Ben Fogle: "I'm reconciled to the fact I might not be returning to China any time soon"

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

“I’m reconciled to the fact I might not be returning to China any time soon,” says Ben Fogle. He’s not being flippant: there’s a real possibility he will be banned from the People’s Republic after his new series about the country starts this week.

“We had to think very carefully, because there are a number of things we filmed that the authorities there won’t be happy with,” he explains. “We did have a government-assigned observer with us, but they’d often disappear when the temptation of tea and cakes arose. So our documentary is a pretty accurate insight into our ‘lived experience’ out there.

“But I would absolutely say to everyone, ‘Go to China’. It’s probably the most interesting travel journey I’ve done.” Here are his highlights.

Jiankou

The Great Wall

“When I was told that I would be ‘fixing’ a part of the Wall, I thought it would be a typical TV moment of me holding a brick with 20 other people wearing white gloves, gently putting it down and then claiming to have been a part of the Wall-making team. I had no idea that, in China, when they say you’re doing something, you really do it. So I physically lifted and made the cement for dozens of bricks that were hundreds and hundreds of years old. That was really moving, but even just seeing the Wall at the main tourist spots near Beijing is incredible.

“Nothing can prepare you for the scale, majesty, magnitude and emotions of the Great Wall as it soars over peaks and down gullies. It took my breath away.”

Chengdu

A Chinese medicine market

“Traditional medicine is huge in China, and the markets themselves are vast. It’s like going to a FTSE 100 company: they’ve got massive boards showing the fluctuating prices of different ingredients, changing in real time, like gold and silver prices. They use a lot of animal parts, of which penises seem to be very common for healing human aliments that involve sexual organs. But we also went to a cockroach farm where they harvest billions of cockroaches in one big room. They’re then crunched and mulched down into toothpaste and shampoo and moisturisers. I’m not sure why they’re used for toothpaste. Perhaps, in the same way a deer penis is supposed to enhance your sexual prowess, cockroaches have really shiny teeth… I’ve now got a mental image of a billion cockroaches all with Rylan’s teeth.”

Hengdian World Studios

Playing a ‘Chinawood’ extra

“Hengdian is the world’s largest outdoor film studio: it’s where the micro-drama began – those short, vertical-format films for watching on mobiles that are taking over the world. It’s a multibillion-pound market, with literally 100 different micro-drama sets, every one of them being used and rotated around 24 hours a day.

“You can visit lots of the sets – there’s a full-size replica of the Forbidden City, they’ve got Shanghai built along the banks of a river – and I got to be an extra in one of the films, indulging my childhood aspirations to be an actor.

My character saves a Chinese damsel in distress from some wicked thieves – or do I? There’s a bit of a twist at the end and I suspect an Oscar is on its way!”

Longji

Getting down and dirty on the rice terraces

“The rice terraces at Longji are stunning. They’re ethereal, otherworldly, timeless – and I was lucky enough to be there for the annual planting festival. That’s the opening of the rice season, when they irrigate all the terraces, so you watch the water flood into tens of thousands of terraces, and you’ve got the reflection of the sun, and all the colour starts to return to what up until that stage of the year is quite a barren winter landscape.

“It’s not just a ceremony, though: everyone gets out there and mucks in. They have to catch all the fish that are in the terraces, use animals – and humans – to pull the ploughs, everyone gets muddy to get the terraces all working. It’s an extraordinary spectacle of community, and of practices that have gone unchanged for millennia. Beautiful.”

Sichuan

Pretending to be a panda

“We went to a centre that was preparing giant pandas for reintegration into the wilderness, and in order to ensure that they’re not habituated to humans, you have to dress as a panda – which, honestly, was completely unexpected.

“The slightly comedic element is that these are pretty basic panda costumes – this is not Aardman Animations quality – but the result was that we were able to get very close to these semi-wild creatures, and it was the first time I’d ever seen a panda in my life, either wild or in captivity.

“Were the pandas fooled by the costumes? I think the jury’s out. It’s quite possible that if you watch the programme, you’ll see one roll its eyes.”

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China with Ben Fogle begins on Monday 6 April at 9pm on 5.

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