Everybody in China knows who lady Gaga is. My 20-year old co-workers know. My 50-something year old juggler friend knows. I'll bet that Wen Jiabao knows too.
I suspect that very few people in China know who the Beatles are, and even fewer know Bob Dylan or Elvis. Granted, those are culturally specific references to the United States/England, and North America/Europe/Westernized nations in general, but Lady Gaga is culturally specific too. Maybe it is just cause back in the day when the Beatles and Elvis and Dylan had their high point of fame and popularity the globe-spanning telecommunications network wasn't anywhere near today level. People in China all know Micheal Jackson though, so I suspect that the level of freedom in the domestic flow of information on goings-on in other countries has something to do with it to. However, MJ was making headlines through the 90s and 00s, so maybe he was in the news around the world late enough historically to be known here in China. Indeed, he was popular enough that last summer when I was in Beijing there were events nearly every week commemorating his death, and a recent popular internet video features him as a major inspiration for the 80s generation. Let's back away from that specific case, though.
I suspect that very few people in China know who the Beatles are, and even fewer know Bob Dylan or Elvis. Granted, those are culturally specific references to the United States/England, and North America/Europe/Westernized nations in general, but Lady Gaga is culturally specific too. Maybe it is just cause back in the day when the Beatles and Elvis and Dylan had their high point of fame and popularity the globe-spanning telecommunications network wasn't anywhere near today level. People in China all know Micheal Jackson though, so I suspect that the level of freedom in the domestic flow of information on goings-on in other countries has something to do with it to. However, MJ was making headlines through the 90s and 00s, so maybe he was in the news around the world late enough historically to be known here in China. Indeed, he was popular enough that last summer when I was in Beijing there were events nearly every week commemorating his death, and a recent popular internet video features him as a major inspiration for the 80s generation. Let's back away from that specific case, though.
In the United States, what is ratio of people who know Jackie Chan as opposed to the people who know Dream of the Red Chambers? What about people who know some (any) pop-culture/entertainment/media figure (Take Yao Ming, for instance) as opposed to the people who know the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? These novels aren't any passing fad either! These two books (with the addition of Journey to the West and Water Margin) are the core of the classical literary works of China, much like Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe, and Oscar Wilde are widely recognized the English speaking world.
I will be the first to admit that my (highly) flawed analogies prove nothing and should not be the basis of any scientific opinion, but this kind of anecdote does indicate something. People around the world know Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings (the movies), and those vampire books, all of which are major parts of U.S. culture from the past decade. Even a nation as young as the United States has more than 10 years of cultural history, though. I suspect that there is a great divide between the pop culture of other cultures that people are aware of and the classical/high culture that other people are aware of. Many of my Chinese friends have no idea who Aristotle is, and although not all North Americans can explain in details his ideas, I have little doubts that almost all adults have at least heard the name before. Conversely, how many Americans know QinShiHuang, a vital figure in Chinese cultural and political history.
You might decry these examples as too culturally specific. A historical figure of China; important books for Chinese culture; pop stars of China. After all, a historical figure of any arbitrarily chosen people around the world is likely to be not widely known by the people's of other cultures. This isn't just any country though. Forget about the whole 1/5 of humanity thing. You can even forget about the economic powerhouse that China is now and is becoming more of each year. Compare China to Europe: size, population, linguistic diversity, etc. In fact, I have often made the offhand comment that if the Roman Empire had never fallen then Europe would be a single, large, unified nation, much like China. Likewise, it would have been an easy alternate historical path for China to split into several smaller nations, which it has done at several point during history (Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period, Three Kingdoms, Sixteen Kingdoms, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, to name some of them). China may yet again split into several smaller culturally Chinese yet distinct and separate political entities at some point in the distant future.
I don't really have a unifying argument in this. More of just an observation that while culture tends to be exported in relation to the strength of a nation's media and entertainment industry, there is a big different between having Kung Fu movies known in other countries and having the tenants of Confucianism known in other countries. I think that the classic culture, the high culture, and generally the parts of the culture that are more core and more important to a people's shared knowledge and identity are harder to transmit and spread than the surface level superfluous things. I hold onto Lady Gaga and The Beatles as the prime example of this, although those vampire books (or Harry Potter) and any classical English-language writer or stories could also be used just as effectively.
Do you have other examples of pop culture crossing borders and older/more classic culture failing to sink into a foreign audience? Do you disagree with me? Let me know in the comments below.
You might decry these examples as too culturally specific. A historical figure of China; important books for Chinese culture; pop stars of China. After all, a historical figure of any arbitrarily chosen people around the world is likely to be not widely known by the people's of other cultures. This isn't just any country though. Forget about the whole 1/5 of humanity thing. You can even forget about the economic powerhouse that China is now and is becoming more of each year. Compare China to Europe: size, population, linguistic diversity, etc. In fact, I have often made the offhand comment that if the Roman Empire had never fallen then Europe would be a single, large, unified nation, much like China. Likewise, it would have been an easy alternate historical path for China to split into several smaller nations, which it has done at several point during history (Spring and Autumn Period, Warring States Period, Three Kingdoms, Sixteen Kingdoms, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, to name some of them). China may yet again split into several smaller culturally Chinese yet distinct and separate political entities at some point in the distant future.
I don't really have a unifying argument in this. More of just an observation that while culture tends to be exported in relation to the strength of a nation's media and entertainment industry, there is a big different between having Kung Fu movies known in other countries and having the tenants of Confucianism known in other countries. I think that the classic culture, the high culture, and generally the parts of the culture that are more core and more important to a people's shared knowledge and identity are harder to transmit and spread than the surface level superfluous things. I hold onto Lady Gaga and The Beatles as the prime example of this, although those vampire books (or Harry Potter) and any classical English-language writer or stories could also be used just as effectively.
Do you have other examples of pop culture crossing borders and older/more classic culture failing to sink into a foreign audience? Do you disagree with me? Let me know in the comments below.
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