Course:ASIA319/2020/"Stimulating"(燃)
Introduction
Culture of stimulation has become an important part of Chinese mass culture. The word 燃 (ran) which connotes such culture involves various meanings and values in contemporary China. The dictionary definition of the word is to burn or to ignite; however, the implicit meaning of the word goes beyond that simple meaning. It reflects people's expression of their passion, positivity and excitement as well as hope and braveness. Sometimes, 燃 is also used in many video platforms especially when the context of situation is about overcoming difficulties. This sensational spirit or feeling give public an excitement and hopeful mindset. Due to this unique feature and power of the word, it is strategically used as a propaganda by the state in an effort to enhance positive emotional arousal and ideas. 燃 also has influenced not only the mainstream media but also subculture in Chinese society, trying to resist against the prevalently existing 喪(sang) culture. Like this, it is evident that the word 'stimulating' has significant meanings in China's mass culture as well as people's everyday life. This wiki page is going to explore how the meaning and values of the word 燃 is embeded in Chinese society and popular culture and the potential problems that may arise from it.
The genesis of the keyword
The word 燃(ran) in Chinese character consists of two compounds - 然 and 火. 火(huŏ) means fire and was added to 然, which means 'likewise', in order to convey the meaning of burning and ignition. Besides the literal dictionary meaning of the word, there are few critical implications embeded in the word 燃.
燃 is defined as burning or to burn something with fire in Japanese as well. In Japanese culture, particularly in those regarding animation, the word 燃え(moe) is often used to to describe the feeling of enthusiasm or adoration towards something. It was originally used as 萌え to describe lovely characters. However, the word 燃え (moe) has the same pronunciation to 萌え (moe) in Japanese, and the users often made a typo on this word. Consequently, the word 燃え started to be used like 萌え and became a synonym. Therefore, the word 燃え is defined like a strong interest in love with someone or profound passion towards something. Under the animation context, 燃 is used to describe as enthusiastic interest toward the goal, winning against the opponents, or some scene that is very stimulating. In 2017, Tencent video promotes a new form of culture (燃文化) to spread the idea of positivity in teens to enhance life experience.[1] Influenced by this Japanese culture, people in China eventually started to use this word to describe something very positive, and express enthusiasm to something. This generates a brand new culture of stimulating (燃文化) which emphasizes positive life experience, spirit of never giving up and strive for better self.
Glossary of its explicit dictionary meanings
In the Chinese dictionary, 燃 (ran) can either be a state of an object or an action done by someone. When describing objects, 燃 means that the object is burning or is set alight. For example, 那辆车在燃烧 (That car is burning). When used as an action of people, it represents the action to light something up. For example, 燃起一堆篝火 (Light a bonfire). For this original meaning, the character 燃 can be combined with other characters to represent different actions, such as 燃放 (‘rangfang’: let off), 燃烧 (‘ranshao’: burn), 燃爆 (‘ranbao’: ignite and explode) etc. These actions are distinctive and are applicable to various objects, but they are all related to fire, burning and heat.
An elaboration of its variegated meanings, actual usages, and value-loaded implications
The importance of the implicit meaning of 燃 has surpassed its original meaning in the everyday conversation under the modern setting, especially for the young generation in China. In everyday conversation, people use 燃 to express a feeling of passionate, being positive or simply excited. In most cases, people use this character when they have encountered challenges or difficulties but still bravely face them. For example, when people see that the nurses and doctors who are fighting the COVID-19 virus have finally overcome the difficulties and cured the patients, they might feel ‘燃’.
The character 燃 has more applications and usage in video platforms, especially those whose main audience is the young generation, such as Bilibili. Actually, it is the anime section at Bilibili.com that firstly used 燃 on a large scale to describe those videos which are uplifting or simply give people goosebumps. Most of these videos are clips of movies or animations, which selected the most epic or exciting moments and put them as a whole, together with magnificent or exciting background music. For example, one scene in the movie Avengers: Endgame has been frequently used in 燃 videos as a leading scene:
In this scene, the characters in the movie had overcome great difficulties and their assembling is what people have been excited for. This should be a typical indication of what kind of video clips have the potential possibility to be categorized as 燃.
What’s more, people may come across 燃 in the popular press or on television. Despite the similar usage of it in the video platforms, the political party often use this character to promote a national spirit or value. For example, the mainstream media will title a video with 燃 when this video includes the completion of large construction projects, national development, military power or simply just some great individual deeds. Here are some screenshots from such videos:
In most cases indicated above, the character 燃 is seldom used with other characters to form a word, but often used individually or only attached with one exclamation mark. The reason for this phenomenon may be that once other characters are added, 燃 will easily return to its original meaning and hence the spiritual or cultural meaning will not be passed on to the audience.
In other language systems or cultures, we may rarely find “burning” or “flaming” to be used directly as representations of uplifting mood. However, the figure of flame or fire can often be found in this usage in various cultures.
According to the above investigation, some patterns of the products that can be described as 燃 can be summarized. Firstly, it should be a cultural product such as articles, videos, images or stories. Secondly, the main theme or keynote of this product should be encouraging, brave, positive, uplifting and exciting etc. last but not least, 燃often comes with encountering challenges or difficulties but remains a positive attitude afterwards.
It is important to notice 燃 and its related information. Unlike other sub-culture produced among the young generation or from the online world, 燃 has been filled with positive energy from the beginning. This presents a completely different appearance from the previous online subculture. This is also why 燃 can be happily accepted and frequently used by Chinese authorities or mainstream media. It represents that the gap between subculture and the mainstream ideology is closing, which shows that online subculture has a trend of returning to the mainstream culture.
Social, cultural, and political problems of stimulating culture
In the social and cultural context, Wang Yun Fei indicated that the culture of stimulating (燃文化) is reflecting the value of cognitive and behavioural pattern in teenagers and young adults. Wang stated that in the similar activities, people in both reality or virtual will share the similar value and meaning to obtain a sense of group identities[2]. Similarly, the cultural element of Sang(丧) reflects the opposite side of the cultural element of Ran(燃). Zhao stated that the subcultural element of Sang(丧文化) has negatively influenced teenagers’ mind and teenagers use it as a way to resist the reality[3]. To create a sense of positivity influences, Zhao stated that using the element of stimulating subculture to resist the negative element from Sang subculture. Therefore, people can foster positive way to reduce the pressure and stress that they face through their life experience[3].
In the media context, emphasizing the element of stimulation to spread the value of positive ideation to the public has become one of the crucial value in Chinese social media(燃报道). To provide and create emotional arousal through the topics and content can significantly attract people attention. In the middle content of the paper, it mentions about “post-truth”(后真相) which is explained as the emotional value and beliefs can influence the consensus more than the fact of the events[4]. This implies that if the government can control the arousal of emotional context in their propaganda, they can cover or alter the truth of the event in order to reach their purpose according to their agenda.
Also, the over emphasis of positivity in media created another form of industry for advertisement and scams. The existence of “poisonous chicken soup” (毒鸡汤) means that the content is superficially positive. However, the content implanted a lot of advertisement and the industry used it as a way to make money[5]. They used the media platform like Weixin (微信) or Douyin (抖音) to sell out fake products that is wrapped in the positive massage to lure customers. The over promotion in positive message and the lack of control in Chinese law creates a gap that allows people to manipulate advertisement as a form of industry to exploit their customers who believed in the promotion of positive ideation.
Understanding such problems that affect the internet users in a negative way, opposite from how it should be, the Chinese government took an act to solve, or at least ease the problems. It was noted by a senior Chinese Internet official that the Minister of the State Internet Information Office Lu Wei mentioned that the major Chinese websites should become a force to spread positive energy and play a leading role in guiding public opinion[6]. The mainstream news portals and the big commercial websites were especially pointed out to show an exemplary role in developing healthy trends and pooling positive energy, which would contribute to the prevalence of the Chinese dream[6]. To prevent the abuse of the striving for positivity of the stimulating subculture, Lu also stressed the importance of improving laws and regulations regarding Internet use, cracking down on online crime, and most of all building a sage online environment by strengthening Internet security[6]. Through such effort the original means of the stimulating subculture would be able to trend in the Chinese culture.
The word “ran”(燃) relates to the positive ideation that matches with the need of cultural development in China. Teenagers in China can learn to face the society, to face individual mindsets, and to take responsibility in their life experiences[7]. In the context of internet culture, the government stated that subculture can significantly influence the idea formation of value and behavioral pattern in teenagers[8]. Therefore, correctly guiding the value of subculture is important for the development in Chinese society.
In Mao's ideology of Chinese utopian of communism is to inspire people to celebrate their material success in a positive manner by the CCP. The appreciation of altruism is deeply rooted in the premodern Chinese culture[9]. In the article of Cohen, he stated that the official media as "main melody" that spread the ideation of social collectivism, Positive Energy encourages Chinese youths to contribute to CCP by aligning their desires.[10]
According to Shanshan Du, “positive energy” has demonstrated an extraordinary and transformative energy in the socio-political and globalized landscape of China[11]. The grassroots’ ‘positive energy’ movement has spurred a sense of patriotism among them, which has came to co-exist with the previous forms of nationalism[11]. Du describes this new model as ‘transcendental patriotism’ due to elements of individualism, transnationalism, and universalism into the existing ideal and sentiment of Chinese patriotism(aiguo”愛國”)[11]. Through the addition of individualism elements into the basic Chinese patriotism and nationalism, the attribution of the people who form the subculture has increased.
In the term of “Positive Energy” cultural ideation matches the post-modern social ideation of realizing the renaissance in China. This positive cultural value matches the emphasis of President Xi about the ideation of Utopian Chinese Dream[12]. The Chinese Dream represents the idea that reconstruct the nationality in China to become rich, strong, democratic, harmonious, and modernized nation[13]. Forming and successfully maintaining positive energy is not only important in the actual world, but also in the internet culture. The Minister of the State Internet Information Office Lu Wei noted that as an important bridge that links the government and the people, the internet should tell stories of common people pursing their dreams, which would further stimulate others observing it to do the same, forming positive energy, and achieving the Chinese dream that the government wishes to make[6].
“Positive energy” is also taken advantage by many trans national corporations, who implement its element in to their marketing strategies. This use of “positive energy” in marketing is demonstrated through the project that was used to promote the Hollywood film Iron Man 3[11]. “Positive energy” played a central role in the indigenization of Hollywood culture, through creating a website with the title ‘you are my hero’, which aimed to provide an interactive platform to spread “positive energy” by inviting the Chinese internet users to recommend heroes from their everyday life (grassroot heroes), and then connecting the local heroes and the “positive energy” they have spread to the actual hero in the movie[11]. This strategy of using the element has raised patriotism(愛國) among the Chinese grassroots, and especially the internet users, spurring a collective stimulating subculture.
Maintaining positivity in education is crucial in Chinese psychology. Chen stated that students should establish correct belief in "Chinese Mode", understand the duty of CCP and execute the duty even facing adversity[14]. Emphasizing in higher level of emotional feeling such as moral and responsibility in China can foster the beliefs in CCP which is important to achieving "Chinese Dream"[14]. Therefore, implanting positive psychology in Chinese education can significantly improve the educational quality and encourage teenagers to carry out the responsibility of duty in CCP.
Conclusion
As one typical example of how sub-culture can offer new meanings for mainstream ideologies, 燃 had opened a precedent for this trend. From its original meaning of burning or flaming, it gains more constructed meanings from video platforms, articles, televisions and popular media. The meanings it gained perfectly matched the ideology that is needed by the government and the people to concrete the spiritual and cultural development in China. We may conclude that if one word seeks to return from online subculture to mainstream ideology, it should have a positive meaning (defined by the authorities, but not by other individuals or groups) from the beginning and its process of development should match with the ideation of the powered institutions and agencies.
For future research, we will probably investigate why and how some other online sub-culture words and characters failed to enter the mainstream ideology or even got banned or criticized by it. Thus, we may have a holistic view of the up-to-date relationship between sub-culture and mainstream ideology and meanwhile, a trend of such process can be concluded.
References
- ↑ Yang, Carina. ""好时光一起燃"！". Retrieved 2020-11-11.
- ↑ 詹, 慶生 (2020-01-17). ""燃"文化呈現青年奮斗精神 藝術表達澎湃愛國情懷". 人民网. Retrieved 2020-11-10.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 赵, 本燕 (2019). "当代青年"丧文化"的生成机理与引导路径". 广东青年职业学院学报. 33: 12–16.
- ↑ 耿, 红霞 (2017). "主流媒体"燃报道"的主流价值传播策略——以新华社的"燃报道"为例". 青年记者. 35: 78–79.
- ↑ 王, 聃 (2016-05-10). "网络广告监管要追得上"毒鸡汤"". Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 "Chinese Websites To 'Spread Positive Energy'". World News Connection. Xinhua. 2013-10-30. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
- ↑ 凡, 永超 (2017). ""燃文化"才是年轻人的主流文化". 风流一代. 18: 11.
- ↑ 朱, 雷 (2019). "网络青年亚文化何以健康发展". 人民论坛. 2: 116–117.
- ↑ Kwong, Julia (1994). "Ideological Crisis among China's Youths: Values and Official Ideology". The British Journal of Sociology. 45: 247–264.
- ↑ Tan, K Cohen (2020). "Sang subculture in post-reform China". Global media and China. 5.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Du, Shanshan (February 2014). "Social media and the transformation of 'Chinese nationalism'". Anthropology today. 30: 5–8.
- ↑ 常, 勤毅 (2014). "中国"正能量"文化内涵与构成分析". Jiangxi she hui ke xue. 1: 233–238.
- ↑ 包, 俊洪 (2016). "包俊洪：中国梦的价值追求". Retrieved 2020-11-14.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 陈, 彦垒 (2016). "积极心理学视野中高校党员教师教育正能量的心理建构". 潍坊工程职业学院学报. 6: 19–22.
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