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Reporting from six borders around the world, Emmy-nominated journalist Johnny Harris investigates the human stories behind the lines on a map in a new series for Vox.com.
“If you want to know a country’s deepest fears, look at its border.”
2018
Colombia is currently dealing with a massive wave of refugees coming from Venezuela. Venezuelans are fleeing their home because of a severe economic crisis under President Nicolas Maduro. There are high inflation rates and there isn’t enough food available for people within Venezuela to even eat. Thousands of Venezuelans cross the Simon Bolivar bridge located at Cúcuta every day and Colombia doesn’t seem to be turning anyone way. This borders episode looks at why Colombia doesn’t turn away these refugees, the shared history of the two nations and how there may be a limit to Colombia’s acceptance of incoming Venezuelans.
Drug lord Pablo Escobar smuggled four hippos into his own personal zoo during the 1980’s. But wild hippos are usually only native to Africa and their escape after Escobar’s death has left Colombia with an unexpected problem. Due to reproduction, there are now dozens roaming around one of the country’s rivers. This episode looks at how the presence of these hippos affects Colombia’s biodiversity and how people became fond of their presence.
Cumbia is a growing staple of Latin American music. Its driving beat can be heard all over the continent, from Argentina to Mexico to the US. Cumbia’s catchy rhythms can be traced back to the villages along the river banks of Colombia’s Rio Magdalena where mostly African and American indigenous musical elements fused together to create a whole new style of music. And cumbia keeps evolving. Today DJs and pop stars are bringing cumbia into the electronic realm. But no matter how much it evolves, it always comes back to Colombia.
Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine and the US is the largest consumer of the drug. Cocaine comes from the leaf of the coca plant which is harvested and processed in Colombia. Despite the Colombian government’s effort to eradicate the plant, coca cultivation is at an all time high. In this episode we go deep into the cocaine economy and discover why this problem is so hard to solve.
2018
Even though Britain gave Hong Kong back to China 21 years ago, today when you walk around the city you can see British fingerprints everywhere. From statues of Queen Victoria to double decker buses, British culture and lifestyle is baked into the culture at every turn. Both the history and the current-day British influence are visually fascinating stories and in this episode I show it all -- exploring Britain’s imperial history, which includes opioid trade, discrimination and a divided city, and then showing the effects of that history, resulting in a city that is unlike any I’ve visited.
When Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997, Chinese leaders agreed that Hong Kong would be able to keep its economic and political systems, including some of the civil freedoms denied to China’s citizens on the mainland, for the next 50 years. Although Hong Kong still has nearly 30 years of semi-autonomy left, China has started tightening its grip, and many believe it is chipping away at Hong Kong’s freedoms. In this episode, I explore how Hong Kong is dealing with the looming deadline and China’s premature moves.
Hong Kong’s famous skyline is known for its colorful lights and modern buildings, but a closer look reveals some unique designs inspired by feng shui. Like the gaping holes in the middle of buildings to let dragons fly through or cannon-like structures installed to deflect bad “qi” (pronounced chi). The main belief in feng shui is that destiny is bound to the environment, so good fortune and harmony can be invited in and bad energy can be warded off by arranging objects and buildings around us. It's an ancient Chinese practice that has come to define Hong Kong's skyline. In this episode of Borders, we explore feng shui principles, explain the circumstances that allowed it to flourish in Hong Kong and take a look at the unique designs around the city.
Master Wu started making neon signs in the ’80s and has been filling Hong Kong’s streets with bright neon signs ever since. But recently, Master Wu has seen his business slow down as brighter-burning and more energy-efficient LED signs emerge. In addition to getting fewer requests, Hong Kong’s iconic neon landscape is also losing thousands of signs per year, ushering in the end of the city’s neon era. As Hong Kong’s neon lights start to fade, I spent some time with Master Wu at his neon shop, where he showed me how he makes neon signs, and took a look at Hong Kong’s changing cityscape.
Hong Kong is the most expensive housing market in the world. It has been ranked as the least affordable housing market on Earth for eight years in a row, and the price per square foot seems to be only going up. The inflated prices are forcing Hongkongers to squeeze into unconventionally small spaces that can affect their quality of life. Tens of thousands of Hongkongers are living in spaces that range from 75 to 140 square feet. To put that in perspective, the average parking space in the US is about 150 square feet. And in the most extreme cases, Hongkongers have resorted to homes the size of a coffin. I spent some time exploring the living situation in Hong Kong to find out why housing has become so expensive and spaces so tight. To understand how Hong Kong’s housing market turned out this way and see how it’s affecting people’s lives, watch the final episode of Borders Hong Kong.
2017
Haiti and the Dominican Republic may share the same island, but there's a surprising amount of inequality between the two neighbors. If you're born in Haiti, you're over two times more likely to die as a baby compared to in the DR. Haitians are also almost 10 times poorer and are more likely to have a shorter life. To understand why this is the case, you have to look at the countries' past and especially how they were colonized.
The ice in the Arctic is disappearing. Melting Arctic ice means new economic opportunities: trade routes in the Arctic ocean, and access to natural resources. Because of this, the Arctic nations are now moving to expand their border claims. Russia has shown that it’s the most ambitious, using a potent combination of soft power and military buildup to advance its agenda. They’ve said the Arctic is rightfully theirs.
For this episode I found myself embedded with a small community in Japan. They were born there, they speak the language. But they're not Japanese citizens, or even ethnically Japanese - they're North Korean. There's about 150,000 of them living in Japan today, and they've been there for over a century. This community has close ties with the regime in Pyongyang, which supports them financially (and vice-versa). But more importantly, Pyongyang offers them an identity, a heritage, and cultural legitimacy - things that some elements of Japanese society work to deny them.
For the first time ever in 2014, the U.S. recorded more undocumented migrants from Central America than from Mexico. In particular, 52,000 unaccompanied children were detained between October 2013 and June 2014. With what seemed to be a looming humanitarian crisis to deal with, the Obama administration enlisted the help of Mexico, and President Enrique Peña Nieto's administration. Together, they launched the Southern Border Program initiative: the U.S. provided funding, equipment, and training to Mexico in exchange for a crackdown along Mexico's southern border. After all, many would-be migrants from Central America to the U.S. must pass through Mexico first. This policy worked for a few years, but levels of undocumented migrants are on the rise again. And the mounting human costs make it increasingly difficult to call a success.
For thousands of years, humans have drawn lines on the earth, dividing the planet into nations. But there are some parts of the world that no empire, nation or state has been able to tame. In this episode of Borders, Johnny heads deep into the Himalaya mountains to learn about how people have lived away from the concept of borders. China and Nepal are acting fast to develop this remote region and it's having major effects on the local population.
The sixth episode deals with a border between Morocco and Spain. The journey to asylum is never easy. And perhaps no one knows this better than would-be African migrants to the European Union. In North Africa, on the border of Morocco, there's a Spanish town called Melilla. It's technically Europe. So undocumented migrants and refugees, asylum seekers, wait in limbo for a chance to scale the fence and apply for asylum in Europe. It's the first of many, many hurdles. And it's a tall one.
Johnny Harris
Himself
Streaming availability information not available
2019
The story of how a hastily-drawn line divided one people into two.
Elections in India aren’t like others. India voted to pick its central government for the next five years throughout the spring of 2019. An eighth of the world’s entire population was eligible to vote in this election. That’s 900 million people, and more than 67 percent voted. India runs the world’s biggest elections, and officials put in a lot of effort to make this democratic exercise is as accessible as possible. This means they make sure everyone, even in the most remote locations, is near a polling booth — even if it means bringing voting machines to them by elephant.
Fishing is the economic lifeline for villages in northern Sri Lanka. But after a decades long civil war, fishermen returned to find their fish stocks depleted – and they pointed the finger squarely at neighboring India. As Indian fishermen developed methods to increase hauls, and crossed a maritime border that was more permeable during the war, they depleted the fish stock for both sides. Now, the Sri Lankan Navy is retaliating with force, only making the relationship between the two communities that rely on these waters worse.
Bedfords were first introduced to British India during World War II. This truck model and others similar to it stuck around, and since then they've been produced commercially throughout the country. But today, they’re not just functional and mundane — their paintings make them stand out. Colorful trucks aren’t rare in India, and their designs aren’t random. Artists that specialize in painting these trucks put a lot of thought into the art form, making the vehicles a spectacle of beauty in India.
India’s government has strict laws surrounding cow slaughter because cows are sacred in Hinduism. Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized the need to make sure India’s cows are protected and some state governments followed suit by opening more cow shelters and ordering more police crackdowns. But some took cow protection into their own hands. Cow vigilantes started patrolling neighborhoods looking to physically punish those who were allegedly harboring cows, consuming cows or even transporting cows. In most cases, the victims of these mob beatings were Muslim.