CCTV's New Year Gala part of collective historical memory

• Source: Global Times
• [22:21 February 10 2010]
• Comments

Illustration: Liu Rui
 
By Dan Ben-Canaan

By mid afternoon, most of the Spring Festival travel rush is over. It is the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year and homes across the vast motherland are preparing for the largest annual family reunion.

As times are changing, some critics say that Spring Festival may not be the most important of Chinese holidays. They mention the Qingming Festival, the Mid-autumn Festival, and the Lantern Festival among others.

But the ever growing travel rush that precedes the Spring Festival shows that being with the family has been and remains of great significance and value to all.

On this evening, members of the family will recount their past year's experiences. They will be decorating the home with New Year ornaments, preparing a festive meal, dusting a table with white flour and making delicate dumplings, engaging in small and big talk, and at eight o'clock they will turn on their television set for chunwan, CCTV's Gala on the Chinese Lunar New Year's Eve.

Launched in 1982 as successor to Beijing Television's irregular broadcasts, which date back to 1956, the yearly four-hour-long song and dance extravaganza celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival is the most watched program in China, with more than a 93.6 percent audience share.

Having aired for almost 30 consecutive years, the program has become synonymous with family tradition and an important part of the Chinese national culture. It has become a cultural icon and a symbol of national unity.

As such, chunwan will be part of China's collective historical memory, and in a fast changing world, it will bridge the present with the past.

As families are becoming smaller, and some of the young may choose their own way to celebrate the event by traveling, surfing the Internet, watch-ing DVD movies on their computers, chatting or sending SMS messages, or visiting friends for a night of mahjong and card games, chunwan is a cultural bridge between generations.

There is nothing wrong with a variety of other choices. They are all part of the celebration and they pose no danger.

Furthermore, the economics, business, and politics of chunwan are reserved for gossip, and no one should care about it.

As a cultural icon, chunwan carries no money value. Nevertheless, If CCTV profits from it, that is great.

What counts are the content and the ability of the producers to adapt to ever-changing times. These may either preserve the gala for the future, or place it on the shelves of the past.

For many, the program is a bond. For others it may be a background only.