Showing posts with label Chinese culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese culture. Show all posts

Jan 30, 2012

100 Non-Blooming Flowers

Monday, January 30, 2012
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An article written by Yu Xiaodong in the January 12 edition of News China magazine, A Hundred Flowers More, notes that cultural development in China, although touted by the government on one hand, is severely limited by the other hand. The article notes that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) has "stressed the importance of promoting cultural development," but that the government's political control has the effect of limiting cultural development. This inconsistency has been criticized by Chinese academics as well as some famous Chinese creators such as writer/blogger Han Han ( 韩寒) and film director Feng Xiaogang (冯小刚). 


Even officials from China's Ministry of Culture (MOC; 文化部) have expressed doubts about the prospects of cultural development in an environment subject to fairly strict ideological and political control. This is a bit ironic since the MOC is a part of the government that is at times responsible for limiting culture. For example, by publishing a list of banned popular music including Lady Gaga's Hair, Beyonce's Run the World and even the Backstreet Boys' I Want it That Way. The MOC directed that these and other songs containing lyrical content the MOC found objectionable be removed from Chinese websites. The only practical result of this, assuming legal music websites comply, is that the banned songs will now only be illegally downloaded in China since they are readily available through many sites in China offering music without the permission of the creators and copyright owners. 

While the Chinese government wants to censor content it finds offensive, the very fact of doing so likely retards China's cultural development. While the government may have its reasons for wanting to limit the availability of some cultural content, if it is really serious about promoting cultural development, it will have to be very careful and try to limit as little as possible in order to let its 'cultural flowers' bloom. As stated by professor Yi Zhongtian of Xiamen University, "Culture is a way of life for a nation and the people. Nurturing cultural development is like nurturing a forest - you have to let it grow naturally."

Aug 17, 2010

China's Vulgar Culture

Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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A recent article from BBC News, reports about criticism of Chinese media by Minister of Culture Cai Wu, who spoke out against "vulgar productions" advocating money-worship and consumerism. Minister Cai blamed this trend toward vulgarity in Chinese culture on market-oriented economic development, where a profit- oriented system passes off cheap entertainment as culture. Cai stated that:
"In today's world, a country's culture and economy are inseparable. A government must pay more attention to culture and originality if it wants to improve the quality of economic development."
China's President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) has also recently criticized Chinese media for relying on "vanity, vulgarity, and kitsch."

Its likely that Minister Cai's notion that the increasingly consumeristic market-oriented economy in China is largely responsible for the change. Over the past 3 decades, China has transitioned from a command economy where the Chinese government strictly controlled virtually all media to more of a market-based economy. As a result, China has experienced huge economic growth and rapid changes in many aspects of society. While many of the changes have been positive, there have certainly been some negative results as well. In a market economy, the media content (films, TV shows, etc.) that is produced and sold is essentially determined by the market (i.e., consumers). Consumers in China, as elsewhere, often tend to prefer always going to get high-quality entertainment or culture. The general public often tends to prefer low-brow culture. This is why music by artists such as Lady Gaga and so-called reality TV shows (which generally have nothing to do with reality) are extremely popular.

In Cai Wu's opinion (and probably that of many other Chinese government officials), the government should exercise a degree of control over culture and media in order to ensure that its citizens are exposed to higher quality content.Whether and to what extent, government should control (regulate or support) culture is certainly debatable. With no control, the likely result would be generally low-brow culture, but too much control might overly constrain creators. I don't have any answer to this dilemma, but I'll leave this post with some quotes about culture from some much more famous people than I:

A nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.  Mohandas Gandhi   
 
If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.  John F. Kennedy

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.  Albert Camus

Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.  Aldous Huxley

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