Why China Lacks Gangnam Style : The New Yorker
As long as China remains under the control of the communist party, China will not become a superpower. And that's good for the people of the world, but bad for Chinese citizens themselves.
OCTOBER 3, 2012
WHY CHINA LACKS GANGNAM STYLE
POSTED BY EVAN OSNOS
In China, the Gangnam phenomenon carries a special pique. It has left people asking, Why couldnt we come up with that? China, after all, dwarfs Korea in political clout, money, and market power, and it cranks out more singers and dancers in a single city than Korea does nationwide. Chinese political leaders are constantly talking about the need for soft powerthey have dotted the globe with Confucius Institutes to rival the Alliance Française, and they have expanded radio and television stations in smaller countries that might be tired of American-dominated news. Last year, the Communist Party even declared culture a national priority and vowed to produce its own share of global cultural brands.
So, should we expect a Chinese Gangnam soon? Dont count on it. PSY is a satirist, making fun, and having fun, said John Delury, an expert on China and Korea who teaches international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul. Korea tends to have more irony and satire in its comedy than China, and there arent the impediments to exporting things that question or poke fun of Korean society, politics, etc. And I think somehow people all over the world feel invited to join in, despite a huge cultural difference, when someone from a foreign place is making a bit of fun of themselves. Thats inviting. But China, especially acting in its official, soft-power capacity, is only comfortable exporting things that show off the greatness of its ancient civilization or economic development. Thats not terribly inviting.
In Chinese cultural circles there is a name for this: the Kung Fu Panda problem, named for the 2008 DreamWorks movie. It refers to the fact that the most successful film about two of Chinas national symbolsKung Fu and pandascould only be made by a foreigner because Chinese filmmakers would never try to play with such solemn subjects. The director Lu Chuan, for example, once agreed to produce an animated film for the Beijing Olympics, but after he embarked on the project, he discovered he was not supposed to let his mind run wild. I kept receiving directions and orders from related parties on how the movie should be like. An important part of the instructions was that the animation should promote Chinese culture, he wrote later. We were given very specific rules on how to promote it. And some were not flexible about promoting the Olympic spirit, promoting Chinese culture or rich in Chinese elements. He went on, Under such pressure, my co-workers and I really felt stifled. The fun and joy from doing something interesting left us, together with our imagination and creativity. The planned animation was never produced.
For now, Chinas Gangnam moment seems far off. In China, culture and the arts develop under the watchful eye of the government, and anything too hip or interesting gets either shut down or bought up. In Korea, by contrast, artists and entertainers thrive in a space that is highly commercialized but also pretty much free of the heavy hand of the state, Delury told me, adding, I kid government officials that the moment they understand why K-pop is so successful and try to replicate it, they will destroy it.
As long as China remains under the control of the communist party, China will not become a superpower. And that's good for the people of the world, but bad for Chinese citizens themselves.
A perfect scenario for the Chinese.
