People's Republic Cultural Product

[Michael Hardner]

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/72622-inside-chinas-star-making-machine

China tries to export culture. The article is about Ruhan Jia

Jia, a soprano trained in the Chinese and Western operatic traditions, recorded her first album, Time to Grow, last year. It’s a crossover, multinational effort that combines pop and classical as well as Chinese and Western sensibilities, and is sung mostly in Mandarin. Many listeners might hear in it something like a Chinese version of Sarah Brightman, the soprano who starred in The Phantom of the Opera and went on to an eclectic recording career. Time to Grow was produced in Sweden and mixed by Bernard Löhr, who has worked with Céline Dion and Il Divo. A British record company is distributing it. Jia’s manager is a woman from Taiwan who has lived in the U.S. and Europe for years. Jia’s recording contract is with the biggest music company in China. And her entire career has the backing of the Chinese government, which desperately wants an officially approved artist to gain the kind of worldwide attention its dissidents usually get. Time to Grow is the first release from China’s optimistically named Earth’s Music project, which is part of the government’s five-year national economic development plan.

It seems like a reach right now - exporting Chinese culture to promote political ends. However, we already know that such policies work internally. Canada does this today.

Question: is there anything wrong with this approach ? Will it be effective ? If so, when ?

I will predict a Chinese cultural phenomenon... sometime in the next 20 years.

Edited to add: If the person speaks English, and is acceptable enough on other grounds... big qualifiers there. We still haven't had an Indian superstar in the English language world, for example.

[bleeding heart]

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/72622-inside-chinas-star-making-machine

Edited to add: If the person speaks English, and is acceptable enough on other grounds... big qualifiers there. We still haven't had an Indian superstar in the English language world, for example.

Good point. Even in the "higher arts" world of literary superstardom, India's biggest and most respected export has been Salman Rushdie--whose writing is, by his own assessment, "Western-oriented" in style and sensibility.

[kimmy]

The thread title made me giggle... I envision "People's Republic Cultural Product" coming in a utilitarian olive-green box labeled "Cultural Product", purchased from a store that also sells olive-green boxes labeled "Consumer Product".

If I recall correctly (I may not...) the movie "Hero", starring Jet Li, was made with direct involvement from the Chinese government. It was somewhat entertaining, but the overall message did somewhat seem like pro-government propaganda.

-k

[Michael Hardner]

If I recall correctly (I may not...) the movie "Hero", starring Jet Li, was made with direct involvement from the Chinese government. It was somewhat entertaining, but the overall message did somewhat seem like pro-government propaganda.

-k

kimmy - our glorious cultural product manufacturer thanks you for your support... you are a commendable comrade a true sister of the revolution...

[cybercoma]

I don't know about People's Republic Cultural Product, but South Korean Cultural Product has been making the rounds.

[WWWTT]

I will predict a Chinese cultural phenomenon... sometime in the next 20 years.

Ok?

WWWTT