Capitalizing on wrong values
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There is a phenomenon I would like to talk about. For more than a month, I've been thinking over and over about three facts that – for me – prove that Chinese values are not always the best ones.
The Chinese mountain previously known as the "Southern Sky Column" in Zhangjiajie in South China was renamed in January by the local government, and is now called "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain." The stunning mountains that inspired Avatar's floating peaks were modeled after the Huangshan Mountains of Anhui Province. But apart from the romanticism, it seems that most of Cameron's movie was done in Los Angeles and New Zealand studios.
Avatar earned more than US$80 million in China, and Zhangjiajie, a part of Wulingyuan National Park, will not miss an opportunity to capitalize on the movie's fame. The Zhangjiajie branch of CITS even launched a "Magical tour to Avatar-Pandora’s floating mountain."
What is shocking in this fact is that fame is related to money. Have Wulingyuan National Park of Hunan Province – listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – and the Huangshan Mountains become more attractive since the movie was "inspired by them" in 2008? If the movie hadn't been a box office hit, would tourists flock to the spots now?
The second problem is that popularity in China is related to what is "foreign" more often than what it is worth. Featuring a Hong Kong-based hotel group called Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, which is opening a hotel in Lhasa, the article's author was unable to escape mentioning that the group took its name from "Shangri-La," an area hidden within Tibet's peaks that is the setting for James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon.
If the novel had been written by a Chinese, the name Shangri-La (meaning "where all is perfect" or "Shambala" in Tibetan) would have remained unknown. Though this novel doesn't deserve the fame it had, in China it became famous because the author was a foreigner. Anytime the name Shangri-La is mentioned, for any reason, one may be sure that further in the sentence, James Hilton or Lost Horizon will be mentioned.
My third point is about an education process that I think is wrong. Just because I love China doesn't mean I praise everything here.
Most Chinese believe that in western countries, anyone can enter university or college without an exam, and without fees. If countries such as Canada don't have a national entrance exam, it’s because admission is based on a series of credits obtained through middle and high school marks. These marks are the total of regular tests, end of term exams and creative works. Students are used to that. The final high school exams only account for a part of all that is considered for entrance, a kind of cherry on top of the cake. It would be impossible for an unprepared student to pass the final exam if he or she had not made successful steps all the way long before.
In such a system, students are encouraged to relax the last day before exams, because the game is over. They would watch TV, surf the web, have a chat with friends or read a book.
During the last exam period in China, Linxian County, Shanxi Province, ordered the Internet cafés to close in an effort to help students prepare for their exams. First, such order deprived the internet café owners of their income. Second, it deprived the costumers of their right to the service. Third, the resolution sounded like a joke in a country where children are conditioned to national entrance exams from birth.
How would a Chinese student dare to go to an Internet café when his or her mother takes off work to cook good meals for her beloved treasure? If they did dare, then the education process has failed. To educate a child is to develop the ability to manage his life, to handle crisis, to take responsibility for actions and to make decisions.
Lisa Carducci is a free-lance writer in Beijing.
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