Read the discussion about how she manages to experience China in a more intimate way than many foreign correspondents.

Biography

Carrie Gracie has been the BBC's correspondent in China since August 1991 and has travelled extensively throughout China and Tibet.

She speaks fluent Mandarin and whilst filing on an almost daily basis for BBC outlets on radio and television she has been working on a degree in Chinese, part-time through the University of Westminster in London.

Carrie was awarded her Bachelor of Arts in Chinese in 1996. Highlights of her career in China have been contributing to the sustained live coverage of the death of Deng Xiaoping in 1997 and the handover of Hong Kong on July 1st of that year.

Carrie was born in Bahrain. She was educated in Scotland and her family still live on the Isle of Mull. She was an undergraduate at Edinburgh University, leaving to run her own restaurant for a year.

Carrie has a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University and in 1985 she went to China to teach English and Economics at Yantai and Chongqing Universities in China. On her return to Britain a year later she managed a company called Film Business until she joined the BBC.

Carrie joined the BBC World Service in 1987 as a trainee producer under the World Service training scheme. She worked in many areas of the World Service including the African, Chinese and Asia-Pacific regions.

She also returned to her homeland and did a stint as a producer at Radio Scotland. She had experience of working on the other side of the microphone when she was editor of Newshour and what is now called Insight. She also presented a number of programmes including East Asia Today.