Two articles in the People’s Daily reveal, once again, the anxieties of maintaining "Chinese culture" in a globalized context.  The first, a front-pager in today’s Overseas Edition, compares China’s "culture industry" to that dominating producer of "American culture:" Disney:

    While China continues to welcome foreign cultural products, a "China wind"
has still not stirred up much dust. China is unable to bring out cultural
products that can compete or compare with the Korean drama series "Dae
Jang-geum", or the Japanese cartoon "Chibi Maruko Chan" or any of Disney’s
animation efforts.

    China it seems remains passive in cultural exchanges, international
competition and the culture trade.

    The second piece, a short report on the cultural tastes of contemporary Chinese, has an title Karl ("fetishism of commodities) Marx would love: "Consumption becomes young Chinese new way for self expression."  The full text below the jump:

China’s active participation in world globalization process and its
opening-up policy to the outside world are profoundly influencing young Chinese
consumption patterns, according to a survey on youth development by China Youth
and Children Research Center.

According to the survey, entertainments like TV series, music, movie,
Internet games from European and American countries occupy a very important
position in young people’s lives; about 50% of youngsters like European and
American popular entertainment programs, and more and more of them favor Japanese and South Korean TV series and Internet games.

Millions of young Chinese are perceiving life through TV, movie, MTV,
Internet and Internet games, from which, they form their own value about life
and the world, and of what is right or wrong.

Experts worry that young people of this generation lack sense of moderate
consumption because more and more youngsters no matter from rural or urban areas
show an obvious consumerism trend due to modern media’s propagation.

     So, the "problem" is that globalization is swamping Chinese children in cultural products from other countries, thus undermining their identity as Chinese.  But the "answer" (as per the first article) is to be better in global cultural competition by developing Disney-like products that represent "Chinese culture."  Ugh.

     Of course, global capitalism will all but require the creation and exchange of Disney-fied "Chinese culture; that will happen whatever the cultural policies of the CCP.  It’s just the way the world works (imagine, instead of Hello Kitty, we get Hello Confucius!).  It is inevitable that we will face the hollowing out and flattening of the rich and challenging philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism as these are turned into kitsch for display in yuppie living rooms.

    But wouldn’t it be nice if a counter trend could be established.  Why not "market" Confucianism and Taoism as ways out of the increasingly infantalized and sexualized and commodified flow of global "culture/s"?  I know, I know, that might simply mean the commodification an "anti-commodity," ad infinitum.  But wouldn’t it be nice to present these traditions as something other than Disney animation figures or a TV mini-series?  Maybe we should ask Imagethief to come up with a marketing campaign.  Something like:

     Confucius – the un-Disney.

   Or,

    Good-bye Kitty, Hello Chuang Tzu.

   Obviously, I would fail as a PR guy.  But let’s tell the Chinese government that, if it wants to find a niche for certain elements of its cultural "traditions," that it might be smart to place its product as alternatives to Disney, et al., not just as one more cheap imitation.