Stephen Hallett

Name: Stephen Hallett
From: Oxford
Living in: Beijing

“China is endlessly fascinating, frustrating, inspiring and energising. The longer I live here, the more I become aware of my own ignorance – yet the more I learn to trust my intuition.”

Stephen Hallett first went to Beijing as a student in 1980. Since then has spent over 20 years living and working in China. After studying Chinese language and literature at Leeds, Beijing Languages Institute and People’s University, he taught English at Beijing Agricultural University, ran Chinese Studies at the International School of Beijing and then, through a chance encounter in Beijing’s Lama Temple, got involved in documentary production.

In 1990 he began working as an independent producer, making films for British and American television. One of the high points of his film career was in 1994, while producing a documentary about the lives of women in the Loess Plateau of northern Shaanxi.  Staying for months in a yaodong cave house he got close to local farmers and learnt much about the conflict between traditional values and family planning. He also produced programmes on, amongst other subjects, China’s first rock star Cui Jian, the Chinese environment, the Beijing press and a Shanghai male fertility clinic. In 1996 he set up Xadadu Productions, a London-based production company focussing on films about China.

After 2001 Stephen moved from TV to radio, making programmes about culture, the arts and disability for the BBC’s Chinese Service. From 2005-8 he represented the BBC World Service Trust in China, running two media development projects, one to train visually impaired people in radio production, the other to promote documentary production across west China. Since 1999 he has chaired a small UK-based charity, China Vision, which is currently supporting disabled people in projects to raise awareness and improve people’s lives.  He is director of “Enabling the Disabled”, a project run jointly with a local NGO, the Beijing One plus One Centre. Stephen’s current passions include Chinese civil society, environmental issues, the Mongolian grasslands and the Mongolian horse head fiddle.