Yet Beijing officials have announced plans to spend more than 10 years and £1.4bn turning the area into the "China Music Valley", a sprawling compound that will be home to recording studios, instrument makers, music schools, five-star hotels and an arena in the shape of a peach.
"Music is such an intangible kind of art," said Zhao Wei, a 30-year-old official who directed the initiative until last month. "Now with this project, we want to turn music into something that you can see, something that you can touch."
China's central government, concerned that progress in the country's film, music and drama sectors lag behind its economic development, has designated culture a top national priority and promised billions of pounds in subsidies for the arts. "Culture is the lifeblood of a nation," President Hu Jintao said at the start of the country's once-in-a-decade leadership transition in November.
This is an interesting solution to the issue of maintaining
culture. I suspect that China’s top-down
efforts at influencing culture are more likely to lead to cultural improvements
than, say America’s. The reason I say
this is because Chinese officials are not as hindered by political correctness
as American officials, and have no problem a) recognizing cultural differences,
b) recognizing what makes their culture unique and c) viewing their culture as
superior to other cultures and therefore deserving of preservation. Because the Chinese are more likely to celebrate
their culture and fund art that reinforces it, they should find that their
attempts at influencing culture through art will strengthen their country’s
cultural bonds.
In contrast, the American government is not as likely to
succeed at strengthening cultural and social bonds through art sponsorship
because the American government is run by people who hate Americans, hate
American culture, have no love for the founding fathers, and have bought into a
large number of myths, like racial and sexual equality, and
post-modernism. How else to explain why
the federal government of a country whose success was built on the backs of
people who worshiped Jesus Christ as Lord sponsored an artistic photograph
entitled “Piss Christ”? Whether one like
Christianity or not, it is an undeniable historical fact that Christianity and
Christian philosophy played an indispensable role in the founding of
America. Sponsoring art that
fundamentally goes against the grain of American culture is nothing more than
an overt attempt to undermine the culture.
Thus, one conclusion that can be drawn from this is that it
is not wise to trust the government to attempt to influence the culture of a
country as long as those who control the government hate the culture the
country was founded on. China, for instance,
will only succeed at improving Chinese culture if the government sponsors art and
artists that actually revere China and its culture. Paying people to demonstrate malice against
their own country is simply paying someone to shoot your brains out. Likewise with America, it is foolish to turn
to the government for help in preserving the culture when those in charge have
been the ones undermining American culture in the first place.
