RESEARCH General Arts World Affairs

CHINA
Conference aims to provide up-to-date view of Chinese pop culture

Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@uiuc.edu

4/1/02

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When Americans think about China, Kenneth Klinkner believes their mental images may be fairly dated.

"So many images are frozen – for instance, the student and the tank," he said, referring to the famous video and still shots of a defiant student who faced down a tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The image became an instant icon representing the suppression of the student-led democracy movement by hard-line Communist rulers. "We haven't gotten beyond those images," said Klinkner, a visiting professor of political science in the University of Illinois' Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies.

In an attempt to fast-forward to the present and provide a "refreshing look" at 21st century Chinese life, Klinkner and music professor Isabel Wong, who directs the East Asian Exchange Program, organized the China Pop Culture Conference, set for April 19-20 at the UI. Four sessions will cover the mainstays of current culture: popular literature, mass communications, pop music and popular film.

The conference, at the UI's Levis Faculty Center, kicks off at 8 p.m. April 19 with an opening address on trends, tastes and tempers of China today by University of Colorado professor Howard Goldblatt.

Klinkner's own interest in Chinese popular culture grew from personal experience. He lived in China from 1980-1985, and for the last couple of years has been accompanying UI students on trips through the summer study-abroad program "Learning About China." On the plane, on one of those trips, he viewed the Feng Xiaogang film "Sorry, Baby," which Klinkner described as "a funny, well-done, clever romantic comedy with a nice emotional touch."

The film, he said, was
surprisingly – and refreshingly – different from ones he’d seen previously in China, which he characterized as "formulaic, didactic and predictable." He added that the same could be said for Chinese films available for view in the United States. "Here, there are only a handful of Chinese directors whose films are seen." And, he said, "those films are often set in a pastoral Chinese countryside, with plots chock full of ‘oppressed women’ and 'primeval passions,' with a tone of overall 'grimness.' "

At the conference, Klinkner will present a talk on Feng, who lately has been courted by Hollywood dealmakers. A screening of Feng’s film "The Dream Factory" is also on the conference program.

Other speakers – from the UI and from other U.S. and Chinese universities – will focus on topics as diverse as "Schizoid News," anti-corruption fiction, female rockers and Tibetan-inspired New Age world beat music.

More information about the conference, sponsored by the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, is available on the Web at www.eaps.uiuc.edu/Events.htm.