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January 24, 2005
Another Form of Political Drama
Simon World thinks that being a reporter in the People's Republic must be hard, with all the BSing. I can tell him that being a TV writer is equally difficult.
These days, on Fairchild TV (Canada's major Chinese-language TV station), they're airing the CCTV series Zhong Cheng (translates to Loyalty and Honesty). It's a drama series about the trials and tributations of development faced by the government and party apparatus in a small town in the post-Tiananmen era.
Since it's explicitly political, the overall atmosphere is, not surprisingly, very positive towards the CCP. But do they have to include silly platitudes in their everyday speech? Like when there's a strike in a local factory, the first response by one government official is "This will damage the reputation of the Reforms and Liberalizations!"
(Note: Reforms and Liberalizations, or Gai Ge Kai Fang, is standard government lingo for economic liberalization since the Deng era.)
Seriously, does anyone talk like that? Let's put it this way: I'd feel really weird if there was a strike outside a government building in Canada and someone exclaimed "This will seriously derail the plans in the Speech from the Throne!"
I think the worst part of it is that they try to make it realistic, and then include all this junk. I mean, the old propaganda was considerably more unabashed. Alas, such is the product of being totalitarian while trying to hide it.
Posted by Kelvin at January 24, 2005 11:55 AM
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