Why is Gangnam style so popular in China?

It takes some time for people who don't know to react. Jiangnan style is actually a satire. This single, sung by Korean pop singer PSY, appeared in July and then spread absurdly. The video of the single has all the standard elements of serious Korean pop music (K-pop): as always, the carefully designed dance, the extremely exaggerated shape, and the glamorous values created by the Korean entertainment circle, which is good at creating hot spots. My colleague John seabrook called this kind of Korean music "assembly line product" in this week's magazine article.

But most importantly, Jiangnan style has a self-deprecating humor. If you haven't seen it, please put down your things, put down your scalpel and take off your air traffic control headphones anyway. Let's take a look at this video first. This irony makes the video spread like a virus. On YouTube, a video site, the hit rate is as high as 300 million, completely defeating and mocking other serious Korean pop songs. This also echoes a sentence from my colleague John seabrook: "Stylized cultural products are not far away."

In China, apart from being popular, Gangnam style has aroused people's special feelings, and people can't help asking: Why haven't we created such works? Although there are more singers and dancers wandering in a China city than South Korea, it seems that China's entertainment products are slightly inferior to South Korea in political influence, capital mobilization and market influence. China's leaders always talk about the country's "soft power"-opening Confucius Institutes around the world and trying to cooperate with the French alliance (Alliance Fran? Aise) competition; Some small countries that may be tired of the US-led news system have also set up radio and television stations. Last year, China even put culture in the priority position of national construction, determined to establish China's own cultural brand in the global cultural system.

So, can we expect to see China's version of Jiangnan style in the near future? I don't think it's possible, said Professor John Delerit, a China and Korean expert who teaches international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul. "Singer PSY is a satirist who specializes in joking. Compared with China, Korean comedies have more satirical elements, and the creation of works that question and ridicule Korean social phenomena and politics will not be hindered. In my opinion, even if the cultures in the world are different, people all over the world will enjoy it when they see a foreigner making fun of themselves. This kind of thing is very interesting. But in this respect, especially in order to show the official soft power, China is generally only willing to export works that show its great ancient civilization and economic development, and these things are not so attractive. "

In the cultural circle of China, this phenomenon that China's works are not attractive enough has a name-"Kung Fu Panda Problem". The reason why it is named after this animation of American DreamWorks is that this film, which uses Kung Fu and Panda, two elements of China, most successfully, was not created by China people, and filmmakers in China dare not "play" such a serious subject. China director Lu Chuan has an example. He once promised to create an animation for the Beijing Olympic Games, but when he started making it, he found that he could not give full play to his creativity. Afterwards, Lu Chuan wrote, "I have been receiving various requests from relevant departments to guide me on how to shoot this film. One of the key points is that this animation must promote China culture. These requirements also give particularly specific provisions on how to express China culture. Others think that we should publicize the Olympic Games, promote China culture and make extensive use of China elements. Under this pressure, my collaborators and I feel suffocated. The fun of doing an interesting thing is gone, and so is imagination and creativity. In the end, this originally planned animation ran aground. "

When Kung Fu Panda was released, a designer in China called for a boycott of the film, because it became obsolete shortly after the Wenchuan earthquake (Sichuan is the main habitat of pandas). However, Lu Chuan has other views. "After watching the movie, I think the filmmakers gave us a particularly interesting and enlightening lesson, letting us know how to face, understand and display our traditional culture and how to present it with other cultures."

Although the singer PSY didn't touch these serious themes, he did a good job and won the "Gangnam style" award, which attracted the envy of many artists in China. In a cartoon recommended by China Digital Times, the author drew a China version of Jiangnan style, which he called Shanghai Style. The dancer in the cartoon didn't win people's admiration because of her crazy performance, but was sent to a mental hospital for being "extremely active" and "running around" and eventually became a pig.

At present, China's "Jiangnan style" is still far away. Professor Lu added, "The China government strictly monitors domestic literary and artistic creation, and things that are too popular and entertaining will be banned if they are not bought. In South Korea, on the other hand, although the environment is highly commercialized, there is also a high degree of creative freedom, little government intervention, and artists and companies are developing well. I joked with government officials in China that if they found Korean pop music very popular, they would simply copy it, which would ruin it. "