The cultural image that China presents to the world does not correspond to its image as an emerging economy. Many foreigners know no more about Chinese culture than Bruce Lee's kung fu films and lion dances during festivals.

We don't have better cultural products to replace them, and we seem satisfied with squandering money on staging performance at the Golden Hall in Vienna or broadcasting an advertisement on the big screen at New York's Times Square.

China's long history has left the country with rich cultural legacies. However, so far, we haven't had any kind of long-term plan for these legacies, created truly influential and convincing products based on them, or built a proper cultural image for the rising nation.

Each year, numerous TV dramas, seen as the most typical products of popular culture, are produced in China. However, many among them are cultural trash, including commercially successful ones depicting family trifles, barefaced worship of money and wealth, or open strife and veiled struggles in ancient imperial palaces.

The virtues of traditional culture, such as men's emphasis on loyalty, women's emphasis on affection, filial piety in families and intellectuals' integrity, have all vanished in these shallow dramas.

Even worse, once a spy drama or a TV drama depicting the subtle relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law becomes popular, countless similar TV dramas will emerge to copy it. The rush to make a quick buck and a tendency for mass production have further diluted the characteristics we should have in our culture.

In recent years, South Korea has also produced TV dramas about family issues, but they focus more on the close ties between family members and Asians' sense of responsibility and order. In their TV dramas, one sees social encouragement for grass-roots people's efforts to strive and wishes for true love that transcends social differences. Even in historical dramas, there's more discussion of self-respect and dignity, such as in Dae Jang-geum, rather than bloody fights or distorted narratives of ancient emperors' personal lives.

The entire East Asian cultural circle has been nourished by Chinese culture. We should deeply reflect on why they get the essence of Chinese culture, while we ourselves do not cherish our traditional cultural treasures and focus on cultural trash to serve the market.

Some argue that the cultural essence of China's Tang Dynasty (618-907) can still be found in Japan, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in South Korea and the Republic of China period (1912-49) in the Taiwan region. This is a nostalgic way of looking at things, but they somewhat represent people's discontent with the absence of preservation of their own traditional culture.

In a period of rapid changes, people may blindly worship money and ignore cultural preservation, which is actually the most solid guarantee and drive for economic development. Every worker in the cultural industry has the responsibility to shape China's cultural image and influence the public. We should cherish and respect this responsibility.

The author is former deputy editor-in-chief of People's Literature magazine. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn