Telling China's story(2)

Host and architect Danny Forster visits some of China's ambitious projects in the documentary How China Works, which will be aired as the first program of Discovery Channel's new anthology Hour China. (Photo/provided to China Daily)

"We told people clearly what kind of story we wanted to tell. In most cases they agreed with us. It means they believed we're objective," Channa says.

"We should see things with the eyes rather than the mind. That makes things universal."

Hopefully it will bring a different perspective from what they (foreign audiences) have seen before, says Enrique R Martinez, acting president of Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific.

Marnitnez attributes the successful launch of Hour China in part to their partnership with China Intercontinental Communication Center, a Beijing-based agency dedicated to promoting cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries.

He adds that the channel's high standards of programming were maintained for global screening.

Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific has been collaborating with CICC since 2004. By now they've jointly produced over 65 hours of China-related documentaries including China's Man Made Marvels and Ultimate Olympics.

In 2010, the two sides launched China Imagica, a project that brings Discovery's award-winning producers in conversations with local filmmakers involved in the making of the documentaries.

In the past decade, Discovery's "elite director program" has also sponsored and provided professional training to hopeful young Chinese filmmakers.

Channa says he has come to understand China better by seeing the way young people think.

Channa came to China 15 years ago. His Indian background helped him to understand his neighboring country's many changes－from being known as a manufacturing hub to aspiring to innovation.

"I understand how it feels to wake up among one billion people," he says.

Channa believes China is the world's new superpower and shares similarities with developed countries in the West.

But given the complexity and scale of its development, he adds, China's development is not something that can be copied from elsewhere.

"You have to find your own unique pathway from here," he says.

"The documentaries are not only about what China has been in the past decade, but rather indicate what it will become in the next five years."