Going to the Sea: A Year in Changing China
A documentary film about young women in China who are trapped between two very different worlds.
Shot in the city of Dalian in 1993, Going to the Sea is a historical record of China’s shift from Maoist marxism to a market economy. This documentary explores the impact of major economic and social changes on female students studying to be English teachers at one of the last Maoist universities in China.
Going to the Sea aired nationally on The Women’s Television Network in Canada. The film won the Lester B. Pearson Award for International Development Issues at the REEL Women International Film Festival and continues to sell to university libraries around the world.
Runtime: 48 Minutes
As English instructors to future teachers at Liaoning Normal University, Jocelyn Cullity and Prakash Younger find during their year-long stay that the university and the city were undergoing major economic and social changes. The shift from Maoist Marxism to a market economy in China plays a serious role on the futures of the students and fellow faculty at Liaoning Normal University.
This documentary film provides fascinating insights into the experiences and thinking of young people preparing to be teachers at a time of dramatic change in China, with the tides of marketization and globalization opening up new vistas and possibilities, as well as difficult dilemmas. As two young Canadian teacher educators spend a year in a normal university in Dalian, their encounters with colleagues and students open up a vivid sense of what lies behind the changes that have transformed China’s economy and society over the last two decades. A must see for anyone interested in contemporary China.
- Dr. Ruth Hayhoe, Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
