译言网解析为什么中国缺少《江南style》
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Why China Lacks Gangnam Style
为什么中国缺少《江南style》 （中英对照）
It can take the uninitiated a minute to realize that “Gangnam Style” is satire . When the absurdly infectious single by Korean pop star PSY appeared in July, the video had all the hallmarks of earnest K-pop: highly engineered dance routines, over-the-top styling, and the Technicolor production values honed by Seoul’s hit-making industry, which my colleague John Seabrook describes in the magazine this week in his piece, “Factory Girls ”.
But the most important thing that “Gangnam Style” has is a sense of humor about itself. (If you haven’t yet seen it, put down your surgical instruments or air-traffic-control headset or whatever else might be distracting you, and watch it now . Its satire made it a viral phenomenon with three hundred million views on YouTube, surpassing and mocking the earnest K-pop products, and thus proving, as Seabrook says, that “cultural technology can only get you so far.”
In China, the Gangnam phenomenon carries a special pique. It has left people asking, Why couldn’t we come up with that? China, after all, dwarfs Korea in political clout, money, and market power, and it cranks out more singers and dancers in a single city than Korea does nationwide. Chinese political leaders are constantly talking about the need for “soft power”-they have dotted the globe with Confucius Institutes to rival the Alliance Française, and they have expanded radio and television stations in smaller countries that might be tired of American-dominated news. Last year, the Communist Party even declared culture a national priority and vowed to produce its own share of global cultural brands.
So, should we expect a Chinese Gangnam soon? Don’t count on it. “PSY is a satirist, making fun, and having fun,” said John Delury, an expert on China and Korea who teaches international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul. “Korea tends to have more irony and satire in its comedy than China, and there aren’t the impediments to exporting things that question or poke fun of Korean society, politics, etc. And I think somehow people all over the world feel invited to join in, despite a huge cultural difference, when someone from a foreign place is making a bit of fun of themselves. That’s inviting. But China, especially acting in its official, soft-power capacity, is only comfortable exporting things that show off the greatness of its ancient civilization or economic development. That’s not terribly inviting.”
In Chinese cultural circles there is a name for this: the “ ‘Kung Fu Panda’ problem,” named for the 2008 DreamWorks movie. It refers to the fact that the most successful film about two of China’s national symbols-Kung Fu and pandas-could only be made by a foreigner because Chinese filmmakers would never try to play with such solemn subjects. The director Lu Chuan, for example, once agreed to produce an animated film for the Beijing Olympics, but after he embarked on the project, he discovered he was not supposed to let his mind run wild. “I kept receiving directions and orders from related parties on how the movie should be like. An important part of the instructions was that the animation should promote Chinese culture,” he wrote later . “We were given very specific rules on how to promote it. And some were not flexible about ‘promoting the Olympic spirit,’ ‘promoting Chinese culture’ or ‘rich in Chinese elements.’ ” He went on, “Under such pressure, my co-workers and I really felt stifled. The fun and joy from doing something interesting left us, together with our imagination and creativity. The planned animation was never produced.”
When “Kung Fu Panda” came out, one Chinese designer called for a boycott, saying it was insulting so soon after the Sichuan earthquake (pandas live in Sichuan). But Lu Chuan didn’t agree. “After watching Kung Fu Panda, I found the movie producers had given us an amusing and enlightening lesson on how to treat, interpret and show our traditional culture, and how to merge it with other cultures.”
The Korean satirist PSY might not put it in such solemn terms, but that’s exactly what he has done, and he has been rewarded for it. In China, some artists have looked on enviously. In a comic strip highlighted by China Digital Times , the cartoonist known as Peaceful House Pearl Shimao envisioned a Chinese-style Gangnam phenomenon he called “Shanghai Style.”
Instead of being celebrated for his madness, the dancer ends up being sent to a mental institution for “involvement in multiple activities,” “running crazily all over the place,” and being a pig.For now, China’s Gangnam moment seems far off. “In China, culture and the arts develop under the watchful eye of the government, and anything too hip or interesting gets either shut down or bought up. In Korea, by contrast, artists and entertainers thrive in a space that is highly commercialized but also pretty much free of the heavy hand of the state,” Delury told me, adding, “I kid government officials that the moment they understand why K-pop is so successful and try to replicate it, they will destroy it.”
只需要花那不经意的一分钟，就能意识到《江南style》是一种讽刺。当这具有荒谬传染性的单曲，由韩国流行音乐明星PSY在七月发行的时候，这视频就具有认真的韩国流行音乐的所有特征：精心设计的舞蹈动作，多种夸张的造型，和首尔流行音乐行业谙熟的鲜艳颜色制片效果，本周我的同事约翰·西布鲁克在他的文章《工厂女孩》中描写过这种现象。
但是最重要的是《江南style》本身就有一种幽默感。（如果你没看的话，放下你的手术仪器或者空中交通管制的耳机，或者其他让你分心的东西，现在看看。）它的讽刺性让其成为一种病毒式的现象，在YouTube上有三亿多的观看数，超越了也嘲笑了认真的韩国流行音乐产品，从而也证明了西布鲁克说的”目前为止吸引你的文化技术。“
在中国，江南现象引起了一种特别的不满，其让人们发问，问什么我们想不出这种东西？毕竟，中国在政治影响力、金钱和市场力方面都让韩国相形见绌，单独在一个城市制造出来的歌手和舞者都比整个韩国的多。中国政治领导人一直在谈论”软实力“的需要–他们在全球开设孔子学院，来对抗法语联盟，可能是厌倦了以美国为主导的新闻，他们在较小的国家里扩展了电台和电视台。去年，共产党宣布优先发展文化，并打算要发展其全球文化品牌的市场份额。
所以，我们应该期待很快出现一个中国”江南“吗？别指望了。“PSY 是一个讽刺者，开玩笑，也有趣，”约翰·德勒里说道，他是在首尔延世大学教授国际关系学的中韩专家。“韩国在喜剧里往往比中国有更多的反语和讽刺，质疑或取笑韩国的社会政治等等来发泄一些东西没有障碍。我想不管怎么样，当某个外国人开着自己的一点点玩笑，全世界的人都感觉邀请参加进去了，尽管有巨大的文化差异。这就很引人注意。但是中国，特别是官方行动方面，软实力的能力，只是一些展示其古代文明或者经济发展的伟大。这并不是特别引人注意。”
在中国文化圈这有一个名字：“‘功夫熊猫’问题”，因2008年梦工厂电影而得名。这指的是有关中国国家符号的最成功的电影–功夫和熊猫–只能由外国人制作出来，因为中国导演不会尝试玩这种庄重的主题。例如，导演陆川曾经答应为北京奥运会制作一部动画电影，但是在他开始着手这个项目之后，他发现自己不应该让自己的思想失去控制。“我一直不停地从相关各方那里接收电影应该是怎么样的指示和要求，”他之后写到，“在如何完成电影这方面得到了非常具体的规则。有些关于‘发扬奥林匹克精神’、‘发扬中国文化’或者‘丰富的中国元素’方面不是那么灵活。”他继续道，“在这样的压力下，我的合作者和我真的感觉压抑了。我们没有做某件有趣的事时那种乐趣和愉悦，我们的想象力和创造力也没有了。计划好的动画片就再也生产不出来了。”
《功夫熊猫》出来的时候，一个中国设计师呼吁要抵制，说它在四川地震后这么快出来就是侮辱的（熊猫住在四川）。但是陆川不这样认为。“看完《功夫熊猫》后，我发现，在如何对待、解释和展示我们的传统文化，和如何将其与其他文化融合起来方面，电影制作人给了我们一次有趣而有启发意义的课。”
韩国讽刺者PSY可能不会解释如此严肃的主题，但是这正是他所做的事，而且他已经得到了回报。在中国，一些艺术家羡慕地看着。《中国数字时报》强调的一幅漫画里，漫画家想象了一种中国式的江南现象，他称之为“海派”，漫画家本人因Peaceful House Pearl Shimao而出名。里面的舞者不是庆祝自己的疯狂，而是最后被送进精神病院，“参与多个活动”，“疯狂地到处跑”，然后变成了一头猪。
当下，中国的“江南”时刻似乎还很遥远。“在中国，文化和艺术的发展在政府的监督之下，太时髦或者太有趣的东西要么关闭要么被购买。在韩国却相反，艺术家和演艺人员在一个高度商业化但是也摆脱高压手段状态的空间里繁荣发展，”德勒里告诉我，然后又说道，“我打趣政府官员熟悉了为什么韩国流行音乐这么成功想要复制它的时刻，他们就会毁了它。”
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