Yao Yao: TV dramas must find the right resonance when they go to sea

Source: Global Times

In recent years, Chinese TV dramas have gone overseas and become an important carrier for telling Chinese stories to the world. At present, international anti-epidemic cooperation and public opinion struggle are intertwined, how should TV dramas seek common ground and explain differences at a deeper level, and guide global audiences to read the cultural genes of Chinese?

First, family ethics dramas are magnets that attract audiences from neighboring countries. Since the beginning of this year, "AnJia", which reflects the problem of buying a house, has achieved good results on overseas platforms such as YouTube, especially in the ten ASEAN countries, which has aroused strong resonance among local audiences. Relatively speaking, Western audiences who are accustomed to their children living in their parents' homes and paying rent have difficulty understanding the plot of the old couple selling buns in "An Family" to save money to buy a marriage house for their son. Some people may ask: Westerners do not love home? The roots of differences are in history. Europe was a feudal manor economy in the long Middle Ages, and the production and life of feudal serfs without personal freedom were not organized as a family unit. In China, on the contrary, since Qin Shi Huang abolished feudalism and organized households and the Qi people, most of the population organized production and life as a family unit. This difference caused by history is something that TV dramas need to take into account when they go to sea.

Second, costume court dramas are the source of western audiences' deep thinking about history. In recent years, costume dramas have maintained strong export capabilities and are the most important types of Chinese TV dramas going global. Since the popularity of "The Biography of Zhen Huan", "Langya List" has been popular in Argentina, and "Ruyi Biography" has been broadcast on Hulu in the United States. However, it is difficult for the palace fight drama to guide the audience to understand the deep difference between China and the West, because it over-renders the power struggle in the hereditary imperial power, but it obscures the true main line of China's political tradition - the people and the state are the same as the world, so it is difficult to form a deep resonance with Western audiences. The recently launched costume drama "Qing Ping Le" breaks the mold and pulls the emperor's life scene from the harem back to the previous dynasty moderately, so as to let the audience understand the ethical culture and institutional constraints of the Chinese political tradition based on the storyline recorded in the history. Not only can officials at all levels not be hereditary, but the supreme monarch does not have the natural qualifications to rule for all generations. This is an intuitive way to break the myths of traditional Chinese politics.

Third, modern struggle dramas are war drums that inspire audiences along the "Belt and Road" to work together. "Wenzhou Family" was broadcast in Cuba with thousands of people, and "Chicken Feathers Fly to the Sky" received a rating of 23.2% on Portuguese national television. Whether it is the agricultural age or the industrial age, hard work has always been the character trait of the Chinese nation. It is precisely because of its own diligence that the fundamental attribute of China's foreign relations is "not to seek outside the world." Ancient China promoted "weaving households and small peasant families" internally, and practiced "educating farming and the same family" externally, the foothold of which was that if everyone in the world could produce self-sufficiency, Chinese themselves could be free from threats and live in peace, thus realizing "unity under the heavens" in a fundamental sense.

Looking forward to the future, only by enhancing cultural consciousness and focusing on excavating and interpreting the spiritual world of Chinese can Chinese TV dramas sing a silent "Qingping Music" among overseas audiences. (The writer is Director of the National Soft Power Research Center of the China Foreign Affairs University)