are gradually becoming more widespread in China". "I'm worried about how we connect with each other nowadays, especially the younger generation," Du Feng says."Dating is just a device for us to talk about this. But I am really worried."My film is about how we live in this epidemic of loneliness, with all of us trying to find connections with each other."So by the end of the documentary, which has many comical moments, we see it has been something of a realistic journey of self-discovery for all of the men, including Hao. "I think that it's about the warmth as they find each other, knowing that it's a collective crisis that they're all facing, and how they still find hope," Du Feng says."For them, it's more about finding themselves and finding someone to pat their shoulders, saying, 'I see you, and there's a way you can make it'."Screen Daily's Allan Hunter says the film is "sustained by the humanity that Du Feng finds in each of the individuals we come to know and understand a little better", adding it "ultimately salutes the virtue of being true to yourself".Hao concludes: "Once you like yourself, it's easier to get girls to like you."The Dating Game is out in selected UK cinemas this autumn.
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Telegraph
Danny Boyle: Slumdog Millionaire was cultural appropriation
Danny Boyle has said his hit film Slumdog Millionaire was cultural appropriation. The British director, who also made the films Trainspotting and 127 Hours, said that he was proud of Slumdog Millionaire, but that 'you wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today'. The 2008 Oscar-winning movie, which Boyle directed, follows the story of a boy from the slums of Mumbai who is one question away from winning the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, before being arrested on suspicion of cheating. It was shot in Mumbai, partly in Hindi, and used a local crew, but the award-winning director said he couldn't make it today. He would instead be 'looking for a young Indian filmmaker' to direct the picture, because his directing of the film was 'cultural appropriation'. He told The Guardian on his press tour for the horror film 28 Years Later: 'That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times, but at other times it cannot be. It wouldn't even get financed. 'We wouldn't be able to make that now. And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' He said it was a 'flawed method' because it was filmed by 'outsiders'. 'At the time it felt radical. We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. 'We'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you're still an outsider. It's still a flawed method. Even if I was involved, I'd be looking for a young Indian filmmaker to shoot it.' The film premiered at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival and won eight Oscars at the 2009 Academy Awards, including those for best picture and best director, as well as several BAFTA awards and Golden Globes. It was also a box office hit, making $378 million worldwide on a reported $15 million budget. Speaking about his directorial choices in the interview, Boyle explained: 'I value the popular audience. I believe in popular entertainment. 'I want to push the boat out, but take the popular audience with me.' Elsewhere, he discussed his direction of Isles of Wonder, the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics that featured Daniel Craig as James Bond and the late Queen Elizabeth II. The film, which was a celebration of British culture, also featured the National Health Service, Shakespeare, the Sex Pistols and Windrush migrants. However, Boyle said his 'biggest regret' was not featuring the BBC in it more, saying if he were to do it again he would 'big up' the 'precious' national broadcaster. He said: 'My biggest regret was that we didn't feature the BBC more. I was stopped from doing it because it was the host broadcaster. 'Every other objection, I told them to go f--- themselves. But that one I accepted and I regret that now, especially given the way that technology is moving. 'The idea that we have a broadcaster that is part of our national identity, but is also trusted around the world and that can't be bought, can't be subsumed into Meta or whatever, feels really precious. 'So yeah, if I was doing it again I'd big up the BBC big time. Everything else I'd do exactly the same.'
BBC News
5 hours ago
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What in the World K-pop gets its first gay male idol
The K-pop industry is known for being super strict and encouraging idols not to share details about their private lives, especially their relationships. For LGBTQ idols, there's an added layer of pressure, where they can't reveal or talk about their sexuality at all, due to the stigma associated with homosexuality in South Korea. The country is deeply divided over LGBTQ acceptance. So what happens if you do mention your sexuality as a K-pop idol? BBC Korean's Juna Moon has been talking to Bain from the boyband JUST B, who came out as gay on stage during a show in Los Angeles earlier this year. We hear some of her interview with Bain, who talks about his fans' reactions. And Juna explains why it's so unusual for K-pop idols to disclose their sexual identity. Instagram: @bbcwhatintheworld Email: whatintheworld@ WhatsApp: +44 330 12 33 22 6 Presenter: Hannah Gelbart Producers: Julia-Ross Roy and Benita Barden Editor: Verity Wilde
