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.
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.
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.
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. This Vox Borders episode looks at why truck art is such a staple 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.
Meet the people trying to make Japan great again. Like many nations, Japan is undergoing a surge in right-wing nationalism, the brand of nationalism that is skeptical of globalization and outsiders. But while Japan's nationalism looks similar to other right-wing movements in the West, when you look under the surface, you see a totally different story.
Why ocean ice matters. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe. Every year the ocean ice in the Arctic melts and refreezes again the winter. But recently the ice has been melting faster than ever. This means that the ice sheets are becoming thinner. This matters because ocean ice performs important regulatory functions for our planet.
The ritual of Japanese business cards. Ritual and ceremony are paramount in Japanese culture. Together, they dictate social interactions at both the macro and micro scales of society. Understanding and navigating these norms can be difficult, but sometimes the solution is waiting in Tokyo’s metro.
What vending machines can teach you about this country. While in Japan I noticed vending machines everywhere. Looking into it a little deeper a discovered that there's a very interesting answer to why Japan has so many vending machines. It's an economic story but it's also a story about how Japanese society values robotics and automation.
Oslo is the Tesla capital of the world. I spent a day in Oslo before traveling to Svalbard, and noticed that there were Teslas everywhere. Upon further investigation, I learned that the Norwegian government heavily incentivizes ownership of electric cars: Tesla doesn't pay a sales tax on the models it sells, electric car owners are exempt from automobile tolls, and they can charge their vehicles for free. The catch is that Norway funds these initiatives through its sovereign wealth fund, which is almost entirely comprised of profits from Norway's oil and fossil fuel exports.
What I learned when I trained sled dogs for a day. I spoke with my friend Sasha, who works in Barentsburg training Arctic sled dog teams. Dog breeds like the Husky or Samoyed were traditionally bred in Siberia, but in the 1920s when international dog standards were developing, the Soviet Union was closed to the world. Because of this, these traditionally Russian breeds fell under the administration of the Nordic Dog Union. Today, this has led to a schism about the identity and origins of these dogs.
I visited Svalbard's Global Seed Vault, built specifically for doomsday. In this video I visited Svalbard's Global Seed Vault, founded by the Crop Trust group in 2008. Over 135,000 genetic deposits have been stored since the vault's opening, to be used at a further date in case crop diversity is threatened due to changing global conditions. The seed vault had its first withdrawal, caused by the war in Syria in 2015, and had minor flooding in May 2017.
I spoke with a Haitian graffiti artist about the unintended consequences of longterm disaster relief funding. Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake in 2010. Seven years later, over 10,000 nonprofit organizations and $6 billion dollars of aid funding have been funneled into the country. Although there's still a desperate need for basic services such as food, healthcare, education, and shelter, questions have arisen about whether this continuous aid has become a crutch for the Haitian government. Similarly, Haitians themselves are awaking to the notion of self-determination in their country.
They taught me how to surf. The sport of surfing remains relatively unknown in Haiti. The organizers of Surf Haiti are trying to change that. They run a surf commune in the southern coast of Haiti at Jacmel. By raising domestic awareness of surfing through lessons and education, these surfers hope to build momentum for Haiti to submit a surfing bid to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where surfing will debut as an Olympic event.
This sustainable initiative is helping to save Haiti's forests. Haiti has a significant deforestation problem, driven in part by the widespread usage of charcoal for cooking in Haitian households. This practice is doubly problematic as it also raises health concerns for Haitians who burn charcoal in their homes. One initiative, spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy, is tackling this problem through the introduction of solar ovens. These ovens cook food with reflected sunlight, reducing the burden of deforestation in a sustainable way.
There's more to the border than just a wall. This dispatch is from the Rio Grande River, on the Texas side of the U.S. border with Mexico. I embedded with border patrol, to learn about the technology, techniques, and challenges of monitoring a section of the border with over 300 miles of river.
Keeping time was challenging for ancient civilizations, so this one built a city to do it. This dispatch is from the ancient archaeological site at Teotihuacán, in Mexico. I walked around the ruins with a guide, and learned about how the people who built the site planned it in a way that helped them track time. Scholars theorize that the structures at Teotihuacán were built to align with the cosmos on certain days of the year, which let the people know when it was time to plant crops or conduct rituals.
I visited Gibraltar and hung out with monkeys. This dispatch is from Gibraltar, a British enclave on the southern coast of Spain. Gibraltar is home to Europe's only population of wild monkeys, the Barbary Macaques. They've lived on the island for hundreds of years, and have become part of its history, but nobody knows how they got there. Their origin is shrouded in legend.
