Never Give Up by Bear Grylls

Author:Bear Grylls [Grylls, Bear]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473584938
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2021-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

44

Breaking China

FILMING AN ORIGINAL show for Chinese TV with Chinese stars had been a clear goal of mine for a good few years during early Running Wild seasons.

Discovery Channel had previously launched into China, and the main feature series they’d led with was Man vs. Wild. As far as the government was concerned, Man vs. Wild was considered neutral, positive and aspirational to a new, young generation of Chinese. I took that as a great compliment.

It was also a clear moment that cemented brand BG into the world’s biggest country.

On the back of the success of Man vs. Wild in China we were approached to develop and film a new primetime format for Dragon TV. We planned to film it in the heart of the Chinese jungle, and we called it, simply, Survivor Games.

To be able to return to that incredible country and film this new show was always going to be special, and we were set to take some of the best-loved Chinese stars as one large group on the adventure of their lives.

None of us really knew what to expect.

Just getting to the location was an epic (and I have known a few horror travel journeys), but whatever I went through, the crew had it ten times worse. By the time I arrived, all the team were pretty broken in terms of exhaustion, not from the physicality of the journey or the preparations but mainly from the endless late-night Chinese production meetings that just went round and round in circles. The end result was always the same. The next morning, even more Chinese execs would turn up ready for action.

If we ever thought corralling our own small team around a foreign country was tough, then try it with 150 Chinese crew, few of whom spoke a word of English, but all of whom carried a brand-new camera on their shoulder. We knew this was going to be an adventure.

Once we got beyond all that stuff and actually got on to the ground and into the jungle with these celebrities, it was an incredible time. It rained non-stop, and we had some long old days, but the thing I remember best is the way the Chinese stars started to warm towards values like selflessness and humility. Not the sort of values you might believe hold much sway when it comes to survival. But in the wild, selflessness and humility are top of the tree. If you’re a big ego, if you’re selfish, or you consider yourself too brilliant, you tend to end up abandoned, eaten or killed.

The celebrities each had to overcome some big fears and obstacles, whether it was heights, spiders, caves or white water, and it was powerful to be in the thick of the emotion with them. There is something beautifully universal about both courage and fear, and how people manage them. And those moments always bring people close together. I really learnt to love many of those Chinese stars, against all my expectations. I maybe thought it was going to be just another trip, another job.

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