Copy of ASIA 319 Contemporary Chinese Culture PDF

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Week 1: ​Popular​ ​Culture​ ​IntroRefer to ​Lecture Slide ● Why is China uncool ○ Pushing soft power to the world ■ Strategies ineffective (Confucius institute, etc.) ■ Lame, boring compared to Hollywood, Anime, K-Pop (FUCK YOU, RETARD) ○ Artists have to conquer the following: ■ Negative Chinese ste...

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Week 1: P  opular Culture Intro Refer to Lecture Slide ● Why is China uncool ○ Pushing soft power to the world ■ Strategies ineffective (Confucius institute, etc.) ■ Lame, boring compared to Hollywood, Anime, K-Pop (FUCK YOU, RETARD) ○ Artists have to conquer the following: ■ Negative Chinese stereotypes ● Deeply ingrained in Western world ■ Generation gap between older administrative class and China’s younger class ● Government officials have to approve ■ Censorship ● Brief history (“modern China’s history”) ○ Opium war (1840’s and 1850’s) ○ Xinhai Revolution (1911) ■ Intellectual began to learn from the West about social, economic and political structures ○ May Fourth movement (1919) ■ Promote the learning from the West, to be modern ○ CCP founded (1921) ■ Mao Zedong emerged as a prominent personality ○ Mao’s politicization of art and literature speech (1942) ■ Foundational guidelines ○ Founding of PRC (1949) ○ Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) ■ Large amount of artistic industries were paused ■ People were stuck in the class struggle instead ○ Open-Door Policy and Economic Reform (1978) ■ Deng Xiaoping ○ Tiananmen Incident (1989) ■ Anticipated the strict political environment within China ○ Southern talk in Shenzhen by Deng Xiaoping (1992) ■ Economic zones in southeast China ● Economic Reform ○ Third Plenum of 11th CCP Congress ○ Deng Xiaoping introduced his economic reforms ○ Pragmatic attitude ○ No longer a focus on class struggles ■ Switched to economic development ○ Led into neoliberalism ■ Growth of individual subjectivity

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Complicated to define because of loser shit like not recognizing ethnicities, and making a big deal out of class or gender (POZZED) ○ Taiwan and Hong Kong media influences Mainland China ■ So does Japanese and Korean media ■ WE JUST GOTTA CONSUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEE Function of media ○ Store and retain memory ○ Mediating ■ Transporting, Transmitting, Circulating, Distributing, and Translating Types of media ○ Oral communication and handwriting ○ Mechanical media ○ Electronic media ○ Digital media ○ Mobile media Party principle (dang xing yuan ze) ○ Accept the leading role of the Party both in society in general and in media production in particular ○ Promote Party policies, campaigns, and directives as their own ○ “Different” from Western media, “which criticizes government”, yeah ok buddy retard Censorship and self-censorship ○ Continuous media surveillance and self-censorship by media user (editors, administrators, individuals ■ How individuals in different sectors of society find new channels to express their opinions ● Through emojis, so fucking brave amirite? ● Not adequate to think the state controls every aspect and uses media to indoctrinate ● Not adequate to think of Chinese media in terms of capitalism and liberal democracy ● SOOOOOOOOOO COMPLEX WOW ■ Silently push the boundaries (must report to Xi) ○ Tough trying to find a politically acceptable and popular balance Neoliberalism ○ Extension of economic rationality to all aspects of human life ○ Requires political intervention and orchestration by the state ■ State becomes an enterprise organized by market rationality ■ State’s legitimacy is based on the health and growth of the economy ○ Production of moral subject as an entrepreneurial subject ■ Measures citizens’ conduct as economic behaviour ■ Calculates rather than abides rule ■ Do it yourself, or self-responsible way of managing life ○ Policies are constructed in China according to the above criteria

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Strategies ○ Chad Deng Xiaoping: One Country, Two Systems (1984, practiced in 1997)) ■ Synchronize with HK’s government and economic systems ○ Virgin Jian Zemin: Three Represents ■ Developmental requirement of advanced productive forces ■ Progressive direction of advanced culture ■ Fundam interest of the greatest majority of people ○ Brad Hu Jiantou: Harmonious Society ■ Democracy and rule of law ■ Fairness of justice ■ Sincerity and friendliness ■ Full-scale vitality ■ Stability and orderliness ■ Human-nature harmony ○ Thad Xi Jinping: Chinese Dream ■ Socialism with Chinese style ■ Chinese spirit ■ Patriotism + reforms ■ Chinese Power ● Power of the people and their dreams

Week 2: N  ews, Papers, and Magazines Refer to Lecture Slide ● History ○ Earliest newspaper is called the Di Bao (887) ○ Shen Bao (1872): Shanghai Newspaper ■ Crucial location in late imperial Chinese history ■ Witnessed multiple cultural conflicts / influences ○ New National Citizen Daily (1931) ● Today’s most important papers ○ The People’s Daily ■ Semi-required reading by government people ○ Chef Du Commercial Daily & Western China Cosmopolitan Daily ■ Tabloids ● Reading practices, changing trends ○ Socialist China (1949-1978) ■ Read newspapers in a collective way ■ Group reading, informally or formally ○ Post 1978 ■ Urban neighborhood newspaper reading boards for collective reading ■ Individual subscriptions ■ Online newspapers

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■ Mobile newspapers Tabloids ○ 5 types ■ Evening papers ■ Weekly news digests ■ Law and order type ■ Weekend editions ■ Business and lifestyle papers Main functions of the tabloid press ○ Deploy rich, complex, and incoherent stories about different social stratifications ■ The new rich at the top, the beneficiaries of economic reform ● Admiration of those who accumulate wealth through smart manipulations, while condemning those who make money illegal ■ The peasants at the bottom (peasants, migrant workers, laid-off workers, and criminals) ● Focus on the story, not the reasons why bad things happen ○ Can’t describe why laid-off workers commit suicide, because it would be bad press ○ Obfuscating things for the sake of official party propaganda ○ Practice and resonate with official myths and popular practical consciousness in different ways, with different political implications Magazines are a repository of cultural memory and a catalyst of gendered action ○ Clear and explicit mark on periodicals give us an opportunity to look at changes of trends Magazines and Women in China ○ The very first magazine was the Dianshizhai Pictorial  (by Shenbao ) ■ Ex. Jubilee Address, Jubilee Procession of the Sojourning Ningbo Community, Wu Youru, Kite-flying Party. ● Graphic prints depicting people in their everyday lives ■ Demonstrate everyday life ■ Possible conclusions drawn about an early fascination with foreigners ○ New Youth ■ HQ of the May 4th movement ■ To learn democracy and technology from the West ■ To modernize China ○ Women’s World ■ Stop foot binding ■ Engagement with sports ■ Use the abstract “West” to describe and discuss Chinese affairs ● Establish Chinese identity and modernity ○ The Young Companion  (1920s & 1930s) ■ Feature young women to attract readers ● “Real women” ■ Shift of more westernized beauty standards and way of dressing ■ Promote economic progress, modernity

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Linloon  magazine ■ Foreign as something fascinating, alluring and strange ■ Hovering between admiration and suspicion ■ Western fashion depicted in the change of covers Women of China 1  960s & 1970s ■ Posters and pictorial magazines become big part of Chinese youth’s lives ■ Establish models with proper behaviour and aspirations toward Communist idealism ■ Pictures show hope, happiness, service, and sacrifice ● Feature women working ● Inspired by Mao himself, sometimes feature him exclusively ● No foreigners’ images *Foreign friends in posters ■ Revolutionary friendship ■ Struggle of all people against American imperialism or other colonizers ■ Function to show a grander international Maoism Young Generation 1  980s ■ More progressive ■ Reported on issues young people faced, foreign literature, film, music and society ■ Focus on education for a hopeful future 1990s ■ Elle, Cosmopolitan, How, Metropolis, e  tc. ■ Appealed to mature, wealthy and educated women ● Overtly sexuaL AT TIMES ■ Included articles and pictures of Chinese women that were practical and attractive to fairly ordinary Chinese urban communities Online magazines focus on consumerism a lot

Week 3: T  elevision  Refer to Lecture Slide ● Brief history of TV in China ○ First station in 1958 (Beijing TV) ○ By 1972, every province had a TVstation ○ CCTV launched the Evening News (xinwen lianbo) i n 1978 ○ 1980s = age of TV ■ Black & white to colour ■ Most Chinese households had at least one TV set ■ CCTV Chinese New Year Evening Gala ○ 1990s ■ Cable became common ■ Proliferation of channels ● Programs from Hong Kong & Taiwan ■ Foreign media content

● Ex. MTV, Start TV 2000s ■ Ordinary object in everyday consumption ■ Evolved from novel marker of economic reform to common feature Change in views of what is luxurious ○ 1960s-1970s = wristwatch, bicycle, and sewing machine ○ 1980s = colour tv, refrigerator, and washing machine ○ 1990s = telephone, air conditioner, and VCR ○ 2000s = private apartment, cars, and computers (including mobile phones) Brief history of popular media ○ 2000s ■ Reforming the television industry in China ● CCTV ● Rise of private television, aka folk television (minjian dianshi) ○ Caters to different audiences needs ● Satellite TV ○ Hunan Satellite TV becomes popular ○ Attracts millions of youth ○ Celebrity stardom, and other forms of more common entertainment ● More Hollywood media companies in China ○ Threat to domestic film industry ● Influence of Korean popular culture (hanliu) ● Digitalization: web TV, mobile TV ○ How does television relate help make sense of the transformation in neoliberalism? ■ TV translates neoliberalism into a specific set of moral-economic values and in producing knowledge that citizens survive market turbulence ■ Likewise helps them cope with the social impacts of an increasingly entrenched neoliberal economic order ● BYUNG-CHUL HAN LMFAO CCTV ○ 7pm News Broadcast ■ Official channel of the party ■ Content is about party policy and decision makers ○ Revival of spy theme tv genre ■ Sponsored by the state ■ Originated from domestic war period in 1940s-1960s (peak) ■ Related to Mao’s warning about subversive imperialist forces, and never forgetting class struggle ■ Netizens produce alternative interpretations, that are counter current ● Differing stances on morality, meaninglessness of revolution, etc. ● Audience is no longer passive receiver of ideology ○ Can actively distort meaning to express something they view as essential ○

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Commerce Drama ■ Historical costume drama ● Transnational star; produce by transnational companies ■ Contemporary social dramas ■ Idol soap operas ● Features stars as main appeal Television audiences ○ Fragmentation ○ Group viewing into individual based viewing ○ Caused by diversification of TV and cable channels ○ Viewing habits change ■ Viewing at home is most common ■ Public viewing less popular ■ Viewing through mobile devices Prosumer ○ Producer+consumer ○ Consumes and produce media ○ Product of digital media era ○ Express personal ideas, subvert / invert official discourse and intended ideology embedded in state sponsored media / propaganda “Super girl” ○ One of the most popular televised talent shows ○ Entertainment democracy: ■ Voting in television shows by audiences for their favourite contestants ■ Democratic paradigm allowing people to contribute their own preferences and support ■ Neoliberal subjects as a prerequisite of voting and democracy ● Voting online or sms, etc. ○ Interactive commerce ■ Bilateral paradigm ■ Viewers / producers provide the content which adds value to the program / product which is then repackaged and sold back to them ■ Audience provides extra labour ● Then feel empowered and recognized in the process of showing their feelings ○ Encourage individualistic performances ■ “Master of my own happiness” ○ Cheap labor ■ Amateur singers and performers ■ Unpaid fans consume and produce the “super girls” ■ Emotional involvement and devotion from fans-emotional capital has been generated in the production of stardom Sisters Who Make Waves ○ Similar to the above

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■ Similar paradigms ○ Already famous celebrities, above 30s, MILFs ○ Ending is unsatisfied, as results were rigged like PD48 oof Xinwen lianbao 7pm News Broadcast ○ Official television broadcasters reporting national leaders and national policies with specific stories ■ Focus Report & Legal Report = other programs on CCTV ○ Story telling ■ Propaganda oriented, public opinion steering channel with strategies of affect governance ■ Educational ○ Affect governance ■ Emotionally charged and powerful, morally lifting ● Soundtrack, tones, perspectives, etc. ■ Audiences moved by countless heroism and selflessness ■ Audiences know they are watching propaganda, but are still emotionally attracted Dedication of love-style televisual spectacles ○ Overly dramatic depictions of heroism and self-sacrifice ■ Praising individuals to eliminate issues of representation disparities ● Women, other sexualities, etc. ○ To show that the CCP as a whole is empathetic ○ One TV drama got roasted for downplaying contributions of w*men ■ Fucking based ■ Weibo ● Users want the truth = angry all the time zzzzzz Dating shows ○ If you are the one ■ Highly popular ■ Produce by Jiangsu TV since 2010 ○ One out of a hundred ○ Take me out ○ Chinese dating with parents ■ Switch back into traditional matchmaking style ○ Large amount of commercials ■ Allows enterprises to match the program viewers with potential customers and market ■ Win-win situation for the shows and their sponsors ○ Critique ■ Low quality copying and plagiarizing ■ Lack of innovation ■ Vulgar, inauthentic, and unethical ■ Controversial values of the candidates: degenerates or greedy desires, discrimination, etc. ■ Discourse extremely problematic

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● Ma Nuo = cry in bmw, than on bike New ideas (jewish ideas) ■ Conflate capital with love ■ Break traditional gender relationship ■ Changed traditional preference for chastity Entertaining and educational ■ Meng Fei, the host ■ Le Jia, a psychological analyst ■ Huang Han, psychology professor from Party School of Jiangsu Provincial Committee of China’s Commmunist Party

SARFT ○ State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television ■ Standardizes and regulates hows and love themed programs ■ Urge local televisions citations to take action to uphold values advocated by CCP

Week 4: C  inema   ●

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Six generations ○ 1st generation (1900s-1920s) (Zhang Zhengqiu) ○ 2nd generation (1930s-1940s) (Cai Chuisheng, Zheng Junli) ○ 3rd generation (1949-1950S) (Xie Jin) ○ 4th generation (Wu Yigong) (graduated in the 1960s) ○ 5th generation (Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige) (1978-1992) ○ 6th generation (Zhang Yuan, Jia Zhangke) (1992-2001) Maoist era ○ Based on talk in Yan’an ○ Socialist realism ■ Support ccp policies ■ Clear distinction between the working classes and the class enemy 2001-present (post economic reformation) ○ China’s entry to WTO ○ Competition from Hollywood ○ International co-production as a norm ○ Commercial success: ■ Big Shot’s Funeral ( 2001) ● Shows interactions and reconciliations between clashing markets/cultures ● Pay attention to piracy issues ○ Copying content instead of generating it ○ Digital films have increased in popularity ○ Film consumption: theaters, home (VCD, DVD, cable), internet, cellphone Filmmakers as cultural brokers ○ Economic agenda ■ Work with real estate entrepreneurs and commercial industry

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● Consider how to attract funding ■ Participate in dialogue with economic reform ○ Film and filmmakers ■ Box office success ■ Cultural significance as trendsetters ○ Visual experiences, social networks, and aesthetic environment ■ Must balance Western filmmaking styles with marketable aspects ■ Mediate between culture and capital (Big Shot’s Funeral ) Roles of film directors in neoliberal China ○ Film directors as cultural brokers, working with entrepreneurs and commercial industry. ○ The entrepreneurship of filmmakers, such as Ning Ying, Wu Wenguang, and Jia Zhangke. ○ “A wide spectrum of entrepreneuring filmmakers use their media knowledge and cultural status to add prestige and monetary value to commercial products.”(Braester, p. 553) Feng Xiaogang and hesuipian ○ A former People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Theatre Troupe set designer turned director. ○ Many of his films achieved major domestic box office success: creating a new model of Chinese national cinema (Jason McGrath) or “Cultural Fast Food” (Dai Jinhua, cited by Zhang Yingjin) ○ New Year’s Comedies: “entertaining with a happy ending.” (Wang, Shujen, 2003: 148)imitate HK and Hollywood entertainment mode. Initially launched in Mainland China in 1997. Catering to urbanites and fit in popular culture. ○ Transnational flourishes but with local tastes: Beijing dialect, stories of China’s new rich. Big Shot’s Funeral ○ Social and economic structural changes ■ How the changes impacted individuals living in the society. ■ The obsolete notion of an unbreakable rice bowl to the emergence of “laid-off” workers. ■ Yo Yo as one of the characters who no longer is protected by the state. ■ 2001 China was admitted into WTO. ● Economic reform ● Rapid transformation ● Shows the dimensions of unprotected individuals, domestically ■ Same year, Big Shot’s Funeral was released: first Sino-American co-production after China’s join in WTO; reflective film with self mocking, satire, and pastiche to depict the possible ambiguity, anxiety, and uncertainty when facing the new social change. ○ Little potato characters ■ Anti-hero, and their struggles and goals in ordinary life ■ Major success in box office ■ The sense of empowerment (ordinary man), which aligns with the interest of the State in an environment with massive changes (Jing Jiang, 2010: 305) ■ The post-modern comedy: with features including “loose structure, fragmented details, and lack of depth and purpose.” (Zhang, Yingjin, p. 17) ■ Visual elements: balloons, banners, billboards, floor coverings, etc. ○ Fen Xiaogang’s film production

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Self-referential play on domestic fantasies of globalized luxuries and glamour through a commercialized lens. ■ The “playfulness” as a major component of his directorial style as an “opposite way of thinking” (Zhang, Yingjin, p. 18) ■ Chen Xiaoming labels Feng’s style as “postpolitics” where “everything is political and nothing is political at once and at the same time. Politics is everywhere and yet it subverts itself at any moment.” (cited from Zhang, p. 19) ○ Transnational production ■ Producers: Huayi Brothers &Taihe Film Investment Company and Columbia Pictures Production Asia, and the official Beijing Film Studio. ■ Stars: Ge You (PRC), Rosalind Kwan (Hong Kong), Donald Sutherland (Canada), Ying Da (PRC), Paul Mazursky (US) ■ Enjoyed a global distribution, first released in China and other parts of Asia, and then in various countries in Europe and America. Guo Jingming ○ Chinese young adult novel writer ○ Best-selling writer and business person ○ Amateur film director ○ Projects his own struggle and desire in the plots of Tiny Times ■ Migrant writer from Sichuan to Shanghai ■ Matches with his emotional struggles and success Tiny Times ○ Visually depicting the glamorous lifestyle and consumerism ○ Friendship / affection and money intertwined in the stories ○ Film production and reception ■ Tiny Times series were co-produced by Heli Chenguang International Culture Media (Beijing) Co., Ltd, EE-Media, and Star Ritz International Entertainment Co., Ltd. ■ Mixed reception: ● Positive: light-hearted, easy-to-follow storylines and mise-en-scenes, glamorous props used in the films. ● Negative: “unrealistic” and vulgar, advocating the desire toward materials and goods, filled with commercialized subje...