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The Mengniu brand is an Inner Mongolian brand, their Chinese website shows: 只为优质生活 ‘To make a better life'. The English version says: 'To build a Well-known brand in the World'. This website is a fine example of marketing different styles to Chinese and to Western customers.
Achievements of China - like going into space - are a popular subject in advertising in China.
Urbanization in China develops at rocket speed. With 'Farmers in the city' artist Liang Shuo created an astonishing recognizable image of the migrants flocking into the Chinese cities over the last few decades.
Feng Zhengjie is known for his portraits of Chinese celebrities and glamorous people, originally inspired by the Shanghai posters of the 1930s. Striking in his work are the neon-like colors; people are always depicted cross-eyed. His work is usually interpreted as critical of consumerism.
I was going to put a movie here from youtube, but apparently it is not possible to download or distribute them. Therefore a picture of Chinese characters will have to do.
Yesterday evening, while we were discussing the impact of Chinese language on Chinese culture, a Chinese friend showed me the movies on youtube produced by the Office of Chinese Language Council International, the 汉办 in Beijing, who organizes the Confucian Institutes all over the globe: in Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania, North America. I must admit I was astonished when she showed it to me on the Internet. For those who understand Chinese check it out, really! The movies must be there for some time now and I believe new ones are made continuously, but I never really paid much attention to the Confucius Institutes. I knew they pop up like mushrooms all over the world, and I knew they promote the Chinese language and culture but, like I said, I did not pay much attention.
If you type '汉字五千年' (in Chinese characters) in youtube you will find an amazing list of movies on the origin and impact of the Chinese characters. All presented with the discourse of 'harmony' (和) - the Confucian ideal - and 'five thousand years of Chinese characters' (汉字五千年) which of course coincides with the very popular discourse today in China of 'five thousand years of Chinese history'.
The first movie explains about the problems people have not understanding each other due to all the different languages they speak; the story about the Tower of Babel. But! it tells us: the story in the bible forgot about the existence of the Chinese characters!
These movies are presented like documentaries but in fact they smell like propaganda. Propaganda for China. Don't misunderstand me, I love China, and I love the Chinese language, and I have been aware of the gigantic impact the development of China has on global changes for a long long time. For the longest time I have been aware of the fact that the majority of the people here in Europe is not aware of what is happening. But when I watch these promotion films, I cannot help but feeling I am being brainwashed. It is all about how big, strong, and unbelievably important the country is. I understand the Chinese want to be respected and they do have lots of reason to be proud of what they have realized over the past 30 years, but this feels a bit overdone.
China is implementing hundreds of Confucian Institutes 孔子学院 all over the globe to 'promote the Chinese language and culture'; they all use this discourse. I do agree that the Chinese language is the most fascinating one in the whole world because it is much more than a language. It is a fantastic endlessly rich cultural treasure. But what draws my attention is the discourse in these movies. China's rise is meant to be peaceful, but what can we understand from these kind of discourses? This is not about language; this is pure politics: the overwhelming power of China. Time to wake up!
But who am I to speak? What did my European ancestors do to the world?