Commercialization of Chinese New Year and Death of Unified Chinese Identity

除夕 (Tsu-shee), or the eve of Chinese New Year (春節, "Tsun-jae"), is today, and atmosphere certainly showed on the main street of the London Chinatown. The usual suspects of red lanterns and shops going on New Year sales aside, the crowds filled the street, filling nearly all eateries to the maximum capacity. Not only were the British Chinese present, the tourists from China, as well as non-Chinese British residents and tourists alike congregated to make the red, gold, and people-filled little district quite picturesque in a highly China-esque way.

Indeed, on this Year of the Dragon, even the least knowledgeable foreigner with access to a bit of information outlet could not have avoided the bombardment of the Chinese New Year-related activities. On one hand, foreign dignitaries, from the UN secretary to presidents of major powers, have wasted no time courting the favors of Chinese officialdom and people with official new years greeting videos partially done in badly pronounced Chinese. All emphasized the need for closer relations with China and the Chinese communities for future development.

As for development, service industries across the world have taken an aggressive step further. A "golden week" of Chinese new year holidays means a massive flow of newly wealthy Chinese tourists abroad. And after witnessing the unparalleled spending power of the massed Asian hordes during the New Year vacations, and with no other significant groups to cater to, stores in major tourist destination for the Chinese are busy hiring Chinese-speaking staff and draping their facades in Chinese red and gold colors to lure in the Chinese money.

And of course, the Chinese themselves are actively involved in all the action. Whether it is in China or abroad, the Chinese consumers are increasing converging with developed country consumers in the matter of taste. Chinese New Year presents of today are just as likely to be a bottle of wine from France as a bottle of traditional Chinese rice liquor. The Chinese government, of course, would use the increased spending power of its citizens, to go on a "charm offensive" promoting Chinese culture.

However, lurking beneath the perceived growth of economic power of the Chinese populace and the soft power of Chinese culture is an increasing divisive vision of what "China," as an ethnic and cultural entity, really symbolizes. The Chinese-speaking world can no longer agree to be "all Chinese" and the mutual hatred by Chinese of different origins is reaching a high new level. For one, the recent trend of the Taiwanese increasingly refusing to identify culturally with the Chinese is a worrisome sign.

However, it is the recent episode of conflicts between mainlanders and locals in Hong Kong that are sparking widespread debate and outrage in the Chinese cyberspace. The story begins with a mainland tourist in Hong Kong eating in the subway, an act that is strictly forbidden in Hong Kong but widely practiced in places like Shanghai and Beijing. A local's attempt to stop the mainlander was met with ridicule, and a violent verbal exchange quickly ensued. The whole story could have ended right there with netizens from all sides criticizing the mainland tourist for refusing to adapt to local customs.

But a certain Prof. Kong of the renowned Peking University, himself a direct descendant of Confucius, lashed out against the locals of Hong Kong for being "dogs." The issue suddenly became one of the mainland academic community and populace against the Hong Kong government and people. The exaggeration of such small incident, initiated by a few "bad apples" and resolvable through a few quick apologies, somehow becomes massive national controversies when taken to the Chinese-speaking world. When the pride of the Hong Kong residents over their perceived superiority over the mainlanders gets insulted, all hell breaks loose.

Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone has their sense of superiority, whether it be Taiwan or for the overseas Chinese. But if we cannot sit aside those differences in a time of happiness in unity like the Chinese New Year, then the concpet of Chinese New Year itself may become culturally meaningless and blindly materialistic like the kind of Christmas celebrated in Asia. And, worse, the concept of "China" may soon become a purely evil political one rather than exotic cultural one.

Comments

  1. Interesting- I suppose it's clear to see when external/semi-external groups in HK, Taiwan, etc. see themselves as not being Chinese, or taking "Chinese" to mean something different from what people on the mainland might conceive of, but how unified is the concept of China, Chinese culture/traditions, etc. on the mainland itself?

    In countries like the US, India, etc., the definition of the nation is not at all agreed upon- so, for instance, Puerto Ricans seeing the U.S. differently would not be unusual, since a Texan and a New Yorker are themselves likely to have different views on the nation, culture, etc.  I suppose mainland China is much more ethnically / culturally uniform than those countries, but is it so much so that there's really a convergence of identity (i.e. do people really just think of themselves as "Chinese," with a common definition of the term and no layers of regional/ethnic/class/etc. identity coming above it)?

    ReplyDelete
  2. thankfully, the idea of Chinese New Year is common to most people who are Han Chinese (and boycotted by non-Chinese minorities such as Tibetans and Mongols), but many other Chinese traditions tend to be more regional (such as food and linguistic differences, to use the most cited examples)

    Traditionally, the political power of the central government, whether it be emperors or CCP cadres in Beijing, have been successful in suppressing, or at least minimize the influence of the regional cultural identities, but with the pluralization of Chinese society, it is increasingly becoming less possible to do so effectively.

    And especially with nominally Chinese places like HK and Taiwan (or at least as the mainlanders think) try to promote their own identity, it is not hard to see localities WITHIN the mainland to follow suit, as a leverage against central control...and perhaps not surprisingly, the city of Shanghai is leading the regionalization, with systematic programs such as reintroduction of the Shanghainese language...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sexualization of Japanese School Uniform: Beauty in the Eyes of the Holders or the Beholders?

Asian Men Are Less "Manly"?!

Instigator and Facilitator: the Emotional Distraught of a Mid-Level Manager