christ0ph

I saw Last Train Home on WLIW, one of our local PBS channels, and it is a hell of a good film, one that really made me wonder what we all can do to change these kinds of situations. Basically it's the story of a teenage girl who is growing up in a Chinese town far from the city, with her grandparents, because both of her parents are working their butts off in the city so that she can afford to go to school. They put all their faith in her (and she deserves it, sort of, because she's cearly a smar girl...but..) Every year at New Years Festival, hundreds of millions of Chinese return "home" - to their official hometown, often its to see their families, children, parents. But its crazy, because as I said, its HUNDREDS of millions of people. Anyway, this movie was shot in China and all the scenes are real. Its as real a story as a documentary can be, and the scenes of riots as thousands of people attempt to board overcrowded trains to go home are as real as real can be. You can see families being separated (accidentally, by the crush of people) Like Japan and Korea where they have crews of (physically big) people whose job it is to cram every last person into trains, like sardines, its like nothing here in the US. Looking at the labor intensive factory work I couldn't help but thinking, all those jobs will be completely automated in just a few years. What the hel will they do then? What will happen? How will they eat? How will WE eat!