The value of television in China has not been limited to its entertainment purposes. One of the most interesting phenomena of television programming has been the development of a televised education system, the "television university," Guangbo dianshi daxue, or Dianda for short. The Dianda started with basic classes, and then went on to offer full degrees in subjects of science, engineering, and business. Enrolled students, of which there are several millions, watch lectures on the television, receive textbooks through the mail, and attend local meetings for discussions and exams. Although the Dianda is less prestigious than regular universities, it is also much more accessible. The overwhelming majority of students would not have been able to otherwise pursue higher eductation due to their test scores, financial situations, or job commitments. Dianda thus provides both a service and a valuable opportunity to the public. (114)
Dianda represents the sort of unexpectedly edifying application of television technology that intellectuals and Communist puritans hope will balance out the supposedly damaging effects of television. The entertainment purposes of television nevertheless provided the motivation for the proliferation of sets, and Dianda was just one of many unforeseen consequences. Interestingly, however, the most significant show broadcast during the 1980's was likewise not designed as entertainment, although its content was political rather than educational.
The six-part series Heshang, or River Elegy, was broadcast twice during mid-1988, and it was later denounced by the government and cited as a source of the unrest in 1989. The writers later explained that their original intention was to use the show and its surrounding controversy to stimulate national debate and "conscious self-examination." (115) CCTV statistics claim that over 200 million people watched River Elegy, making it one of the most popular series that year. The viewer responses were enthusiastic, and its scripts were published in the newspapers and in book form. (116)
The series was formatted as a documentary featuring interviews with historical scholars, reformers and dissident intellectuals and used extensive visual and verbal imagery. It dared to criticize the symbols of Chinese civilization, such as the Great Wall, Confucianism, the dragon, and the Yellow River. Its episodes were given the weighty titles of "Searching for Dreams," "Destiny," "Inspiration," "The New Era," "Anxiety," and "The Color Blue." It argued that China had failed to develop into a modern civilization and was on the verge of a crisis precisely because its people and government clung to such symbols and the feudal inward-directed land-based fixation they represented. For China to break free of the steady, predictable and unprogressive society that the writers likened to the Yellow River, it must no longer hearken back to its former greatness but instead focus on the present and future dilemmas of building a modern state and society.
The harshest criticism in River Elegy was of the Chinese attitude towards and reliance upon its history. The first episode argued,
There is a blind spot in our national psyche, a vague belief that all of the shame of the past century is the result of a break in our glorious history. Ever since 1840, there have been people who have used the splendors and greatness of the past to conceal the feebleness and backwardness of our present state. It is as though we crave this ancient and timeworn poultice to salve the painful realities of the past century. We seem to find great solace in every earthshaking archaeological discovery. Yet the fact remains that our civilization is moribund.
The richness of the past, the length of China's civilization, do, after all, belong to yesteryear.
No matter how rich our archaeological discoveries, how venerable the origins of our civilization, don't they mean that our ancestors must be laughing at us in scorn? Don't they add weight to our sense of loss, regret, and shame? (117)
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Although it delicately avoided making the point directly, River Elegy implicitly aimed much of the responsibility for China's continuing decline at the entrenched conservatism of the Communist Party. Some members of the reformist faction in the government sympathized with the criticisms made in River Elegy, which explains why its creators were not punished until after 1989. Hardliners in the Party nevertheless began voicing their dislike of the program immediately after the show was aired, labeling it "propaganda for bourgeois liberalization." (118) The hardliners were joined in their criticisms by conservative intellectuals who jumped to defend the values of Chinese history and traditional society. Even some liberal intellectuals spared their praise and pointed out the heavy-handed rhetoric in the series and the simplicity of its arguments. (119)
The conservative concerns were well-founded. Many of the individuals had spilled into Tiananmen Square the following summer had watched and been inspired by River Elegy. It has been cited as contributing significantly to the sense of discontent and malaise that prevailed in the last months of 1988 and up into the summer of 1989. The five individuals who wrote, produced and directed River Elegy were targeted in the 1989 crackdown. Su Xiaokang and Yuan Zhiming fled to France, Zhang Gang was smuggled by boat to Taiwan before going to the U.S., and Jin Guantao left for Hong Kong before the crackdown began. Wang Luxiang and Xie Xuanjun were arrested, interrogated, and harassed by officials subsequent to their release. Director Xia Jun was protected by his connections at CCTV, while Wang Juntao, who had been interviewed extensively for the series, was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. (120)
Two years earier, political content had similarly drawn wide audience interest and discussion to one of China's first domestically produced dramatic serials. The twelve episode Xinxing, or New Star, detailed the struggles of a dedicated young cadre charged with implementing reform in an agricultural and relatively poor county. In 1986, dramatic series were still relatively new. Audience intererest, however, stemmed not from Xinxing's entertainment value but rather from its accurate representation of the dilemmas of reform and the daily frustrations encountered in dealing with a system in transition.
Xinxing was originally an unpublished novel written by a factory worker named Kuo Yunlu. It nevertheless caught the attention of a small local station called Taiyun Television (TYTV) in Shanxi Province. As the station's second experiment with producing its own dramatic shows, TYTV executives decided to produce a miniseries of Xinxing that did not compromise its strongly pro-reformist message. Xinxing was directed by Li Xin from the Beijing Film Production Company on a tight budget and schedule. The enthusiastic response to its first broadcast to the residents of Taiyun resulted in its being bicycled to dozens of local and provincial stations throughout the country, where it also became very popular. The TYTV production team then approached CCTV officials about broadcasting Xinxing, and the CCTV editorial staff made the surprising decision to broadcast it nationally in early spring 1986. Despite its overwhelming popularity with viewers, CCTV almost pulled the show after the first two episodes due to the controversy it generated and opposition from conservative Party leaders. Due to its popularity and the government's fear of damaging its credibility, Xinxing stayed on the air through the entire twelve episodes. (121)
The plot of Xinxing centered around a character named Li Xiangnan, a man in his early thirties who is sent from Beijing to become Party Secretary in the fictional Gulin County. He comes into conflict with Party Vice-Secretary Gu Rong, who is representative of the entire class of cautious, conservative middle-level Party bureaucrats. Li procedes to uncover a number of wrongs committed by local bureaucrats in both Party leadership and industrial management, and he begins righting the situation. A number of bureaucrats and their family members are implicated for corruption, and under Gu's leadership the begin plotting against Li.
In a rare example of Chinese environmentalism, Li discovers that the peasants had been damaging the land in order to turn a quick profit, and he lectures the people of the importance of preserving and conserving natural resources. He meanwhile assists an old man living in the forest to stop the illegal cutting of trees which had been the cause of massive erosion. There are also two romantic sub-plots involving Li's old girlfriend from his teenage years during the Cultural Revolution and a young woman, Gu's niece, who Li starts dating. The two women represent the changes in society: Lin, the old girlfriend and a recent divorcee, is mild-mannered and passively accepting her fate, while Xiaoli, the new girlfriend, is an independent, persistant and confrontational "modern" woman. By the end of the show, Li's forthrightness and conspiring by the bureaucrats results in Li being dismissed from his post, but the people he helped express their commitment to continue fighting for reform after he departs. (122)
The bureaucrats in Xinxing posed the same barrier to Li's reforms in Gulin County as middle-level bureaucrats posed to the entire reform process throughout the country. The problems encountered by Li represent the public frustration of being constantly hindered by corrupt and uncaring bureaucrats. More dangerously, Xinxing suggests that reform cannot be accomplished by edicts from the capital but rather only through a shift in the attitudes and expectations held by the public and especially by the Party bureacrats.
CCTV received more letters expressing opinions on Xinxing than on any previous program. Of those letters, 92 percent expressed favorable responses to the show, and a survey conducted by Beijing University found that 91 percent of respondants had liked the show. Almost 80 percent of viewers agreed that Xinxing accurately depicted the problems facing society and illustrated the continued need for reform. Most respondants, however, felt that the way in which problems were resolved on the show were unrealistic. They believed that such rapid and effective change could never happen in their units due to the entrenchment of bureaucratic corruption. (123)
Throughout the 1980s, dramatic shows such as Xinxing seldom appeared on television. News and documentary dominated the airwaves, and entertainment programming was limited almost entirely to opera performances. Opera, however, had little appeal for younger viewers. Xinxing, although popular, was dominated by political overtones, thus limiting its value as pure entertainment. Chinese television executives faced the dilemma of how to satisfy a very large and unhappy audience. An examination of viewer preferences suggested an overwhelming interest in dramatic series. However, the television dramas produced in China during the 1980s tended to be long on budget but short on plot. The intention was to replicate the technology and diversity of settings found in film. Due to the limited budgets allotted to production studies by the state, this meant that very few shows were developed, and most series were very short. (124)
In 1986 and 1987, Japanese and Taiwanese soap operas and telenovelas from Latin America were first shown in China, and the public enthusiasm for them was overwhelming. These shows were distinctive from Chinese dramas up to that point on a number of fronts. First was duration: the plots of these shows continued for at least dozens of episodes, often lasting for years. Each episode, usually 30 minutes in length, would build up suspense until the end, forcing the audience to watch the following episode to find out what happened. The stories of these shows were character driven, and the sets required were minimal, thus earning them the title of "indoor dramas". Beginning the following year, a group of producers attempted to recreate the style and popular appeal of that genre. The show they produced, a serial called Kewang, or Yearning, was judged an unprecedented success, both in terms of audience response and its influence on Chinese television programming in following years.
In 1988, the Beijing Broadcasting Enterprise Bureau financed its subsidiary, the Beijing Television Art Center (BTAC), to build a 1.8 million yuan studio for making low-budget, indoor drama serials. Kewang was the first show filmed in the new studio, and there was tremendous pressure on BTAC to produce a popular show. In the winter of 1988, Chen Changben, the director of the Beijing Broadcasting Enterprise Bureau, and BTAC director Zheng Xialong convened with BTAC staff members Lu Xiaowei and Li Xiaoming in order to produce a script. Their writing team also included renowned avant-garde writers Wang Shuo and Zheng Wanlong.
Their writing process was aimed at producing a hit, and they borrowed heavily from the foreign soap operas that had proven so popular. The Taiwanese shows inspired them to use the theme of difficult family situations extended over a long period of time, and from the Latin American telenovelas they lifted the use of frustrated or convoluted love affairs. In order to attract China's large elderly population, they appealed to traditional family and moral values. This was accomplished through the main character, a virtuous, filial and long-suffering woman. The woman was also written to be young and attractive, in order to draw in male viewers. The writers designed the characters very simply, almost as stereotypes, such as the passive "oriental woman," the "sappy intellectual," and the "shrew." (125) Its design to tap into the subconscious attitudes and biases of the average Chinese viewer, while effective, also drew criticism that the show portrayed intellectuals in a derogatory light, was excessively melodramatic, and celebrated conservative values such as self-sacrifice and endurance of suffering. (126)
The plot of Kewang is likewise formulaic. The 50-episode plot follows two struggles of two families through the Cultural Revolution and up to the 1980's. Wang Husheng, the son of an intellectual family persecuted during the Cultural Revolution goes to work in a factory where he meets Liu Huifan, a sweet and simple woman from a poor, working class background. Following stereotypes, the Liu family is depicted as straightforward, well-meaning, and hard working, while the members of the Wang family are either spineless and pathetic or scheming and cruel. The two marry, and Liu adopts and raises an abandoned baby girl, who turns out to be the daughter of her husband's overeducated and backstabbing sister. Due to pressures from his family, Wang divorces Liu, his sister reclaims the little girl, and Liu is hit by a car and paralyzed for life. (127)
Despite or perhaps because of its contrived plot and characters, Kewang received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response. It was first broadcast in Nanjing in November 1990, after which it was shown and reshown numerous times on both local stations and CCTV. In thousands of letters and phone calls to television stations, viewers explained that the main draw of the show was the Liu Huifang character: men described her as their ideal wife, and female viewers likened her to a sister. Viewer ratings were extremely high, reaching 27 percent of viewers in Beijing and as high as 98 percent in some medium sized towns. (128)
After Kewang, "indoor drama" serials proliferated along with other types of series previously unavailable in China, and the variety and quality of entertainment programming increased. In 1992, BTAC followed up with a second hit, the highly sarcastic situation comedy, Bianjibu de gushi, or The Story of an Editorial Office, which portrayed the daily occurrences and dilemmas of the workplace, such as power struggles, financial issues, family concerns, and budding office romance. The following year, another series, Beijingren zai Niu Yue, or A Beijinger in New York, depicting the struggles of new Chinese immigrants to the United States and gratifying the various stereotypes that Chinese have of Americans, likewise drew in a large audience. Although Chinese series continue to be outnumbered by informational shows, variety shows, films, and imported programs, they continue to rise in significance.
Despite the relatively small quantity of dramatic programming available, it nevertheless figured as the most popular type of show with Chinese viewers. In a 1991 survey of urban and rural Chinese households, dramas were cited as the favorite type of program more than any other genre. Drama received 46 percent of mentions overall, although it was far more popular with women than with men (67 percent to 31 percent, respectively). This compared to other types of shows such as sports, at 22 percent, informational shows, at 19 percent, and light entertainment, such as variety or musical shows, at 13 percent. Of the types of dramatic shows, series were the most preferred, receiving 21 percent of overall mentions. The second largest category was Chinese opera, although the responds citing it were primarily elderly. Foreign drama series were the third most popular form, receiving only four percent of mentions. The other types, in rank order of mention, were movies, war dramas, foreign movies, and historical dramas. (129)
Viewer preferences appear in almost a reverse order of the frequency in which different types of shows actually are broadcast. The less popular informational and light entertainment shows dominate television airtime. Of the types of drama, foreign and domestic series are relatively rare. Historical dramas, a perennial favorite of state-run stations and production companies, are the most commonly shown form of drama. Chinese Opera represents the sole category where supply meets demand. Opera performances are regularly shown, and Beijing even has a station showing nothing but opera broadcasts. (130)
Little information is available on the hours spent watching television by the average individual or household, but anecdotal evidences suggests that the level is high. The television set typically occupies the central part of the small family dwelling space, and normally is turned on whenever the family is at home. Viewing is often a group activity, and the individuals simultaneously discuss the program being shown. Particularly in the early 1980's, before most homes had their own TV set, neighbors without their own set would flock to the homes of those who do. The set is often on as a background noise even when no one in the household is actively watching.
It can be concluded that most individuals in China watch television regularly regardless of their level of interest in what is being shown. Although the variety of stations and shows has increased dramatically in recent years, consumer choice remains low. The decision is not so much what to watch but whether. Despite their frustration with the program offerings, most people claim that television has been beneficial to their individual lives, as well as to family interactions. According to Lull (1991),
Almost invariably the set is located in the largest room and is typically the visual focus of that space...In the vast majority of cases, urban residents believe that their lives have improved considerably since TV came into their homes. Generally, life before TV is described as 'dead' or 'boring'...'there was not other thinking except the government's educational meetings. Now, we have something to do with our time, something new to thing about, and a way to relax.' 'Now we have some consolation after work. Without television you come home and have nothing special to do.' (131)
A number of households actually claimed that television improved family relations. While watching, they fought less, and television shows provided something to talk about. The American complaint that television distracts the public from participating in more edifying forms of culture is seldom sounded in China. After all, "high" culture was and is rarely available for public consumption, and television serves to actually increase its accessibility. Although authorities worry about the appearence on television of excessive sex and violence, and negative social impact, the concern does not seem to be shared by the public at large.
Endnotes, Chapter 4
83. Lull, James, China Turned On: Television, reform, and resistance, (New York: Routledge)1991, p. 154.
84. Ibid., p. 171.
85. Storey, John, Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Theories and Methods, (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press) 1996, p. 9.
86. Ian Ang, as cited in Story, p. 19.
87. Quester, George H., The International Politics of Television, (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books) 1990., 1990, p. 1.
88. Chang, Kuo-sin, A survey of the Chinese Lanugage Daily Press, (Hong Kong: Asian Programme International Press Institute) 1968, p. 212-213.
89. Chang (1968), 212-213.
90. Lull, p. 22.
91. "A Brief Introduction to the Journalism Department of Yenching University", as cited in Chang, p. 218.
92. Chang (1989), p. 218-219.
93. Ibid., p. 220-221.
94. Lull, p. 132-133, 154, 160-161.
95. Chang (1989), p. 221.
96. Ibid., 220.
97. "Domestic TV Programs Enter the Market," Beijing Review, v39 n44, 28 October - 3 November, 1996, p. 30-31.
98. Zhen, Yifan, "Chinese Children Soon to Enjoy Chinese Cartoons," Beijing Review, v39 n5, 29 January -- 4 February, 1996, p. 28-29.
99. Schell, 343.
100. Lull, p. 149.
101. Ibid., p. 150.
102. Ibid., p. 27
103. Ibid., p. 147.
104. Ibid., p. 147.
105. Zha, 1997, p. 116.
106. Stross, Randall, "The Return of Advertising in China: A survey of Ideological Reversal," China Quarterly, v123, September 1990, p. 485.
107. Stross, 489 - 493.
108. Chang, 224.
109. Schell, 342.
110. Ibid., 343.
111. Stross, p. 494, 499.
112. Lull, p. 136.
113. Stross, p. 490.
114. McCormick, Robert, "The Radio and Television Universities and the Development of Higher Education in China," China Quarterly, v105 (March 1986) p. 72-94.
115. Lull, p. 142
116. Barme and Jaivin (ed), New Ghosts, Old Dreams , (New York: Random House) 1992, p.140.
117. River Elegy, Episode One: "Searching for Dreams," as cited in Barme and Jaivin (ed), New Ghosts, Old Dreams , (New York: Random House) 1992, p.144-145.
118. CCTV Deputy Director Hong Minshen, as quoted in Beijing Review and cited in Lull, p. 142
119. Barme and Jaivin, p. 143, 158-164.
120. Ibid., p. 142.
121. Lull, 100-103.
122. Ibid., p. 102-116.
123. Ibid., p. 117-120.
124. Zha, Jianying, China Pop, (New York Press: New York) 1995.
125. Ibid., p. 38-39.
126. Ibid., p. 32
127. Zha, Jianying, "China's Popular Culture in the 1990's," in Joseph, William A. (ed.), China Briefing: The Contradictions of Change, (New York: M.E. Sharpe) 1997, p. 119.
128. Ibid., 1997, p. 119
129. Lull, p. 156-159.
130. No statisics detailing the numerical breakdown of programming time are available. The above is based on my own and friends' observaions.
131. Lull, 1991, p. 64.
