Dispatches from a Chinese-American living in the Motherland.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Ringtone pride
Yesterday, out of the blue, those of us who use China Mobile as our cell phone carrier, discovered that our regular old ringtone had been replaced by a song sung by Jackie Chan and singer Liu Yuanyuan. This patriotic little ditty, called "Homeland," will be officially unveiled on October 1 and the good comrades of the state-run China Mobile thought we needed a little patriotic uplifting in our day. I mean, how can you not shed a tear to lyrics like, "A family is the smallest of nations, a country is made up of thousands of families." I love this quote by an econ professor who talked to the New York Times: “The current efforts to instill ideology makes me feel that the authorities consider ordinary Chinese people to be unpatriotic or even mentally challenged,” he said. “So they enforce this patriotic education on people.”
3 comments:
cherie
said...
They couldn't bother to make a decent music video? The lyrics are about as pukey sweet patriotic as possible.
OK, totally baffled. Jackie Chan, action movie star? And what the images in the background? It looks like a science fiction artists conceptualization of the surface of Mars if millions of gallons of water were released all at once.
about the "mentally challenged" comment: um, well, I think most people are and actually need to be told what to think.
i think americans are subtler with their messages most of the time, but they are still all quite similar. every christmas we have commericals shoved down our throats about how women just want diamonds. and have you seen the military ads? the National Guard have been pushing hard in movie theaters and the navy and marines are making their commericals like video games so that little boys will think it's so cool to join because it's JUST LIKE playing a video game.
where was i going with this again? oh, so this is the chinese version of brainwashing. congrats to them.
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3 comments:
They couldn't bother to make a decent music video? The lyrics are about as pukey sweet patriotic as possible.
OK, totally baffled. Jackie Chan, action movie star? And what the images in the background? It looks like a science fiction artists conceptualization of the surface of Mars if millions of gallons of water were released all at once.
Terri
about the "mentally challenged" comment: um, well, I think most people are and actually need to be told what to think.
i think americans are subtler with their messages most of the time, but they are still all quite similar. every christmas we have commericals shoved down our throats about how women just want diamonds. and have you seen the military ads? the National Guard have been pushing hard in movie theaters and the navy and marines are making their commericals like video games so that little boys will think it's so cool to join because it's JUST LIKE playing a video game.
where was i going with this again? oh, so this is the chinese version of brainwashing. congrats to them.
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