Hard road for mainland magazines in Taiwan
- Source: Global Times
- [21:36 September 08 2010]
- Comments
However, there is no such group in Taipei. In the 1980s, a bunch of multi-national companies arrived and set offices in Taipei, but later they moved to Hong Kong and mainland cities.
At the moment, enterprises in Taipei are mainly small and medium-sized ones. The working atmosphere is somewhat relaxed. What can be found here are scattered companies and workers, rather than a dense group of office people.
Therefore, too many differences need to be taken into consideration. The gap in the tastes of readers on both sides across the Straits are so wide that it can't be filled probably within one or two decades.
Han Han, a famous writer on the mainland has few readers in Taiwan, because the social contexts on both sides are different. The Taiwanese care more about specific problems like pollution of oil refining and disputes over land requisition.
Our Taiwan in These Years (2009), was a popular book among mainlanders. A mainland press invited a Taiwanese writer to write about the past three decades in Taiwan, and they'd decided the contents before the author started to write. The sub-headline "telling the story of Taiwanese themselves" echoes a slogan of a CCTV news program. Many Taiwanese don't understand why the book could be so popular on the mainland since they found nothing interesting in it. Three months ago, a Taiwan-based publishing house copied the idea and published a book called Our Mainland in These Years. It turned out a failure.
There are so many differences between readers on both sides, and you really have to study carefully about a market before you enter it.
GT: As a publisher, are there any opportunities in the Taiwanese market that mainland magazines can take?
Li: At least not in the popular magazine market and not at the moment.
The popular magazine market in Taipei is quite mature and witnesses fierce competition. The entire population in the island is a mere 23 million. Local newspapers, which often integrate political, social and entertainment news in one publication, can well satisfy the market. Once the market pattern is shaped, it's hard for external publishers to break in.
But in a long term, I think the mainland has the qualities to dominate the entire Chinese mass culture market due to its diversity.
In the 1980s, as contemporary mainland mass culture began to rejuvenate, it absorbed lots of elements from Taiwan, like beautiful essays, romantic TV play series and stage dramas.
However, the mainland is doing a better job in all these fields, and its historical novels, mystery novels and popular films and TV play series are much more successful than those in Taiwan.
I think Taiwan took the wrong direction, and has become dominated by minority literature and personal nostalgia.
As the growth of economic power and social flexibility of the mainland, some Taiwanese have already changed their stereotypes toward mainland popular culture, though many still see Taiwan's culture as superior. The perspectives of Taiwanese toward the mainland are complicated at the moment, but they do want to know about the mainland.
Recently mainland funding has flowed into two Taipei-based publishing houses. This is a good beginning. In the post-ECFA era, there is a huge space in Taiwan market for mainland mass culture except for popular magazines. It's just an issue of time.
