Internal culture clashes drive powerful dramas

• Source: Global Times
• [21:31 December 28 2009]
• Comments

GT: Considering the film and television works you just mentioned, how do you see Chinese culture in 2009?

Zhang: I think it is a new critical point. On the one hand, China's world influence has improved, although the feedback from the Frankfurt Book Fair was unsatisfactory. It is a necessary process of a newly rising culture. It also forces the world to re-understand China.

The enhancement of the influence is due to two reasons: First, the prosperous development of Chinese traditional culture abroad, as represented by the Confucius Institute. Second, China's increased power as a whole. The increased power determines the success of soft power.

On the other hand, Chinese people have higher expectations regarding their own life happiness and spiritual enrichment, which has been shown in the revival of Chinese traditional culture.

People are returning to Chinese traditional culture to seek spiritual peace and satisfy human needs other than making money and living.

Some expectations are unreasonable, but overall, they indicate that people are struggling for a better life.

GT: Is it inevitable that when Western cultures are dominant we use Western values and living standards as the benchmark for our own success and happiness?

Zhang: This is the challenge we are facing at this critical point. The general situation is good. Young people still hope to solve problems through their own struggles, which is a manifestation of the Chinese dream.

But it is a question for us how to have a better combination of ideals and social reality and then realize our ideals.

The society needs to give young people more realistic goals, so that everyone returns to their daily lives, seeking solace from Chinese traditional culture and forming a sense of spiritual transcendence. Only in this way could the balance between spiritual and material pursuits be achieved.

GT: How can China alter its cultural output to appeal more to foreigners in 2010?

Zhang: China has encountered two kinds of problems in cultural output.

First, its high-end values cannot be understood by the world because we do not have a complete ideological system. In this aspect, the US has done very well.

Whether the values are advisable or not, US values are a mature and convincing system, while China is still developing.

Second, at the low-end, our mass cultural products are not professional enough. We are not sure of the tastes of the recipients in other countries and sometimes have too high requirements for ourselves. Michael Jackson may not have had the highest moral values, but his status in mass culture cannot be replaced, while in our culture, people are too strict with cultural representatives.

We need to make our mass culture more dynamic and more attractive, which requires an understanding of audience tastes.

We cannot center on ourselves or impose what we think is good on others. Without reasonable packaging and publicity, what is important in our eyes may be nothing to others. This requires us to make efforts in cross-cultural communications.

There has been a critical mistake made in Chinese cultural communication.

We tend to present our most essential and profound culture to others, such as Confucius and Lao Tzu, while neglecting the fact that few people worldwide read, for instance, the German philosophers Kant and Hegel.

Therefore, we need to deepen the development on the basis of actual mass culture.

If we neglect the development of mass culture, it is difficult to strike a sympathetic chord among the population in foreign countries. We need to be flexible in developing smart power.

GT: You mentioned in a previous interview that Chinese are bidding farewell to their tragic history. When it comes to building soft power next year, what direction should we take?

Zhang: The so-called construction of soft power needs not only to tell the world the value of traditional Chinese culture, but also to show the world the hard struggle and achievements of Chinese people in the past 30 years of reform and opening-up, as well as the memory that contemporary Chinese strived for human fairness and ideals.

At present, we are facing many cultural problems.

Some universal values in Chinese culture, such as the unity of heaven and man, and harmony without uniformity, have not been fully recognized. The competitiveness of mass culture is far from compatible with the economic growth.

Recently, Joseph Nye also mentioned the use of "smart power", which is very enlightening. At this moment, we have to use "smart power" that combines the "hard power" and "soft power."

We need to combine a firmness in defending basic values and a flexibility to adapt to the times. We must combine confidence in our own culture with high-end spiritual values and a vital mass culture.

Chinese culture will have an immeasurable impact on the peace and development of the world. In particular, the principles of "kindness" and "benevolence" in traditional Chinese culture will play an important role.

We should be culturally conscious and utilize the power of culture to create a beautiful Chinese dream, creating a charming China for foreigners and a harmonious China for our own people.

 

Editor's Note:

China's film industry, like everything else in the nation, is booming, and TV series are starting to move away from cheap entertainment into serious state-of-the-nation drama. In a hectic year for China and the world, how did Chinese cultural products reflect on issues from the global financial crisis to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC? What adjustments does the Chinese cultural industry need to make for 2o1o? Global Times (GT) reporter Wu Mian interviewed Zhang Yiwu (Zhang), professor and deputy director of Cultural Resources Research Center of Peking University, on Chinese culture in 2009.