Seeing

Seeing is an award-winning journalist's searing and candid memoir about epidemics, pollution, and domestic violence in contemporary China. Through an intimate narrative, and told with an immediate and gripping voice, Chai Jing describes her life during her 14 years as an investigative reporter at CCTV, China's official state news channel. Chai Jing reports on the cover-up of the SARS epidemic (2003), pushes for China's first law against domestic violence (2005), the consequences of industrial pollution in her hometown (2007), and reveals the causes of nearly 70,000 deaths in the Great Earthquake of 2008. Chai shows us the difficulties of unbiased reporting in China and strives to seek the truth despite the pressure. Shortly after the publication of this book, Chai resigned from CCTV and made a film, Under the Dome (2015), about pollution in China, which was viewed 300 million times online seven days before it was censored. An unusual, intimate storyteller, Chai offers a realistic, de-conceptualised view of China, where people cope with a complex and volatile political system with courage, hope, and an unwavering belief in humanism.