Yeah but check out "The Story of the Weeping Camel".  Same director and no 
English.  How'd they get the camel to cry on cue?  I dunno about you but both 
films made the life of nomads look awfully tough and barren to me.  Sinister 
and evil?  I felt sorry for those folks living without infrastructure and/or on 
the outskirts of decrepit concrete housing centers.  Ddin't make me like the 
Chinese govmnt one bit.  Maybe I enjoy a level of comfort and connectedness 
beyond that of the target audience?
 
Andy

Andrew G. Gluesenkamp, Ph.D.
700 Billie Brooks Drive
Driftwood, Texas 78619
(512) 799-1095
[email protected]

--- On Mon, 7/26/10, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:




 
This is an exceedingly strange Chinese propaganda movie, and no, there is no 
cave. It is a Disneyesque "magical realism" portrayal of a plucky girl from a 
so called traditional Tibetan (Maybe mongolian? It looked like Mongolia)family 
spending the summer with their sheep. It is intended to show how happy and 
carefree life is under Chinese rule, and how both cultures can happily coexist 
while happy kids learn to count by piling up yak turds, but evil always lurks, 
for there are wolves! They are allowed to show evidence of their traditional 
beliefs, but you can be sure the Dalai Lama is conspicuously absent!
 
What is completely weird is that all of the actors, who appear to be Tibetan 
and have Tibetan names, all speak perfect idiomatic midwestern English. At 
first I thought it was dubbing, but then I observed that every word on every 
person's lips, including those of little kids, was perfectly matched to their 
facial and body expressions. I focused intently, there wasn't a single slip, so 
the producers must have gone to extraordinary lengths. It just goes to show how 
intent the Chinese are on producing good propaganda.
 
I was so impressed that I decided to watch another Chinese Tibetan propaganda 
film. I have forgotten the name, but it was about a group of Chinese Possum 
Cops led by a Tibetan turncoat who hunt down and kill a band of peasant 
poachers who are after Chiru antelope. The scenes are harrowing, instead of 
happy kids at play in wildflower meadows, it is high altitude hell where 
everybody's fingers fall off and nobody can breathe. The goal is to show how 
horrible Tibet and Tibetans are, and how enviros ought to support the Chinese 
who are clearly superior to the benighted greedy superstitious fuzzy bunny 
killing peasants. If the reality of Tibet is even remotely similar to the 
frozen wasteland shown in the flick then you can cancel my reservation!
 
I got the impression that the first flick is entirely intended for Gringo 
audiences, and that the second, which was of much lower quality, was intended 
for home consumption. Both flicks are sinister, evil, and interestingly 
different from the propaganda to which we are accustomed.
 
Sleazeweazel

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