Stories of China, told slowly.
Eastern Whispers is a quiet place to learn about China. Each season follows one theme — the Silk Road, Chinese tea, the Forbidden City in snow — through short films built from still images, slow movement and bilingual captions.
What you will find here
Still imagery
Short films made of photographs and very slow movement — a calm way to watch a place rather than be rushed through it.
Chinese instrumental music
Pipa, erhu, dizi and guqin, with desert wind and bells. There is no narration and no singing in any episode.
Bilingual captions
Every episode carries English and Simplified Chinese text on screen, so the story can be read at your own pace.
Season One · The Silk Road
Twelve episodes follow the road from a single envoy leaving Chang’an in 138 BC to the freight trains and container ships that run the same corridor today.
The First Step West
Zhang Qian walks west with no map, and returns thirteen years later with the first Chinese account of Central Asia.
Caves of Light
A cliff at Dunhuang becomes a thousand painted shrines, painted in mineral pigment by hands that signed nothing.
The e-book
The Story of the Silk Road is our illustrated e-book: 40 to 60 pages of story, maps and images, following the whole road from the gates of Chang’an to the ports of the sea. For readers who want the long version.
Free: Silk Road Route Map & Timeline
Leave your email and we will send a printable map of the ancient route beside today’s rail and sea corridors, with a timeline and a pronunciation guide.
Contact
Questions, corrections or a story you think we should tell: send us a note and we will reply.