The CCTV Spring Festival Gala, born in 1983, was once a New Year’s Eve necessity for millions of Chinese people, as were the dumplings on the New Year’s Eve dinner table. In recent years, it has become more and more of a chicken feed in the hearts of the audience, and the flow of stars and high-tech choreography can’t win back the hearts of the people. On the occasion of the first anniversary of the outbreak of the new crown Epidemic and the tears and bloodshed of the democratic struggle in Hong Kong, a number of Chinese citizens told us that the whitewashed songs and dances could not hide the rotten backwardness and socially torn wounds of a single monarchy, and that “those who woke up took the Spring Festival Gala as a joke”.
Ji Feng: “Those who wake up treat the Spring Festival Gala as a joke”
The program of this year’s Spring Festival Gala has a total of 37 programs, with the theme of “All the people are happy and resigning from the year of the rat, singing and laughing to welcome the Year of the Ox”, focusing on the red theme of victory against epidemics, poverty alleviation and national harmony, and inviting flow stars such as Wang Yibo, Li Xian and Yang Mi to attract more young viewers. However, public data shows that in recent years the Spring Festival Gala ratings only float around 30%.
The main stage of the Spring Festival Gala uses a 61.4m x 12.4m 8K UHD giant screen, which is said to be the first to use AI+VR naked eye 3D studio technology to meld virtual space with the real world.
Liu Shihui, a Chinese human rights lawyer currently residing in the United States, told the station that the Spring Festival Gala has long been reduced to a cover-up for the Chinese Communist Party, an “embroidered pillow with a bag of grass,” and that the totalitarian system’s promotion of fancy technology and disregard for human rights constitutes a great irony.
“After so many years, the Spring Festival Gala has now become a disgrace to China, a comical joke. Can so many human rights disasters in China be covered up with a song and dance? If we really return power to the people, instead of making arrests here and there, or setting up millions of concentration camps – without the Spring Festival Gala, people will still sing and dance and be happy from the bottom of their hearts. Whitewashing can only make things awkward.”
Clip from China’s CCTV Spring Festival Gala 2021 (video screenshot)
Spring Festival Gala skit sings praises of anti-epidemic war effort injured Wuhan residents disagree
“On April 8, our city is going to be unsealed!” A community volunteer hung up the phone and gleefully announced to his neighbors in the neighborhood. People quickly poured out of their homes and hugged each other, “We have won!” “People of Wuhan, thank you! Heroic people!” The people of Wuhan, the heroic people!” and “Friends, in 2020, we have come through. 2021, we will always go to victory!”
This is the end of the Spring Festival Gala skit “Balcony”. The scene of citizens shouting across the balcony when the city of Wuhan was closed, made many microbloggers fall into memories: “remembered the woman who banged the gong and drums on the balcony”, “after shouting, the next thing was to use the garbage truck to send them meat.”
Wuhan resident Yu Quanhong, who had endured a lonely and difficult Time of city closure, wondered, “What does it mean to be victorious for those who were quarantined, for those who had people die in their families? Is this the right word to use for them? It’s just that the government and staff feel victorious and want to cheer.”
Yu Quanhong believes that the Spring Festival need not be left to the ramblings of government personnel, but that the patients and families who really suffered should tell their stories themselves.
“In the past, these people in the community basically got paid to eat and had nothing to do to feed them. When the epidemic suddenly came, they were unprepared and had a lot of initial problems, including medical equipment and living supplies. (The Spring Festival) should invite those who are hurting. There are still many orphans! Without giving a channel for grooming, the pain will stay with them for years to come. Those young orphans, what should they do?”
According to Gao Yu, an independent journalist in Beijing, “Balcony” does not dare to talk about Li Wenliang, but only dares to bake a joyful group phase, usually talking about Dreams, and the gala is to sing them:.
“According to their will, very complete to bring 2020 to an end. They dug in and did not show the suffering of Life, but also expressed the loss of freedom, not allowed to go out with songs, the whole is a ‘joy’, a dream.”
The international song and dance promotes the “community of human Destiny“, and the three places on both sides of the Taiwan Strait falsely celebrate together
Alan Tam, Hou Dejian, Pan Meichen, the Tigers …… history of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala has never been short of the figure of Hong Kong and Taiwan artists. 1984 Spring Festival Gala, dressed in a Zhongshan suit, Hong Kong singer Zhang Mingmin sang “My Chinese Heart” quickly became popular in the north and south of the country. In the first year after the return of Hong Kong, the joint performance of “Great China” and “About 1998” by Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland artists also became the collective memory of a generation.
“Back in ’98, I thought Hong Kong’s freedom and democracy was a beacon. Little did I know that in 2020, this beacon would be extinguished and there would be no hope in sight.” Chinese civil constitutional scholar and human rights activist Lai Jianjun recalled, “At that time, I thought that Hong Kong would shine on the mainland.”
In 2021, when a large number of pro-democracy activists were arrested under the shadow of the National Security Law, Hong Kong people were in exile overseas, and the PLA was harassing Taiwan by sea and air, the stage of the Spring Festival Gala was still filled with Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Coco Lee, Nana Ouyang, Jay Chou, and other artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Liu Shihui said, “(Jackie Chan) he still has the heart to whitewash the Communist tyranny, really does not know shame. The uprooting of the protest movement in Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party is so shocking that the whole world finds it unbelievable. The wound has not yet healed, the gurgling blood is still pouring out, so what can be done with more singing and dancing?”
In addition to the usual minority dance mishmash “One Heart for All”, this year’s Spring Festival Gala also opened its doors to the world, staging “African Song and Dance”, “Russian Folk Dance” and “Egyptian Vine Cane Dance and Oriental Dance”.
Liu Shihui, who was born in Inner Mongolia, found it hilarious and distressing that ethnic minorities had to perform falsely when they were subjected to forced Sinicization and genocide, “How can all the people in Inner Mongolia be united when their language and script are threatened with uprooting? How can all the people in Xinjiang be united when millions of people are imprisoned in concentration camps?”
“Aren’t we a community of human destiny, a belt and a road? Aren’t we encountering a great change that has not been seen in a century, to overtake the United States as the world leader, and to have a universal dynasty?” Lai said the African dance has become popular in recent years, and what hobbies the people above have, the Spring Festival is pitching in, and the Ministry of Truth is getting meatier and meatier.
Tan Min, a Chongqing petitioner who insisted on petitioning and was jailed for three years for being subjected to forced land expropriation, was taken away again at the end of January at the petition office and almost spent New Year’s Eve at the police station.
She has not watched the Spring Festival Gala for many years, and will not watch it even if she is bored during her imprisonment, “Prices are so high, my biggest hope is to have my problem solved. What’s the point of the Spring Festival Gala, what’s the use of just shouting slogans.”
On New Year’s Eve, independent poet Ji Feng received the artist Chasing Soul, who had just been released from prison, and his best friend Geng Xiaonan, who had just been sentenced to three years in prison; another close friend, jurist Xu Zhangrun, who had been given key care during New Year’s Eve, was lost again tonight, and Ji Feng was extremely worried about where he was and whether he was well.
“People who wake up do not watch the Spring Festival Gala. The Spring Festival is over, we look at it as a joke.” Monsoon said.
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