Chinese Soft Power and Media Discussion and Updates

FairAndUnbiased said:

sad reality is that a huge% of people don't actually care about the music or movies themselves, they care what they're associated with. 自有大儒为我辩经 and all.

if South Korea or Japan were politically and militarily independent from the US with no other changes in media quality or output, their soft power would ironically decrease, as they'd no longer be palatable forms of American power for Asians, but just some random countries that sell shit to the world. They don't have to be actively suppressed for this to happen. A significant portion of people only consume media for the association with power. They don't care about the quality music or the movies at all. It is like how there are people who don't actually like a type of food, gritting their teeth and forcing themselves to say it tastes good, even as they're obviously struggling to not spit it out, simply because it is from a 'high class' culture.

Look at Vietnamese pop culture as an example. The Vietnamese song 叹 went viral in China last year and brought attention to V-pop. I think that V-pop has significant potential and is objectively quite good. However, I think that only in Vietnam itself and neutral markets like parts of China and ASEAN could V-pop become popular. I don't think even the Vietnamese diaspora listen to it.

Vietnam is independent from the US and relatively poor. So even without suppression people don't want to listen to music that they perceive is from a poor or weak country.

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proelite said:

Does anyone know what accent is Wowkie Zhang using in Sunshine, Rainbow, Little White Horse? It sounds like some southern accent.

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coolgod said:

Wanwanese accent, I've seen a couple of black tiktok refugees dance to that song on XHS.

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proelite said:

Isn't the singer from mainland? He has no relationship to Wanwan.

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coolgod said:

Omg I just assumed he's from Taiwan. He was born in Beijing, so I guess his accent varies by song?

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Biscuits said:

China always (well not literally all the time, but at least since after rebuilding from ww2) had more soft power than Japan and SK though.

Like if you look at C-drama and C-media, it vastly out-earns Japan and Korea's offerings combined.

China is to north east Asia what America is to the west. In bad times, others always try to criticise us as making slop and that each artsy small country with 2000 year tradition or whatever blah is more "authentic" "down to earth" than China or America. But when it comes down to the wire, we're the ones that manage to sell and earn money on a large scale.

They accuse us of being the country equivalent of McDonald's, but they themselves are the country equivalent of millennial burger stores. We outearn them, have more cultural impact and more abiltiy to get something done.

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tygyg1111 said:

One thing to add is that while Europe can look down on America as a cultural derivative, China is the cultural, social and political foundation of all East asian countries

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