Monday, October 10, 2005

China: Taiwan accent "not advanced"

The government of China has announced new rules for TV hosts and hostesses (hat tip to this blog via Sam, who commented in the Oct 7 blog roundup). The Washington Post reports:

Masters of ceremony on state television's seemingly endless roster of variety shows, the regulations said, should avoid vulgarity, dress modestly and uplift their young viewers. "Hosts and hostesses represent the image of radio and TV stations and therefore have an unshakable responsibility to spread advanced culture and national virtue and to safeguard the country's interests," the authorities decreed.

But also in the latest set of rules, published Sept. 10 by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, was a less obvious stipulation: Masters of ceremony should always use standard Mandarin Chinese and should stop affecting Hong Kong or Taiwanese slang and accents.


Just another example of the Chinese paradigm of culture-as-hegemonic tool.....Everyone knows that Hong Kong and Taiwan are backwards, unsophisticated places with no export economy and no visitors from the outside world. And as some of the commentators at the other site pointed out, if Taiwan is really part of China, then isn't Taiwanese culture Chinese culture? So what's wrong with it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i guess the ccp's caught on the fact that chinese youths are adopting the taiwanese accent in order to sound sophisticated.

Anonymous said...

correction : not CCP but CIP

CIP - Chinese Imperial Party

The chinese never left their imperial past behind, they just exchanged one emperor for another.

In line with the above, chinese 'human' rights never amounted to anything more than what it was during the rule of the traditional emperors. It was ruled by the perspective, 'see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil'. In other words, evil is never evil till it happens to you. That is the core of the 'great' chinese culture. It is a historical experiment in suppression and oppression and how the 'people' may be adapted to such a condition.

Anyone who goes to china to admire architectural 'wonders' such as the great wall or forbidden city is engaging in validating the monstrosities these structures stand upon and crush - the human spirit.

The fact that the 'CCP' didn't tear down either the great wall or the forbidden city is testament to these symbols not being antithetical to the self and other-perceptions of the CCP. Thus, the CIP.