A Multi-Media education: Chinese Propaganda
Today on The Hazards of Blogs, we get a little educational with the multi-media exploration of Chinese communist propaganda. Admittedly, I have taken in consideration that some readers might find the history of modern China rather dry, but trust me, the materials in which we’ll be analyzing is so bad, it’s so good.
First, we’ll look at a piece of media that is not music-related
Among the annals of video game obscurity, one game is quickly rising to cult popularity as more and more extremely bored gamers search through the graveyard of games of the 90s. Hong Kong 97, (made by Japanese homebrew Development Company “HappySoft”) planned for release of the Super Nintendo Console, was supposedly so abysmal that Asian distributors refused to sell this game. In fact, this game is apparently so elusive that physical copies of this game don’t actually currently exist, and the only way to experience this game is by using emulators. (Play it here! Play it here! http://www.letsplaysnes.com/play-hong-kong-97-online/). With this information currently at hand, a credible argument could be made that such a game doesn’t exist or is actually just an internet joke, but lets get to that later.
To understand this game’s relation to propaganda, we must first examine the story of this video game. A bit of warning, the story is borderline surrealist and I’m actually not making this up.
(Taken from the intro cutscene of the game)
The Year 1997 has arrived. A herd of ******* ugly reds. are rushing from the mainland! (Note: this game is actually one of the few SNES games that contain cursing)
Crime Rate skyrockeded! Hongkong is ruined! Therefore, The Hongkong government called Bruce Lee’s relative “Chin”
for the massacre of the reds. Chin is a killer machine. Wipe out all 1.2 billion of the red communists!
However, in mainland China there was a secret project in progress! A project to transform the deceased Deng Xiaoping* into an ultimate weapon!
First off, if you look at the statistics of Deng Xiaoping’s life, you would point that he died in 1997, strangely coincidental with the plot of this video game, unless this game is actually not planned for release in 1995. (Plus: Deng Xiaoping was 92 when he died, weaponize someone younger, at least Mao Zedong died when he was 82.)
Now returning to the point of this article. It can be said confidently that this is clearly an anti-PRC** satire gone awry, but strangely, despite this game being very anti- communist, it features an surprising amount of communist Propaganda, specifically deriving from the Maoist era. Hong Kong ’97 is a top down shooter game (similar to games like Galaga) that instead of actually designing a level background, the game actually replaces it with pictures of Maoist propaganda, the logo for Asia Television, the logo for China’s Coca Cola, and even a pop art-esque photo of the Chairman Himself. Finally, after you eliminate a hoard of the “reds”. The giant severed head of Deng Xiaoping himself is out to kill you. After you kill him, the game then goes on continually forever. The game doesn't actually end
If one ever finds him or herself in a situation forced to play this game forever, other than the absurd nature of this game, there is no other way to drive yourself to insanity faster than the 5-second loop of the song “I love Beijing Tiananmen” featured in this game. Easily the most pervasive element of this game, “Beijing Tianamen” itself is also a piece of propaganda deriving from the days of the Cultural Revolution. Aimed at children, several primary schools around China sung this song.
This arrangement specifically, however, is particularly repulsive. Being half-Taiwanese, I have heard folk songs arranged with a ‘70s soft rock aesthetic. And it is supremely cheesy. This version, despite being a communist propaganda song (opposite of the capitalist Taiwanese), has essentially the same genre. I simply can’t say this song is good, nor funny as many other internet commentators have stated
In conclusion, every aspect of this game is intentionally awful simply because the game itself is an very strange satire. From the ridiculous story to the awful song loop, this game is just an absurd satire of Communist China, and quite a brilliant one at that. Whether actually real or not, this game was made intentionally horrible and pernicious to poke fun Communist China, even though the satire might not actually have a point and is simply made to caricaturize.
However, perhaps more a important point to address while we’re at it is the perspective we are seeing this game through. Many people find this game to be absolutely terrible, but those judging this game on that basis are viewing in the execution of the game itself. Despite the poor programming of this game, this game is rather sophisticated in concept. Even a parallel of this game can be drawn to modern European art. Both mediums had rather poor (or at least atypical) portrayals, but it was never really about the execution, but about the concept behind the piece. Today, modern European art such as Dadaism, Cubism, or Surrealism are seen as masterpieces, perhaps Hong Kong ‘97 would be seen as video game classic in the years to come, but I doubt it, the internet is far too cynical.
*Deng Xiaoping was the leader of the People’s Republic of China credited for modernizing China.
**PRC is the acronym for People’s Republic of China
