[The gala’s heavy ideological
messaging and overt glorification of the military led some Chinese to remark
that this year’s offering was even more propagandistic than usual. At one
point, amid images from the enormous military parade in Beijing
They had just been featured in
“The General and the Soldier,” a 14-minute skit in the annual Lunar New Year’s Eve TV gala broadcast across China on Sunday to mark the start of the
Year of the Monkey. CCTV, the state broadcaster, said about a billion people in
China
“Chunwan,” or Spring Late, as it’s colloquially known —
referring both to “Spring Festival,” an alternate name for the Lunar New Year,
and to the four-and-a-half-hour program’s 8 p.m. start time — is a cultural
institution here. The show has been aired every year since 1983.
Amid
the phantasmagoric colors and frantic activity of the 39 skits, this year’s
gala, titled “You and Me, Our China Dream — Fully Building a Moderately
Prosperous Society,” offered the usual diet of patriotism, ethnic unity,
singing and dancing children, comedy and kung fu.
The
show also touched on some socially contentious issues, like widespread
financial fraud and the poor state of interpersonal trust in China
The
gala’s heavy ideological messaging and overt glorification of the military led
some Chinese to remark that this year’s offering was even more propagandistic
than usual. At one point, amid images from the enormous military parade in Beijing
“The Chunwan is really a kind of propaganda,” Miao Yang, an
engineer, said in an interview. “A lot of people felt that especially this year
it was more political than usual, whether the military parts or the other
skits.”
But Mr. Miao said he watched
anyway, like hundreds of millions who either love the Chunwan or love to hate
it.
In the “General and the
Soldier” skit, Mr. Ju’s character, a military photographer, documented a humble
general who insisted that a lower-ranking soldier teach him to march. The skit
amounted to a careful display by propaganda officials of high-level humility,
after the arrests of several generals on corruption and dereliction of
discipline charges.
Other propaganda efforts were less subtle. Here are some lyrics
from the gala’s opening song, “Spring Is Here and Happiness Has Come,”
performed by a clutch of well-known singers and scores of brightly costumed
dancers. To a jaunty soundtrack, they touted the latest crop of numerically
oriented Communist Party-issued slogans:
“Let us say and sing it out,
our mood is heroic!
The Four Comprehensives are the general arrangement
The Five Development Ideas are the future.
The might of the Sept. 3 military parade was mind-blowing,
The Three Must Succeeds earned a ‘hurrah’ from around the
world.
Anticorruption and clean
government are the people’s heartfelt wish,
The party’s work style, the
government’s work style, society’s work style, and clean air fill our bosoms.”
“Was this the Chunwan or the nightly news?” a person called Yao
Di inquired sarcastically below a link to the event, one of thousands of
critical remarks online.
Other commenters said they enjoyed the show. “A fresh feeling
for the eyes and ears!” wrote Pengyou on the website of The
Observer, a news site. “A lot better than last year’s,” wrote a
commentator from the city of Tai’an Shandong Province
“It really wasn’t bad,” wrote
another commentator, from the city of Guiyang Guizhou Province China
Follow
Didi Kirsten Tatlow on Twitter @dktatlow.
