Cultural Sensitivity in a Bucket
EastSouthWestNorth offers an English translation of a Chinese article reporting that KFC’s new Chinese ad campaign doesn’t sit so well with some groups in China. [link via Kaiju Shakedown]
No matter in the novel or in Tsui Hark’s movie, Fu Qingzhu and Hui Ming were figures of national heroes. They promote justice and they cared about the fate of their own people as well as the fates of the various tribes in Xinjiang. In a time of danger, they stood up to fight. They represent the martial heroic spirit in Chinese history over thousands of years. It is for this reason that when Seven Swords which is tied to Fu Qingzhu and Hui Ming appeared in a KFC ad, the culturati were unhappy.
Yin Cheng’an, a Taoist at the Beijing Baiyun Taoist Temple thought that “the ad was inappropriate.” With more than ten years of Taoist practice, Yin is a member of the Quanzhen sect. He believes that since the creative idea of the ad came from Seven Swords, then it ought to be faithful to the spirit of the original work in the critical places. These martial artists went to Tianshan to practice and refine their skills, and such people do not kill animals or eat meat. The person referred to as the Master easily evokes the monk Hui Ming in Seven Swords. Monks do not kill lives and they do not eat meat. To charbroil chicken meat for the Master is a gross violation of the cultural essence. In the ad, the old man called the Master was wearing a Taoist garb.
With KFC and Yum! Brands refusing to give any comment other than to note that the ads in question are no longer airing (not due to controversy, but rather due to the promotion ending), it’s impossible to know if this was a mistake made by a typically savvy company, or if it was a deliberate attempt to stir up interest. However it goes, it apparently did draw people in to KFC.
It raises an interesting question, though, of how American corporations treat the issue of cultural sensitivity overseas. The American culture is based largely on a tradition of theft, beginning with our own lax recognition of international copyright in our nation’s formative years. We adopt, adapt, and redact. We consume from all cultures – operating under the myth that we have no true “culture” of our own – then mutilate those adopted cultural elements in order to make them fit our needs. Anything that proves incovenient is deleted, and the new product is put on display.
When the culture whose tradition has been adopted, adapted, and redacted complains, the typical American response is, “so what?” But the fact remains that this AA&R policy can ruffle feathers, and rightly so. With an outsider’s understanding of the culture, those who AA&R usually do so without a knowledge of the significant, the sacred, and the profane – and when they are called on it, their immediate response is to declare, “Well, it isn’t my culture, so it doesn’t really matter.”
July 27th, 2006 at 8:02 am
As American education moves into the efficient corporate model, dropping music, art, and culture in general from the curriculum, the ignorance that generates this effect increases.