South China Morning Post
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SCMP Series
The education issue
8 of 17
4
Why Hong Kong’s leading education reformer is thinking of turning to TikTok
Kai-ming Cheng was involved with Hong Kong’s education reforms in 1999, when it was recognised that society had changed, so education had to change accordingly. Photo: Jonathan Wong
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How Chinese University of Hong Kong was for students who couldn’t get into HKU
The Chinese University of Hong Kong was founded in 1963.
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From ‘Six Arts’ to repressive rote learning: China’s education history
China’s school curricula focused heavily on the Confucian canon of classical texts from 134BC until the early 20th century. Photo: Getty Images
7
China’s ‘red’ tourists learn about history, even if it’s not all true
Chinese tourists take photos of themselves wearing Red Army costumes as they visit the hanging bridge in the city of Luding, site of a famous 1930s civil war skirmish, in Sichuan province. Photo: Getty Images
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Who says watching Now TV and Netflix can’t be educational?
There’s a wealth of documentaries and educational series out there, including Netflix’s Explained which provides a handy, subject-per-episode primer on all manner of topics. Photo: Netflix
9
The elderly Hong Kong cleaners betrayed by earlier administration
In wet markets like this, swimming pools, parks and on the streets in Hong Kong is an army of underemployed and elderly cleaners and sweepers. They are the victims of colonial officials’ opposition to free compulsory education, which left those from poor families semi-literate at best. Photo: Vernon Yuen/NurPhoto via Getty Images
10
Milestone for non-profit that funds rural Chinese women’s education
Since 2005, Educating Girls of Rural China has sponsored the education of young women like Qian Tuoxiong (pictured) – and a new photo book reveals the impact the non-profit has had on their lives. Photo: Olivia Martin-McGuire
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Educational escapes, from Ames, Iowa to Hogwarts to Wat Mahathat, Bangkok
Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, the UK, was used to portray Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. Photo: Getty Images
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‘It’s a lot of work, but very rewarding’: Ritz-Carlton chef on teaching kids to cook
Peter Find, the executive chef of the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, talks about learning from others, and passing down his knowledge to the next generations of cooks. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
13
George Saunders on slow reading and his immersion in Russian short stories
Anton Chekhov (left) and Leo Tolstoy. Some of their short stories are examined in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life), by George Saunders. Photo: Getty Images
> More on this Series
There’s a wealth of documentaries and educational series out there, including Netflix’s Explained which provides a handy, subject-per-episode primer on all manner of topics. Photo: Netflix
Opinion
What a view
by Stephen McCarty
What a view
by Stephen McCarty

What you can learn from Netflix and other TV: History 101, who Bruce Lee was, how to be a rock star and so much more

  • Streaming puts an encyclopedia at your fingertips. From primers about beauty, factory farming and pandemics to learning to rock with Jack Black, it’s all there
  • Watch scientists solve the riddles of existence on The Most Unknown, or learn all you really need to know about Bruce Lee, Genghis Khan, and other figures
Stephen McCarty
Stephen McCarty
Why you can trust SCMP

Decades ago, condemnation of the television set as a “goggle box” that would give you square eyes always sold short the best programme-makers (and the best programmes).

Even back then, there was usually something educational and enlightening to be found in the schedules. Today, however, with streaming, we have our own Library of Alexandria on tap.
Investigatory digest Explained (Netflix, two seasons) provides a handy, subject-per-episode primer on all manner of topics: the concept of beauty (in art, architecture and flesh); the “meat is murder” idea that slaughtering factory-farmed animals is killing the planet; and the next pandemic, which doesn’t care that we’re still grappling with the present predicament.

Talking of comestibles, should your curiosity about the origins of what we eat extend beyond believing it magically appears on supermarket shelves, then sign up for a Food Factory shift with BBC First. How it’s made, processed, bottled, canned, boxed, shrink-wrapped or otherwise readied for sale is revealed here; series five coming soon.

Current Sea follows the efforts of a British activist to create a protected marine zone in Cambodia. Photo: Now True

If you wish to educate yourself in matters historical, the digital pantry overflows. History 101 (Netflix) chops into digestible chunks the emergence of China as a superpower, the space race, plastic’s perils and more. But if you want laughs along with your learning, try The Who Was? Show (also Netflix), which takes a riotous approach to everybody’s favourite school subject.

Deceptively informative, it provides everything you’ll ever really need to know about Bruce Lee (“the cha-cha champion of Hong Kong” and “China’s first global movie star”), Tutankhamen, Frida Kahlo, Genghis Khan (a prototype postman) and others, their stories told in graphics, cartoons, live action and – indispensable when studying Marco Polo – rap.

But if you prefer to know where we’re going rather than where we’ve been, and reckon finding out about how we’re messing the place up is all part of changing our behaviour, eco-documentaries are plentiful on streaming platforms – and the Now True channel offers some required watching.

Current Sea follows the efforts of British activist and ex-police officer Paul Ferber to create a protected marine zone in Cambodia, an ambition that clashes with the interests of the illegal fleets stripping the Gulf of Thailand of fish.

Australian reporter Matt Blomberg, helping Ferber to inspire a new generation of eco-warriors in Cambodia, notes that the country has been called “the most dangerous place to be an environmental journalist”.

The Great Invisible investigates the continuing planetary and personal cost of the United States’ worst maritime oil-industry catastrophe. Photo: Now True
Netflix documentary The Most Unknown features nine scientists tackling existential puzzles together. Photo: Netflix

Across the planet, devastation of a different order afflicted the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, when the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded. The Great Invisible, also showing on Now True, investigates the continuing planetary and personal cost of the United States’ worst maritime oil-industry catastrophe, which killed 11 workers and innumerable mammals, birds, reptiles and fish.

Fortunately, the universe is full of more edifying wonders; and some of them queue up to amaze in Netflix documentary The Most Unknown. Director-screenwriter Werner Herzog served as an adviser on a film that tracks nine wide-eyed scientists – cognitive psychologist, ecologist, particle physicist included, all strangers – dipping into each other’s specialist fields to tackle existential puzzles together. It’s a mission that begins in an Italian cave with a geomicrobiologist, who declares her admiration for “the most beautiful slime” she’s ever seen.

The Most Unknown posits that we become smarter the more we experience. So after all that heavy-duty finding out stuff, why not learn how to do something really cool – such as be a rock star? Jack Black teaches you how in School of Rock (Amazon Prime). It’s a long way to the top if ya wanna rock ’n’ roll.

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