I have realized lately that, due to a certain unbalance in my training methods , my Chinese reading skills might be running ahead of my speech, and I have been forced to take severe corrective measures. At the risk of turning this into an SM blog, I am going to speak today of the terrible penance I imposed on myself to make up for that error. Brace yourself: I watched a whole 22+ hours communist TV serial on CCTV, all in a single week and pausing to understand every word and chengyu.
It is the latest super production of the “Red Army against Capitalists” kind, called 冷箭 , or “Stab in the back”. The first chapter was launched the day of the 60th Anniversary, on CCTV 1 prime time, proving that it was born to be big. それは(それは8泊CCTVに後で切り替えられた)期待に沿えなかった場合でも、私はより多くの人々が映画そのように興奮した西洋の心 "共和国の財団"よりもこれを見ていることを推測しています。 Admittedly, there is little buzz on the internet about 冷箭, but that is just because the target audience is a different (and much larger) group than the internet community. My own investigations with taxi drivers indicate that it had a very strong following, at least in the first weeks.
For all those who complained about political propaganda in the “Foundation of the Republic” (or in Independence Day, for that matter), those are just amateur efforts next to this “Stab in the Back”. スタブは、歪曲事実と、人々のための啓発と提供する完全な道徳システムに関係がありませんので。 And like most of these widely watched Chinese TV serials, it still follows loyally in the spirit of the first moralizing plays organized by the 1930s partisans in Shaanxi.
A Little Critique
Regarding artistic merit, I will just briefly say that, although this looks like one of the highest budget “Red Army” serials to date, an improvement in quality does not follow. The main problem is the visible incompetence of its producers and actors almost without exception. Knowing that Chinese are very well capable of doing good films when they are given some freedom, I can only suppose this is the result of dead imaginations bureaucratically selected and nurtured by CCTV mummy-cadres.
In this case the main story is about — surprise– a Long March towards the West, where the Captain discovers that there is a Capitalist enemy spy infiltrated in the team. In fact not only one, but two, and three, and more are found in every chapter, until by the end of the serial the largest part of the brigade are actually undercover agents. This gives the poor captain played by borderline Huang Zhizhong countless occasions to run his fits of histrionic paranoia, apparently a main selling point. One can't help wondering why all those spies don't just get together to kill their clownish captain, rename their brigade with the KMT star, and get on with their counter-revolutionary business.
あなたは映画を見たときに前にこれを経験しているかどうかは知りませんが、それは嘆かわしいスクリプトとパフォーマンスが、最初のシーケンスから不信の権利の懸濁液を殺すために管理し、それらのインスタンスの一つです。 Then, suddenly, you find yourself watching a bunch of adult people walking around in funny clothes and uttering pointless nonsense. The result is embarrassing.
I have never been much of a TV watcher, but I do understand that TV films are substandard anywhere in the World, and nonsensical plots or braindead dialogs are by no means exclusive of China. Even the fixation with the deeds of the Red Army marching West is not necessarily more ridiculous than, say, the fixation with illiterate cow herders during the golden age of Westerns. しかし、明らかな宣伝と品質の問題を超えて彼らがユニークな、それは彼らが大衆の教化のために具現化する値の完全なセットです。これらの中国の雑誌で何かがあります。
Edifying the Masses: A Communist Catechism
This is the first time, (and most surely the last) that I watch a complete Chinese propaganda serial, but I believe that the effort is not wasted. Because only getting inside these long works one can appreciate that deeper level that flows underneath, the construction of a public moral system that is very much akin to Religious Instruction .
ここでは、ドレインダウン生活の22 +時間をスローせずにこれらの作品を理解したい人々の利益のためにスタブを見ながら、私が指摘した点のいくつかは次のとおりです。
- Love: The scenes of love are tacky to nauseate an armored brigade, with perhaps the best example in this scene in minute 40 chapter 4, when the captain “falls in love”. In general, love among the communists is virtuous and innocent, and always secondary to the interests of the organization. わずかなロマンチックな耽溺、当事者以外の情熱のない譲歩はありません。 When the communist lover is told that her beloved is a Capitalist spy, she abandons him on the spot, and volunteers to kill him if necessary.
- Sex: Of course, this puritanism does not stop the young lieutenant from having proper sex (under the sheets) starting chapter 25, in a clear effort by the authors to attract more audience. 彼はうんざりするほど高潔な情報提供を通じてニュースを取得したときに "乱搞男女关系は!"(無秩序な男性の女性関係の操作を行います!)chastelyキャプテンを叫ぶ。 But worry not, the ethical purity is safeguarded. These two sinners have betrayed the higher cause, and they receive their deserved punishment without further delay: death at the hands of some brigands.
- 暴力:我々は、新しい刑務所の受刑者(!彼らは男性の場合は特に)の恐ろしい運命に関するいくつかの期待を持ってするのに十分なアルカトラズ島のイーストウッドの好きなのを見てきました。 I don't know to what extent this violence is consistent with reality, but what I am pretty sure is that prison wardens do not tell off the inmates screaming “don't be naughty”, and major disputes in the common cells are not settled through pillow fights. これは子供のサマーキャンプのような高レベルの国民党の囚人のための全体的な経験を作り、冷箭で物事が行われている方法とまったく同じです。 This is one of the most puzzling parts of the communist ethics, and the most difficult to grasp in a movement that was imposed largely through violent revolution. It seems to come from a belief in molding mentalities through peaceful labour, but, as we will see below, it has little to do with the Christian notion of “turning your other cheek”.
- クラス徳:徳は、プロレタリアクラスの特性として提示され、救いは必ずしも従わなければなりません。 Like the ancient Christians looking for consolation in the Bible before they were thrown to the lions, so the Chinese Laobaixing today seem to find solace in these serials, while they wait for the next corrupt CCP cadre to come and tear their homes to serve a rich developer. このような教育のに伴う終局判決の概念が著しく最初の詩のメロディーに触発メインテーマとした、シリアルのいくつかのポイントで歌わ国際の象徴的な詩を通して表現されます。
- Forgiveness and Revenge: There is an appalling scene of revenge (ch 31 38:00) when the main spies are apprehended, that completely shocked me after 20 hours of mellow bloodless harmony. The righteous blows of the officers are completely devoid of mercy, enjoying the raw pleasure of revenge. In my observation of the Chinese, this represents very well the paradox of their ethical system: Chinese are by nature far more tolerant than any Western people, but –perhaps as a necessary consequence – once a certain level of crime is attained, this sets off a mechanism of ruthless punishment where the object ceases to be seen as human. これはおそらく私たちの小さいトレラント性質が新約聖書の愛の教義によって軟化したキリスト教の影響を受けた倫理、最も重要な違いです。 The whole discussion of d eath penalty in China vs. Europe is an interesting modern development of this difference in outlooks.
Some Conclusions
ここにコメントする価値多くのアイデアがあり、さらに、おそらく最も興味深いの一つは、倫理は、この共産主義体制は、常に微妙なバランス道德(徳)と鄧小平の致富(リッチ取得)を維持するために(または失敗)どのように動作しているか確認するであろう。
Clearly, Chinese are not the only ones to introduce ethics into their TV serials. Popular Western serials have long been educating us with teachings as varied as respect for minorities, tolerance of homosexuality, patriotism or democracy. 道徳的な命令の西部システムは今日の社会が直面する問題と時間と情報と進化している間、しかし、決定的に、中国のシステムは、 宗教倫理の特徴的な剛性と、1930年代に立ち往生残っている。 As a consequence, there is a growing, insurmountable gap in China between the ideas preached and the real needs of the ordinary citizens. This may be having the catastrophic effect of eliminating all ethics from mainland Chinese life.
When we speak of problems like perceived racism, corruption, lack of respect for the public goods or environment, how much of these are related to a lack of a realistic, up-to-date moral support, or to the hijacking of ethics to serve the single interests of the CCP power elite?
I would like to say more about this, but unfortunately this post has got out of control already, and I know nobody reads past the first 1000 words. Write your ideas below about any particular point and if we get some interesting discussion going on we can try to expand the subject in a new post.