My Block Booking for a Red Movie in Shanghai

by Maple, guest blogger

[Note:  July 1st this year marks the 90th birthday of China's Communist Party. To celebrate it, "red" movies and TV shows are sweeping the country, to the extent that popular spy shows are banned May through July. The biggest film made especially for this occasion is "The Great Cause of Founding the Party" (《建党伟业》), which, in the China-made English ad, is translated as "Beginning of the Great Revival." Its release day was June 15th.  Here is the experience of an ordinary moviegoer on June 17th. -- Xujun]

[in translation， 中文原文附后]

(Shanghai, June 17) I went to a movie theater this afternoon, to give myself a break after a week of intense painting. A French movie festival was ongoing, but I would have to wait until evening to see it. The 3D "Kung Fu Panda" was on, but that kind of fad is for teens with high-tech addictions and would only daze me.  

Coincidentally, the movie "The Great Cause of Founding the Party" (《建党伟业》) was about to start in 5 minutes. I bought the ticket, as if guided by a deity. Entering the screening room, I was stared at by the theater staff. They were whispering about me -- did they suspect my head was crushed by the door?

It turned out that,  in the whole screening room, with more than 400 seats, I was the only audience member, the only person who voluntarily dug into my own wallet to receive the "red" education.

To be fair, the movie is well made. The plot is tight, some details are moving, and the actors are high quality.  But to put more than a hundred of the most famous stars into one movie, that seems like a practical joke.

Last time when "The Great Cause of Founding the Country" (《建国大业》) was made [in a similar fashion], many people went to theaters driven by the urge to "identify famous faces." From the beginning to the end, every time a face appeared on the screen, the hundreds of audience would roar in one voice: "Tang Guoqiang!" "Liu Yiwei!" "Liu Dehua!"  For two hours, all were engaged in identifying, shouting, and guessing; identifying, shouting, and guessing. No one knew what the movie was about.  To call it "great education for all people" is not as precise as "great entertainment for all people."  Perhaps this was the leaders' real goal after all? Educating by entertaining?

Now once again the great entertainment comes, but the masses are tired, they don't want to play anymore. They have left me alone doing the identification and guessing. I still don't understand why Zhao Benshan (赵本山) would wordlessly stand in Yuan Shikai's (袁世凯) shadow, with an expression half laughing half crying, and why Liu Yunlong (柳云龙), an actor I admire, would be half hiding in the left lower corner like a shadow. This was too distracting! I identified this face and then that, couldn't hear at all what Zhou Runfa (周润发) was saying. What was the director's motive? I couldn't enjoy the movie itself, I was only thinking: Why is Wang Xuebing (王学兵) so haggard? Who is playing Xiaofengxian (小凤仙), so beautiful?

      

The most far-off thing was that all the scenes of Tang Wei (汤唯) were removed. She was acting Mao Zedong's first love (not Yang Kaihui), but because she had been all nude in "Lust, Caution," someone thought she would tarnish the great man's image.  Yet Liu Ye (刘烨), the man who plays Mao himself, had starred in the most well-known homosexual film "Lan Yu" (《蓝宇》), with many shots of him all-nude in bed. If the same logic were used, wouldn't he tarnish Mao's image more directly? If we were back in the Cultural Revolution, the director would certainly be executed twice.

My only consolation is that, as a big screen lover, I enjoyed 135 minutes of exclusive block booking of the theater all by myself. I sat there straight to the last minute, until all names of the actors, workers, and musicians ascended beyond the screen.

For a moviegoer like me who's sick beyond cure, the staff member at the door was very sad. He slowly shook his head, like an owl.

(Continue to read the Chinese text / 继续阅读中文原文)

Matchmaking Morality

I'd thought that enough was written about the matchmaking show "If you are not sincere" (also referred to as "If you are the one"), until I got the following questions from a reader: 

Why do you think these remarks set off such a firestorm? More than a half century ago Marilyn Monroe could sing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend" in Hays code Hollywood and no one got too upset. Are the woman's comments troubling to you? What do you think about the government move? Is it a noble effort to try to encourage virtue or a hopeless attempt to impose an ancient moral code?  Does the government have any role to play in shaping public morality?

Actually, I was equally curious about who in particular ordered the censorship.  Was it from some sanctimonious leaders in The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), or from higher authority of the Party central (e.g. Hu Jintao)? The latter possibility is certainly more worrisome.  I have written in this space before that the Party nowadays, though still active in political censorship, seemed to have left people's lifestyle issues alone. The return of such control is not a good sign.

Does the government have any role to play in shaping public morality? It certainly did in the Mao era.  Not only "shaping," the government (which was the Party itself) defined morality for the public and the public sincerely followed its rules. However, that sincerity largely came from people's belief in Communism.  This is to say, administrative command alone wouldn't have been so effective.  But Communism as practiced by Mao suppressed human nature (e.g., desire for a better material life) to an extreme and thus was doomed to be short lived. The destructive Cultural Revolution, in a sense, was a violent release of suppressed human nature.  Consequently, the belief in Communism collapsed after the CR.  Now the situation is that the administrative command may be obeyed, but not sincerely.  As an observant reader commented on my previous post, "The woman from the Party School is totally superfluous, and people on the show seem to be protesting silently."
 

The "mammonism" being scolded upon today is actually a consequence of an earlier notion of Deng Xiaoping's that "to be rich is glorious," which, to my understanding, was a  hypercorrection of Mao's collective-poverty policy.  Now the government seems to be quietly trying to re-correct Deng's correction, probably motivated by concerns about social unrest caused by the ever larger wealth gap.  But as long as the wealth gap exists, there's no way to eliminate the poor's desire to catch up the rich.  The censorship itself seems laughable and, without sincere beliefs to back it up, can only result in a new immorality of hypocrisy.  This is a post-Communist dilemma that the authority must deal with.  Stop issuing such stupid commands.  If you are sincere, do something about the wealth gap. 

I should also add that, from the pre-censorship episodes of the matchmaking show I've watched, I only saw two women (among hundreds) who openly placed wealth as the top criterion for choosing a mate.  Both were, from time to time, mocked by Meng Fei  and Le Jia in a good-natured way.  Most women apparently considered the men's character and personality first, and economic condition second (certainly not ignoring it).  One thing that particularly touches me is that the majority men and women have mentioned as a condition for a prospect mate:  "Be filial to my parents." You often hear a statement like "It's my biggest happiness to make my parents happy."  This is sincerity. This is morality with "Chinese characteristics." 

Aftermath of Matchmaking Censorship

Yesterday, a reader gave me a heads-up on a Washington Post article titled "TV matchmaking show runs afoul of China's morality campaign" by Keith B. Richburg, which came 20 days after I wrote about the same subject in this space.  It does not add much new, but other than a couple of minor inaccuracies (for example the half-misquote “rather cry in a BMW than ride a bicycle while laughing”), the writing is alright.

I don't know if the author knows Chinese, or if he has watched the show himself, but since his report came so much later, it would have been more informative if he included updates about the show after the censorship.  Because he didn't, I'll take the opportunity to tell you about a few of the most obvious changes.

One is that the program ("If you are not sincere" or "If you are the one," whichever way you like to call it) now has a Party School teacher, a middle-aged woman, sitting on the stage, next to the popular commentator Le Jia. Whether this was government imposed, or the program's way to add protection, I don't know (it is for Keith Richburg to find out :-)).  Her presence reminds me of the "model Beijing operas" during the Cultural Revolution – in those there was often a female Party representative who could do nothing wrong.  Not surprisingly, the show’s Party School teacher dresses sedately in a politically correct way.  And she does not display the emotional personality that Le Jia does.  To her credit, her words so far have not been as doctrinaire as I had expected, but they haven’t offered much insight either.  With her sitting there, I'm sure all the women guests will behave themselves, and hide some of their true sides.  Too bad the contestants still dress multifariously – I wonder why the government has not required them to wear the same outfit, for example only blue or green like we did during the Cultural Revolution.

Another change is that now none of the male guests is allowed to state his income.  How does this stop the "mammonism" repeatedly scolded about in the government instructions?  The contestants  avoid using the word "money," but not "cars" or "houses."  I'm afraid the government will have to issue another set of instructions to ban those words as well.

Yet another change is that more hero-like male guests are appearing on the stage.  A selfless professional rescuer who kept saying "It is my happiness to rescue people and state property" (he failed to take away his choice woman), and a Canton policeman coming to help the pretty single-mother (whose bad luck with the male guests had made Le Jia cry), for example.  Both professions appeared for the first time, Meng Fei announced. 

The government ordered the exclusion of actors and disallowed any scripted interactions in matchmaking shows.  But the most noticeable consequence of the new rules seems to be that everyone must do some acting now.  "If you are not sincere" has lost some of the spontaneity it had before.

Matchmaking Censorship

For a moment, I thought my previous post  was the curse:  this past Sunday, PPStream ceased broadcasting the reality TV show "If You Are Not Sincere, Don't Bother Me" (非诚勿扰),  just three days after my post.  Not only that, much to my chagrin, all the previous episodes have also been removed.  Then I found an announcement on the PPS website saying they did this to comply with new instructions from The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), issued twice on June 2 and 8. (My ominous post went up on June 9.)

Here is the gist of the SARFT instructions:

婚恋交友类电视节目不能由演员、模特、节目主持人、“富二代”、“成功人士”等身份的嘉宾占据荧屏；不得选择社会形象不佳或有争议的人物担当主持人；不得 以婚恋的名义对参与者进行羞辱或人身攻击，甚至讨论低俗涉性内容，不得展示和炒作拜金主义等不健康、不正确的婚恋观。

[In translation]

Matchmaking TV shows may not let actors, models, program hosts, 'the second generation of the rich,' and 'the successful figures'  appear as guests to occupy the screen; may not choose those with disreputable social image or contentious characters as hosts; may not use the name of love or marriage to insult or make personal attacks against participants, or discuss vulgar sexual content ;  may not demonstrate or  promote unhealthy and incorrect marriage-love views such as mammonism.

Did the bureaucrats at SARFT eat too much and have nothing better to do?  What made them issue such superfluous and laughable restrictions on non-political, entertaining, and revealing TV shows?  Rumor has it that Ma Nuo, one of the earlier female guests in "If You Are Not Sincere," triggered the shot.  Ma Nuo's most infamous quote circling on the internet is "I'd rather cry in a BMW" – her reply to a male guest, a cyclist, who asked if she'd like to ride a bike with him.  (But Baidu has a post that says what she actually said was "a BMW is rather cool." In Chinese, "cry" (哭)  and "cool" (酷) sound pretty much the same.) Because of this, Ma Nuo's name has become a synonym of "mammonism," and been attacked by numerous netizens.  And this, apparently, became the motive to restrict "the second generation of the rich" to participate in matchmaking shows.

Deng Xioaping, the "father of reform and opening," promulgated the notion that "being rich is glorious." No more, I guess, but wouldn't it be  more effective to simply order "the rich" to stay single, or have a "zero-child policy" for them and their children?
 

So what is next? Perhaps cooking shows that mention any meats other than pork, or any vegetable other than cabbage, will come under the lens. Or maybe weather programs that suggest anything but fine weather or needed rain are on the way will be nixed. Maybe business programs that discuss financial problems in the Euro-zone will be told to stop that and go along with the official position of expected stability.

Not surprisingly, the hypocritical call is met with hypocritical responses.  So far all the TV stations running a matchmaking show have made sonorous echoes that they "firmly advocate SARFT's instructions," while each and every one of them says they have nothing to do with the criticism. The shows continue; only we overseas audiences are deprived the pleasure of watching them at PPStream's mercy.

Times have certainly changed. It seems like those outside of China can be more strongly influenced by the edicts of Beijing than those inside. The government can continue to issue superfluous instructions that are not sincere, just don't expect everyone to be bothered as much as PPStream.

If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me

Sunday evening, June 6.  On the stage ablaze with lights stand 24 women, most in their early 20s, and not yet betrothed, waiting for their chance at “fast matchmaking.”  Before each of the women is a green-lighted podium with her number, her name and a switch.  A young man descends from a glass elevator:  first shoes, then pants, then the black jacket, black glasses, and a black hat hiding a lowered head.  Pop music and applause break out.

Meng Fei, the bald host aged 39, asks the 28-year-old handsome Shanghai man: “Why do you dress like a magician?”

We hear a nervous reply, ”Eh…they say I look a bit like Harry Potter…”

After some good-natured teasing, Meng Fei hands the young man a digital pad and asks him to choose one girl who “arouses your heart. “

We see the number he enters–  “1” – but it is concealed from the women on the stage.  Suspense immediately builds.  This woman, Xie Jia, is a college student 22 years young, who says she did not discover herself as a woman until age 21. Good looking, intelligent, she has nonetheless rarely been chosen by men, and has been standing there for many installments.  Judging by appearances, the two look like a match. I find myself hoping Xie Jia will be taken away in this man’s arms.

The women appraise him for a first impression.  Meng Fei turns to all, “Please choose.”

Ding, ding.   Two girls’ lights go off – “Not interested.” Most leave theirs on (I am relieved to see Xie Jia among them), watching the "magician" with open curiosity.  

Meng Fei asks the two girls why they turned off their lights.

”I have no interest in Harry Potter,” one woman replies.  Laughter ensues from the audience.

“He does not make me feel secure,” says the other, "not at all."

Three more thresholds await the man. If, after that, there are still lights on, he’ll be able to enter the final stage “rights reverse to the male.”   Otherwise he receives a “failure exit." The suspense is that of a well-plotted drama.

Only this is a reality show that is more engaging than most movies I’ve seen.  Titled after Feng Xiaogang's popular movie, “If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me” (非诚勿扰), the weekend matchmaking show broadcast on Jiangsu Satellite TV is currently China's highest rated program.  I first heard about it shortly after its launch in January, but did not pay much attention because reality shows don't usually interest me.  Over time, however, more and more Chinese friends were telling me how fun it is to watch.  When I started to watch the re-made Three Kingdoms on PPStream, Jiangsu TV had bundled it with “If You Are Not Sincere, Don’t Bother Me” for weekend prime time.  Once I clicked it, I was hooked.

To my dismay, the young man who looked like Harry Potter did not pass the women's scrutiny.  Before he had a chance for "rights reverse to the male," all the lights had gone off, including Xie Jia's, who apparently was not aware of his admiration.  I'm not sure which of his statements, "I can peel lobster very fast," or "I love to hand-wash clothes on a washboard," had turned her off, except that those words did not demonstrate whatever quality Xie Jia was looking for in a man.

The program is one-hour long, and each male guest is given 20 minutes or so on stage. For the installments I've seen so far, the majority of male guests got a "failure exit."  Even for those lucky ones who enter the final stage, the remaining lights often do not include the woman "arousing his heart." Thus successful matchmaking remains rare.  At times, however, a happy ending can move the audience to tears.

Last Saturday, after two men exited with failure, an ordinary-looking, round-face young photographer with a collected, quiet humor took away his choice woman, Liu Huan, unexpectedly.  The outcome was unusual because of the beautiful young woman's odd situation: Liu Huan had been on stage together with her mother.  She had turned her light off early on, however the mother kept her light on. When Meng Fei asked why, the mother said the man would be an ideal son-in-law for her. Toward the end, six lights were still on. Meng Fei told the young photographer if he wanted one of those, he could take her hand right away. But if he insisted on Liu Huan, he might end up leaving alone. 

The young man insisted, and was given 30 seconds for a last-ditch pursuit.  "Do you know my situation?" Liu Huan asked. "Yes I do," the young man answered. Liu Huan (who apparently had turned down many pursuers) said she had joined the program to help her mother, and would not leave before her mother found a good match.  Her voice began to tremble; her mother covered her face as tears running down.  Applause and sobs could be heard from the audience.  "Today I'm surprised to see my mother kept her light on for me to the last minute. I’ve decided to be a good daughter," Liu Huan said. The young couple held hands; cheers and applause followed for a long time. The mother and daughter left together for good.

The show is a kaleidoscope of contemporary Chinese views of love, marriage, and life style.  I was especially amazed by the candid, openness of the young women, and their bravery to bear public scrutiny. The relentless internet spreads numerous comments on the looks, personality, and value system of the women, sometimes positive and more often negative. A righteous-sounding man even took his opportunity on the stage to scold a girl to tears, because she once said that to sit in a BMW would be more cool than riding a bike.   It is not easy to be oneself under such pressure. I recall my twenties in the 1980s, even to place an anonymous personal ad in newspaper was a disgrace.  Times have changed.

"If You Are Not Sincere" is not the only matchmaking show in China, however the others are not nearly as popular. Its success largely depends on host Meng Fei’s wit, sensibility, and broad-knowledge.  In researching his background, I was surprised to learn he was from my hometown Chongqing.  Between high school graduation and success as a TV program host, he had been a low-paid temp doing odd jobs for many years.  His story is that rare one of success for a self-learned man. 

As of last week, 160-170 thousand applications to participate in the show had queued up from all over China.  Meng Fei announced recently that, in response to keen overseas demand, this "fast matchmaking" program is going to be launched in London and other foreign cities as well.

I have seen several overseas Chinese men appear in the program (none with success), but not a single non-Chinese.   To those Americans who live in China and are single, would you like to give it a try?

The Cultural Revolution Complex in Contemporary Chinese Art

…How the once brutal real suffering has now become romantic imaginary suffering
By Chen Dehong

[Note: I find the author's summary and criticism of contemporary Chinese art from the late 1970s to present involving the Cultural Revolution extremely interesting and well-formed. Translated with occasional comments (in italic) and annotation added. Original post is slightly longer with a few more images shown. – Xujun] (XNZKZXA4YWZH)

"x/x/1968, snowing" by Cheng Conglin (1979)

The Cultural Revolution ended 30 some years ago, but contemporary Chinese art continues to make a matter of it, as if it wouldn't be contemporary if the CR were not addressed. Reflections on, or utilization of, the CR requires a serious analysis.

1. "Scar Art" Launched the First Wave Displaying the CR

It marked the starting point of China's contemporary art.

"Why" by Gao Xiaohua (1978)

Representative works include Cheng Conglin's "x/x/1968, Snowing," Gao Xiaohua's "Why" and other works reflecting "armed fighting." He Duoling produced "Youth" in the 1980s, which became the epilogue of that wave. Scar art's attention to the CR has artists' commemorating and lamenting their brutal youth; though more of individual experiences, it was in tune with the time's rethinking. Scar art lacks deep reflection on the CR; it uses victim pathos to touch the audience, but is only superficial in its rethinking. At that time this was already difficult and valuable, but its obvious limitations come to show as time goes by.

[I don't completely agree – I view those works as deeper than most of their later counterparts. I still remember how, as a college student, I first saw He Duoling's oil painting "We Once Sang This Song", and how the feeling of shock it caused in me lasted for years. There wasn't  obvious "victim pathos" in that painting, only the scene of a bunch of young "zhi-qing" – city youth sent down to the countryside – singing a song, yet its impact was profound.  –  Xujun]

"We Once Sang This Song" by He Duoling (1980)

2. Early Trend of Modern Art in Reflecting CR

Part of the works in the "Stars" art exhibition [in 1980] criticized the CR's totalitarianism from a democratic perspective; the "Great House Head" series produced by southwest "stream of life" artist Mao Xudong echoed this trend. They touched the core issue of the CR, that is, the intrinsic connection between the CR and China's feudal dictatorships. This trend clashed with the mainstream ideology then; its artistic method is symbolic and metaphoric. This also reflected the sprouting of democratic awareness in the 1980s' ideological liberation movement.

(title and author unknown) "Idol" by Wang Keping (1979)

"Great House Head" by Mao Xuhui (1991)

3. Utilization of CR Symbols in Political Pop Art

This is represented by Wang Guangyi and Zhang Xiaogang.   Wang Guangyi's work directly borrows from posters of the "great criticism" era. It is a kind of commemoration of an unforgettable past; however, in reality, the big shift to a market economy makes that past more and more remote.  Wang Guangyi forcefully pulls that past back in sight, but he also realizes the irreconcilable conflict between the two. Is it a better choice to have Coca-Cola advertisements replace "great criticism" posters? [Good question.] It is difficult for us to give a positive answer. Wang Guangyi's work reflected the Chinese people's bafflement.

"Great Criticism" by Wang Guangyi (2003)

Zhang Xiaogang's "Big Family" series entered Chinese's collective subconscious. These yellowed old pictures induce a melancholic mood of nostalgia, like the melody of an old phonograph record that can't be waved away. This category of political pop art has been mistakenly interpreted as an insinuation of China's political reality, and improperly analogized with ex-USSR's political pop art, by some Westerners. [Interesting.]

"Big Family" by Zhang Xiaogang (1993)

 4. Satire Use of CR Images in Cynical Realism and Vulgar Artwork

The 1989 rumpus [i.e., the Tiananmen massacre] is the background of those works, which focus on China's social reality rather than historical rethinking. They have been labeled as "post 89", and show a political attitude through teasing those once sacred political symbols and images. In dispelling the lofty and disassembling grand narratives, they show a kind of criticalness; however such criticalness is more like a seasoning spice, its cynical attitude refuting serious thought. Thus these works often reduce to a superficial teasing of ideology, their awkward status of "embassy art” based on denying one ideology while having to rely on a different ideological pivot. [Well said.]
 

5. Post-80 Generation's Utilization of CR Images

The post-80 generation was born in the reform era after the CR, and they don't have the direct experience of CR like the "zhi-qing" (the sent-down youth) and Red Guards did. To them the CR was an incomprehensible comedy. CR symbols are cool extraordinary fashion as well as the art market's popular Chinese card. Using their familiar cartoon style to treat the CR symbols becomes those artists' common strategy.

6. Commercial Interest

Driven by commercial interests, the opportunistic use of CR symbols is largely a petty speculation of the art market. Those works completely lack the spirit and point of cultural criticism; all they present is shallow consumption and desire.

7. Middle-Aged Artists' Rethinking and Recalling

The 30^th anniversary of the end of the CR [in 2006] was a symbolic time. The CR was again remembered. As a reflection of the society's mentality, the impulse to nail the coffin and give a final assessment of the CR is understandable.  Furthermore, the mainstream ideology's meticulous avoidance caused a backfire. The rethinking of the CR from middle-aged intellectuals broke through personal experience and rose to historical significance, restoring that history's heaviness and tragic nature. However, this rethinking more often than not stopped at ceremonial commemoration, not raising new questions, and often encounters a double misread from both power and capital.

Xu Weixin's "Chinese Historical Figures: 1966-1976," Sui Jianguo's "The Legacy Mantle," and Liu Yong's "Comrades" etc. are representative of this trend.

"Comrades" by Liu Yong (2006)

Conclusion

The Cultural Revolution was China's most enthusiastic and dreamy time, and it was also a time of broken dreams. In our lofty sentiments and happiness under brilliant sunshine, what we lived through was actually an unprecedented catastrophe. Contemporary new Confucians view the cleft in Chinese culture as formed by the May 4^th movement [in 1919], but in fact following May 4^th was a period of cultural prosperity with all-inclusive cultural trends and thought schools, which established the foundation of modern Chinese culture. But in the Mao era, especially during the CR, we abandoned traditional culture and denied foreign culture, everyone taking pride for being a rough uneducated person, culture falling into a deep abyss. That, was the real cleft of Chinese culture. […]

Today the CR remains a carefully guarded topic. The CR is far from entering history and still linked in a thousand ways to present China. Politics is an art of compromise. Deng Xiaoping oversaw Chinese society's rapid transmission to a new track without getting overly entangled with past issues. Today, despite China's great economic progress, it still faces huge pressure in its development as well as severe social conflicts.   Though the CR has ended for 30 years, historical truth still hasn't been completely revealed. It is not yet time to deliver the final assessment. Temporary avoidance is the practical choice for the incumbent party; however for intellectuals as a collective to rethink the CR is not necessarily a conflict. The first requirement, for such rethinking to have significance and strength, is that it must reach the level of rational historical judgment.

In the post-CR era, in China's art field, the CR has gradually changed from a serious social tragedy to an entertaining comedy for a consumer society. How we commemorate the CR today is a question Chinese can't avoid!!!  Fu Lei once said, "Only real suffering, is capable of driving out romantic imaginary suffering; only the brave tragedy of overcoming suffering, can help us to bear brutal fate; only when we hold the spirit of 'If not I to hell, then who?', can a dispirited and selfish nation be saved."  Fu Lei committed suicide in the CR; he took the hellish way to warn and try to save the nation he loved. However, he would not know that the once brutal real suffering has now become a romantic imaginary suffering, and what a dispirited and selfish soul today's Chinese have. [A powerful statement.]

The Cultural Revolution：unable to get around；not daring to face up;  no way to dispel; unwilling to forget；a thousand contradicting and complex feelings buried in the heart.#

Mischievous Dubbing (恶搞): US and China

Saturday Night Live's latest, 7-minute parody is an excellent and uproarious summary of Thursday's vice presidential debate. The best performer is Tina Fey, who looks totally like the real Palin, to the turn of her hair, or lip. CNN has a good comment on this – "It's starting to feel like Tina Fey is running for vice president."

Considering that Fey's normal picture is quite easily distinguished, I'd say she has the talent of an Oscar actress. She parodied Palin's body language and facial expressions extremely true to form; I had a very hard time telling her from Palin. But what made me laugh the most was how she captures Palin's incoherent and evasive speaking style. At one point the Fey-Palin says, "We are not afraid to get mavericky in there, and not got to allow that, and also to the great Ronald Regan." This way of randomly throwing together words and phrases without regard to grammar or meaning, was exactly my impression of Palin's speaking when I watched the debate Thursday night. Palin is worse than George Bush in this regard – though both appear uncultured, and Bush probably more often pronounces words incorrectly, he at least seems to genuinely mean what he says, even when I am almost sure he does not. Given how old McCain is, I would be extremely worried if McCain got sick and this lady became our president. Apparently this is also a main reason that many of my Chinese friends won't vote for McCain. Call it a shallow and intuitive way of reasoning. But what more can common voters do if not judge based on impression? I think McCain made his biggest mistake by choosing such a (...) running mate.

Now let's return to entertainment, and China. Such parody of public figures is one of those things I enjoy about America, a relaxed political culture that is missing in China. But in recent years, there has been a sort of Chinese equivalent called "e-gao" (恶搞), or, as a direct translation, "mischievous dubs." The Chinese Wikipedia interprets the term as "to disintegrate a serious topic and reconstruct it as prank entertainment, either comedic or satiric in style." The main difference to me, however, is that the Chinese dubbing videos, usually based on domestic and foreign movies and TV shows, almost never name real individuals, and avoid mocking political figures. Instead they focus on fictional characters or events, entertainment products, or businesses. Another notable feature is that nearly all of those Chinese dubs use the original video clips but switch the voices and subtitles, a creative approach to cut down the cost. The wide availability of the internet, of course, provides the platform for the "mischievous dubs" to reach its audience.

Apparently, in China the first notable "mischievous dub" occurred in December 2005, when an as yet unknown man named Hu Ge parodied the reputed director Chen Kaige's new movie, "The Promise," changing the story of an ancient Chinese prince to a modern murder case. Hu's short dub film spread apace, receiving more applause than the original movie. Chen Kaige, who apparently was unfamiliar with parody culture, bristled with anger and threatened to bring a copyright lawsuit against Hu. In February 2006, at the Berlin International Film Festival, where he was about to launch "The Promise" for Europe, director Chen said in indignation to reporters, "To be a man one can't be so shameless!"

The case attracted attention from lawyers nationwide, most predicted Hu would lose the lawsuit. From outside however, Richard Stallman, the founder of Free Software Foundation, concluded in an interview with a Chinese blogger that "Parodies like this one are legally considered 'fair use'. Courts have ruled that you don't need to get someone's permission before you make fun of him by parodying his work. It is lawful, pure and simple." The Chinese neitizens, meanwhile, were split. Supporters of each side argued noisily online.

In the end, there wasn't a lawsuit after all. The public debate calmed down after Hu made an apology to director Chen. But the damage was done: Hu's dub film started China's parody culture, which quickly became popular, and was everywhere by the summer of 2006. "Finally one day, someone could no longer stand it." NetEase reported in August 2006. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued an "anti-parody" regulation. NetEase mourned the new pop culture's immature death by publishing the list of the "top ten mischievous dubs." It also suggested, "If we can't mischievously dub, at least we can kind-heartedly dub."

Mischievously or not, despite the regulation, Chinese parodies did not simply go away. As recent as last month, a new one surfaced on YouTube mocking the Hong Kong movie Red Cliff and making fun of a Chinese company named Zhifubao. It is hilarious if you understand Chinese. (Thanks to Ji Haidong who pointed it to me.)

What I'm hoping though is to see political parodies like those on SNL begin to appear in China. The day when that happens would mark a new era of China's political culture.

On Dark Matter

Orville Schell's essay "China: Humiliation & the Olympics" in the New York Review of Books is well-researched, informative, and insightful, one with rare high quality. However, it is a pity that even such a serious China scholar was at times unable to break away from his own presumptions. Just as I was immersed in his eloquent analysis of the way China's historical humiliation by foreign powers shaped the country's modern identity, and brought forth extreme nationalistic sentiment visible today, something in the following passage stuck in my eye:

What was surprising was that many of the most indignant counterdemonstrators were young Chinese, born during the post-Mao era. Better educated and more worldly than older Chinese, one might have expected them to have been exempt from the China-as-victim syndrome. But, perhaps because they, too, were products of the Party's propaganda, many of them have turned out every bit as nationalistic, perhaps even more so, than their elders.^[*]

Then, as if an after-thought, Schell hesitantly adds a footnote:

^[*] Daniel A. Bell's China's New Confucianism, an account of teaching at elite Tsing-hua University, where classroom discourse has proven far more open and students far more reflective, reminds us that not all Chinese students are xenophobes.

While I must give him credit for including this footnote, Schell's convenient presumption that today's students in China are as much products of the Party's propaganda as earlier generations lacks a basis in reality. Apparently, he was very familiar with China in the 1970s, and many of the then-concepts got stuck in his mind as immutable. I visit China every year and talk to all sorts of people, including college students. They appear very well connected to the outside world and not at all as xenophobic as Americans imagine. Their nationalism has a lot more to do with the good economy they enjoy than Party propaganda.

Of course, Schell is not alone. As recent as last week, during the Q&A session of a book event, a woman asked me, "Do the Chinese know about things outside their country?" "Oh yeah," I replied. Such a question came often, and it is understandable, and reasonable, when it comes from someone who doesn't follow China regularly. But it is a bit disappointing to hear it from an expert like Schell, or the BBC anchor who said, "How did they even know we have biases? The Chinese government blocked us!"

Which reminds me last summer when I toured a mountain in Sichuan, an old peasant lady sitting under a tree asked me, "Are you from the city? Do you have trees there?"

If you skip this small disappointing spot, Schell's essay is well worth reading. I was particularly drawn to his analysis of the Chinese people's cultural insecurity caused by the continuous "large-scale, but never definitive, makeovers" occurring in China during the 20^th century. Coincidentally, a few days ago when I gave a talk at the Harvard Coop, an American man who had lived in Taiwan for several years told me that the Taiwanese are the most culturally secure people in the world, with no identity issues at all. The reason? The Taiwan Chinese, while deeply rooted in the five-thousand years of rich culture, didn't experience any of the upheavals of the mainland each rejecting the concepts of its predecessor. A very interesting observation.

By the way, Schell's article makes me really want to see Dark Matter. If any of you have seen the movie, would you please tell me what you think of it?

"When masses cast the classics"

An interesting discussion on the new, 50-episode TV serial adaptation of the Chinese classic A Dream of Red Mansions (红楼梦):

"Sometimes producers are too literal and don't bother with originality and respectful updating. Sometimes they don't show enough respect to the originals and create parodies." Read the English report in Shanghai Daily.

Chinese Classic Now a Game

Cool. This is the first time I've ever heard that Three Kingdoms is made into a game, let alone in the West -- read Romance of the Three Kingdoms XI review (PC).

Red Cliff (赤壁) Does Laughter

There is a Chinese expression, 搞笑，whose direct translation is "do laughter." This expression, an infection from Hong Kong that did not exist on the mainland before China opened up in the 1980s, is often used to describe a ludicrous movie. Now the expression is applied to Red Cliff, the most expensive Asian-financed film to date.

Directed by John Woo, Red Cliff reportedly cost US$80 million. As a fan of the classic novel Three Kingdoms, I was very eager to see what a difference such a big budget could make on a repeatedly filmed story. Adding to my eagerness was the fact that one of my favorite actors, Tony Leung, plays a starring role, Zhou Yu.

Because (a shortened version of) the movie for the US theaters will not be shown until early 2009, I called my sister in China and asked her to buy a Chinese DVD for me. It turned out she had just seen the movie. She used the expression "do laughter" when commenting on it. "Be prepared," she warned me.

I couldn't connect the notion of "do laughter" with the grand war scenes of Red Cliff. On the other hand, I have seen how some Hong Kong movies turned traditional imperial stories into jokes. Not having grown up with the Hong Kong culture though, these renderings could never make me laugh.

Impatient, I ended up buying the DVD from a Chinese online store in the US. As expected, there are grand battle scenes, which at times are too long. Toward the end, in a scene Zhu Geliang, the great war strategist, sent a pigeon into the enemy camp to extract information. The scenes of the enlarged flying bird obviously were computer-generated animation, which reminds me of Hollywood techniques used in fantasy movies such as "Lord of the Rings," not the least bit like ancient Chinese.

Yet copying Hollywood movie techniques is the least of the problems. The character Zhu Geliang, who is supposed to be the wisest, acted by Takeshi Kaneshiro, is way more handsome than intelligent – that is a bit more of a problem. In a battle preparation scene, the actor uses Zhu Geliang's signature goose feather fan – the symbol of wisdom – to cool a pigeon on a hot day as if the bird was sweating. Asked what he is doing, the gorgeous-looking actor (I refuse to connect him with Zhu Geliang) answers, "I need to keep cool." Silly behavior and language like this, which fill up the movie whenever it's not showing a drawn out battle scene, really are "doing laughter." My reading of audience reaction from the Chinese internet afterward confirmed this perception.

I of course have no objection to jocular treatment of any subject. The problem is that the director (and playwright) obviously did not mean to make the movie as a joke. The money, intent and effort were dead serious. Why it has resulted in such a laughable effect can only be explained by two things: one, the director and actors were unfamiliar with the history (I wonder if they have read any books about it other than the screenplay); two, with a long oral story-telling tradition of the Three Kingdoms, we Chinese audience can no longer accept a stupidification of historical figures. At least not Zhu Geliang!

I suppose the silliness in dialogues will be less a problem to American audiences. After all, the unintended effect might be lost in translation. Further, someone has made a wise decision to cut the length of the original film from 4 hours to 2½ for American theaters. I hope this will help improve the attractiveness of the battle scenes and also eliminate some "do-laughter" elements.

To be fair, there are also some creative and fun details in the movie, for example the association between a turtle's shell and Zhu Geliang's "eight trigram" battle formation. Zhou Yu, who was known in history to be proficient in music, stopped in the middle of training his army to tune a flute for a village boy. Still a bit overdone, but at least for a reason. And IMO Tony Leung did a better job acting Zhou Yu than Takeshi Kaneshiro acting Zhu Geliang, though my impression is that, judging by the two actors' appearances, switching their roles would better match our images of the historical figures. I heard that Tony was originally assigned the role of Zhu Geliang, but he refused, citing that he was not familiar with the role.

Overall I felt director John Woo had a tendency toward overkill, which resulted in humorless exaggeration in the acting. He needs to exercise a bit more control and incorporate a bit more subtlety next time.

A Rich Collection of Chinese Art and Literature

China: 3,000 Years of Art and Literature
Edited by Jason Steuber
Welcome Books, 240 pp., $60.00

A book review by Xujun Eberlein

At the opening of this 10.5" x 14" classy book, fully spread imperial sails shoot across swirling waves on two facing pages. Seeing this famous 17^th century painting so closely for the first time, its inconceivable combination of magnificent scale and meticulous detail fascinated me. Having just watched the impressive boat formation made up of thousands of sailors during the Beijing Olympics' opening ceremony, I wondered whether Zhang Yimou had copied this painting.

This detail, from the collection of The Palace Museum, is part of the 12 hand-scrolls titled "Emperor Kangxi's Southern Inspection Tour" - 康熙南巡图. Led by the Qing Dynasty artist Wang Hui, the entire set took several top artists three years to finish. According to the Chinese Masterpiece Appreciation Dictionary, five of the 12 scrolls are in Beijing's Palace Museum, one in New York's Metropolitan Museum, one in the hand of a Danish collector, with the fate of the remaining five unknown.

These two pages alone make this book worth it. Because I don't have the rights to reprint the particular detail here, I found several other details on-line from the same work, and one of these is shown below to give you a hint:

(You can also go here to see a few more details of "Emperor Kangxi's Southern Inspection Tour" that are not included in the book.)

As I turned the pages, I was (pleasantly) surprised to find the Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo's popular mocking lines, known to the Chinese as the "Poem of Bathing Son":

Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister

– from 170 Chinese poems, translated by Arthur Waley

Or in Chinese:

洗儿 ·苏东坡

人皆养子望聪明。我被聪明误一生。
惟愿孩儿愚且鲁，无灾无难到公卿。

Su Dongpo's derision of ignorant and stupid court officials, as well as the cynical lamenting of his unfulfilled ambition, appears vividly in the words. This poem reminds me another line of his: “Life’s misery begins with literacy.” This truism, while well drawn from Su Dongpo’s own bumpy life of trepidation, has since become a tag line for many Chinese intellectuals.

Accompanying Su Dongpo's playful "poem," on the opposite page, is a beautiful ink and color painting, a Song Dynasty hanging scroll titled "Children at Play in a Garden" by anonymous, from the art collection of Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Apparently, in Southern Song Dynasty, playing children was a popular subject in paintings. I don't have the rights to reproduce the above work here, but it can certainly compare with a work of the same period's representative artist Su Hanchen (1094 ~ 1172):

Because Su Hanchen did not leave signature on many of his paintings, I dare to say it is possible that "Children at Play in a Garden" is his given the similarity in style.

The juxtaposition of artistic and literary works in this book presents a rare beauty. Not only is each piece of literary work accompanied by a piece of artwork from the same or nearby period, every now and then you will run into a pleasant surprise from a folded inset of exquisite painting opening to several pages.

I have a fair sized collection of English translations of ancient Chinese poetry and prose, but none is like China: 3,000 Years of Art and Literature. "This volume incorporates scholarly translations that have appeared over several centuries," editor Jason Steuber points out. The variation in translation styles is a great joy for a reader like me. I only wish the book had included the Chinese originals to compare with.

Though it contains a large body of ancient writings as early as Shijing (ca. 11^th century – 221 BCE), the book also includes excerpts from contemporary writers such as Ba Jin, Mo Yan, Amy Tan, and Gao Xingjian, and the contemporary artworks that go with them are a delightful addition to their exquisite ancient counterparts.

As a further value, the works of art elegantly reproduced in this book come out of museum collections from around the world. Chances are you haven't seen many of them even if you are a frequent museum-goer. For anyone who is interested in Chinese art and literature, this book is a definite collectible.

Tan Dun and Robert Wells on Olympic Music

www.eol.cn, August 6, 2008

"Both Academy Award winner Tan Dun and world-renowned pianist Robert Wells agree: Beijing's Olympic music must have Chinese tones.

The two composers were on hand on Tuesday to talk about their cooperation and involvement in creating Olympic music to be used for demonstration events and medal ceremonies during the 2008 Summer Games." Continue reading >>

A Fun Contest at LanceReviews

Several months ago, I reported about an independent film review site, LanceReviews. At the time, that amazing site with a daily traffic up to 1000 was only seven months old. Now that it is approaching its first anniversary, Lance Berry is hosting a contest.

Check out LanceReviews' 1^st Anniversary Contest. LanceReviews is an ads-free site, a labor of love that is applauded by movie fans. Check it out – you might be surprised.

Dialogue between Karl Iagnemma and Brian Knep

One is a fiction writer and a scientist at MIT; the other is an artist and a researcher at Harvard. The concept of a conversation between these two is particular attractive to me. I don't know Brian, however I have (sort of) known Karl since I first went to his reading at Newtonville Books in 2001. Karl's stories are often complex, and he has a unique way with language. He is one of the contemporary writers whose writing I truly admire – see my review for his debut story collection, "On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction." I look forward to reading his new novel The Expeditions.

Karl is not only talented but also a very kind person. I remember when I first started writing in English after 9/11, I was clueless about story submission and publication, being trained as an engineer. I wrote Karl out of blue and asked many newbie questions, including how his first story was published. He replied to this stranger right away, in a very helpful long email.

One question I asked him was, "Which one do you like more, doing your lab research? or writing a story?" And he said, "Boy, the research/writing question is difficult. I suppose I like writing more, because it's it's just more _fun._ But research is satisfying in a very different way. . .it's a good feeling to solve a problem, and of course I've always been interested in science and technology, since I was a boy. . .which is probably why the characters in my stories are often scientists or engineers! But it's hard to compare the two, since they're very different things." It is hard to achieve excellence in either field alone, and he has succeeded in both.

MCC's idea for having dialogue between artists of different disciplines is a good one, and as the first installment, this one was interesting to read. However, there seems little interaction between the two. It is hard for a discussion to reach certain depth without an interactive discourse. #

VSC Open Studios: Artwork-in-Progress

One thing I enjoy the most about a residency is the interaction between writers and visual artists. The visual artists never fail to impress and inspire me with their sheer creativity. The variety in their choice of art form is so great, it makes me wonder why they have larger freedom of choice than us writers.

Here is a small sample of work-in-progress I saw in VSC's open studios last week.

Right: Laura Scandrett's black dogs (painted with ink on paper)

Left: G Todd Haun's landscape painting

Right: Shari Schemmel's collage

Left: Chihiro Ito and his face on the wall



Below: Cathryn Aison's block print with a real wasp






Below: Lalie Schewadron's digital projection with enamel on clayboard

More VSC Photos

Above: Entrance of the dinning room

Below: The dinning room

'Lust, Caution': Dangers and Promise

by Lance Berry

"I have to be honest; as soon as I saw the flashback beginning, I thought, Oh, no--! Not another film that's going to try and be clever, by showing us a flashback and then returning to the present to show us how this character arrived at that point. It's been done to death (or absolutely murdered, if the recent Vantage Point is any indication). However, under the skilled aegis of director Ang Lee ('Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', 'Brokeback Mountain'), the device is wielded effectively, refashioned from a blunt club back into a surgical tool once again. Like the magnificent 'Crouching Tiger', 'Lust, Caution' is an automatic classic...and is a complete and absolute apology for 2003's abysmal Hulk." Continue to read>>

Related posts:
Another Kind of Movie Reviwer
'Lust, Caution' (色戒) ,Tony Leung, and Eileen Chang
Michael Wood on Lust, Caution ("色戒")

Ning Feng and Paganini's 'Cannone'

by Hong Jiang (translated from Chinese by Xujun Eberlein)

(Hong Jiang is my townsfolk from Chongqing, China. Our friendship began many years ago as undergraduates in Chongqing University. She now works as a database administrator in one world, and the chairwoman of Yan-Huang Performing Arts in another. – Xujun)

 

I first heard Ning Feng's name from Hu Kun, professor of the Royal Academy of Music in London and my husband's childhood buddy. It was 2003, and I was organizing the "Concertos for Piano, Violin, Erhu and Pipa." I invited Hu Kun to perform a violin concerto. He was unable to make it, so he recommended his newly graduated student Ning Feng. I hesitated. The players I recruited for the concert were all world-level musicians, but Ning Feng was an unheard-of name.

As if guessing my thought, Hu Kun said, "Don't worry. I promise Ning Feng will make your concert a success." He even mailed me the congratulatory letter from the Academy's president when Ning Feng became the first in 200 years to receive full-score for his graduation concert.

 

Thus 21-year-old Ning Feng came to Boston. A fellow Sichuanese, his lovely honest face looked artless. If you ran into him on the street, you wouldn't have connected his image to a world-level artist. However, when he stood at ease on the ornate stage of Jordan Hall, intoxicant in his own playing of Jean Sibelius' "Violin concerto in D minor," his rakish manner and artistic excellence thoroughly conquered the entire audience. The nearly 40-minute long violin piece was played in one perfect breath. The excited audience applauded and shouted "Encore! Encore!" Ning Feng had to return to the stage three times. Afterward, several people said to me, "He was too good! My hands are red from clapping so hard."

From Ning Feng's bio I learned that he had already won a dozen awards in international competitions. I asked him why he hadn't been in the Paganini Competition. He said, "I will."

True to his words, the next year, in 2004, Ning Feng applied for the Paganini Competition and was accepted. A week before he was to set off for Italy, however, he contracted a bad flu and tonsillitis. His high fever lasted for days, and he was forced to cancel the journey. A few weeks later, the competition result revealed: the first prize was vacant.

As if waiting for him, beginning that year, the competition was changed from annual to bi-annual.

In September 2006, 55 young violinists from all over the world traveled to Genova, Italy for the 51th Paganini Competition. Upon his arrival, Ning Feng's luggage and stage-costume were lost, and he had to wear jeans on stage. After a week of fierce contention in the preliminaries and semi-finals, Ning Feng found himself entering the final match with five other violinists. Besides a required Paganini piece, he chose a difficult Brahms' violin concerto. This is a piece of non-sentimental, profound music, thus one that is hard to please a jury with. The choice was a display of unusual confidence. Was he over-confident?

Ning Feng would later write in a blog article titled "Dream":

As a child I owned a hand-copied violin score, on its cover a hand-written title "24 Capriccios of Paganini." I thought then, "Perhaps one day I will be playing them on a stage."

In middle school, I once bought a CD, with it came a photo of Paganini's own violin "Cannone." I thought then, "Perhaps one day I will be holding 'Cannone' and hearing its sounds from my own hands?"

On October 1, 2006, in Genova, Italy, at the award ceremony of the 51th International Violin Competition, Ning Feng heard his name read three times by the chairman of the jury, who spoke only Italian. Ning Feng went on the stage three times to receive the medals, but he did not understand a single Italian word other than his name, and did not know what the awards were for. At last, he could not help but asking an English-speaking juror standing behind him:

"Who got the first place?"

The juror looked at him suspiciously, as if to decide whether he was pretending, before saying, "Why, it is you."

To Ning Feng, the highest award was that, as the first place winner he was given the honor of playing Paganini's violin, the 1743 Guarneri del Gesù 'Cannone.'

(Ning Feng, together with Chen Xi, will be performing violin in Boston on Saturday, March 22, 2008, as well as in New Brunswick, NJ, on Saturday April 12 2008. Details and tickets on www.yhpa.org. )