Thu, Dec 27, 2001 page8

• Preserving our culture after WTO accession

  • By Chi Chun-chieh 紀駿傑
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  There has been much debate in recent years about the WTO's impact on Taiwan's industries as the nation's formal entry into the trade organization draws near. But the cultural and media impact of admission has received scant attention. We should not ignore these issues because they deeply affect Taiwan's cultural industries and may even subtly change people's cultural identity.

  Cultural products were one of the key disputes in trade negotiations between the US and European countries. For example, France once tried to exclude various US cultural products such as movies and music from general free trade negotiations and tried to impose restrictions on those products. The main reason behind this was the concerns that those products might erode French culture and influence the cultural level and identity of the French people.

  Li Tien-tuo (李天鐸), dean of the College of Commerce at Kunshan University of Technology, said the development of Tai-wan's cultural industries after WTO entry is a cause for concern, given the various Japanese and South Korean soap operas inundating the country, as well as the foreign movie and sports programs that have been around for a long time. Indeed, Taiwan's movie industry has been on the decline in recent years while HBO earns a glitzy NT$1 billion a year from Taiwan.

  How can Taiwan's cultural industries survive an offensive from their global counterparts? With these worries in mind, I went for a stroll one Saturday night along Kaohsiung City's Wufu Road, along with Wang Ya-wei (王亞維), planning manager at the Public Television Service (公視). Passing by the Chungshan sports stadium, we were surprised to find out that the Minghua Yuan (明華園) Taiwanese opera troupe was performing one of their new operas there.

  The audience filled the huge stadium. The troupe's performance was top-notch. Even though it was a period piece, the Mandarin-Hokkien interlaced dialogue brought the audience closer to the story and songs. Subtitles appearing on a screen next to the stage also allowed non-Hokkienese speakers to immerse themselves in the plot. Wang, who is familiar with audio and lighting devices, told me that the troupe's equipment was first-class, as was their skill in operating it.

  While we were heaping praise on the performance, we ran into Chen Sheng-fu (陳勝福), the troupe's leader. He told us that the audience was around 10,000 people that night. The Minghua Yuan troupe performs around 220 times a year and goes on an overseas tour every two years, winning kudos everywhere.

  Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o said that local languages, traditions and cultures do not completely disappear when they come under heavy-handed foreign cultural colonialism. Instead, they are preserved in folk songs, operas and other media.

  The Minghua Yuan is perhaps the best testament to this. Established in 1929, the troupe has survived Japanese rule, the KMT's mono-cultural policies and the development of a pluralistic society. While insisting on the grassroots tradition of open-air opera concerts throughout, the troupe has been able to merge into the heartbeat of the times, using the most advanced theater technology and revitalizing Taiwan's cultural industry.

  Perhaps we cannot resist the appeal of Japanese and South Korean pop culture, HBO or Michael Jackson. Amid the wave of globalization, however, we can also see Taiwanese culture ascending to the international stage -- as attested by Minghua Yuan, Cloud Gate Dance Theater (雲門舞集), U Theater (優劇場), Formosa Aboriginal Song and Dance Troupe (原舞者) and others making serious efforts.

  Chi Chun-chieh is an associate professor at the Institute of Ethnic Relations at National Dong-hwa University.

  Translated by Francis Huang
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