Opinion / Li Xing
Perseverance essential in protecting environment
By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-06-01 06:08
Beijing Youth Daily, one of t
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Opinion / Raymond Zhou
Applaud or not, that is the question
By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-08-25 07:10
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make
a sound?
Here is another dumb philosophical question: If you give a show and
nobody applauds, is it a failure?
OK, I made the second one up. But it is a legitimate question.
If you've been to a few live performances in China, you'd think we have
the worst performers in the world. If you've been to many, then you'd
probably conclude we have the worst audiences.
You see, Chinese people who go to live entertainment rarely applaud, and
the reason is much more complicated than you might imagine.
First of all, we live in an age of cynicism. Whatever stunt you pull off,
people are going to be blas about it. I've seen Chinese acrobatic shows
in both the US and China, and the audiences' reactions were as opposite
as day and night. As a matter of fact, most acrobatic presentations in
China nowadays are staged mainly for foreign tourists.
This mentality has made the job of impresarios, such as the producers of
CCTV's Lunar New Year Eve gala and Zhang Yimou of
"Olympic-Opening-Ceremony", more daunting than ever. How can you pique
the interest of this been-there-seen-that crowd? This result is bigger,
splashier production values and a cast of thousands.
In some places, a one-night-only act may cost more than 10 million yuan
and is financed by the local government, who often pushes the cost down
to local enterprises and even individuals. This is worse than regular
white elephants like giant statues and plazas because the public doesn't
even get to stroll around it every day.
A more latent culprit is the death of spontaneity. Many shows, especially
those made for television, employ special "warm-up" guys who orchestrate
the audience in totally contrived clapping and cheering of thunderous
volume. The outpouring of exaggerated joy has served as an effective
destroyer of the natural chemistry between performers and watchers.
If you've been through a few of these well-rehearsed applause fests,
you'd probably feel it's a mechanical thing one does only when coerced.
That is not to say we Chinese people clap our hands only ceremoniously.
When you match the right show with the right audience, you'll get the
variegated sounds that can be used to gauge the real reaction. But if you
put a rock music lover into an opera house, you'd be lucky if he doesn't
doze off.
You may ask: Why would a rock fab go to a classic opera in the first
place? It's a long story. When China first opened up, entertainment was
for everyone. People gobbled it up with no need of cultivating any
discriminating taste. Just take a look at a television show from the
early 1980s, and see the hearty laughs and cheers.
Then the market started to segment into niches. But it hasn't been backed
up with sufficient information.
There are people who attend a show mainly to flaunt their status or
wealth. You'll see executive types in pop concerts fidgeting amid people
one generation younger, or official types sitting through celebratory
routines that they wouldn't go on their own even if you pay them a
thousand bucks.
I once saw a grand function with an endless parade of celebrity
entertainers. The applause was so sparse you'd think the audience had
been drugged. Even the appearance of superstar Andy Lau triggered only a
smattering of clapping. Now, if you fill the auditorium with 5,000 Yang
Lijuan types (remember the lady who drove her father to sell their house
and then to suicide in order to finance her lunatic pursuit of Lau?),
you'd bring the house down.
Email: raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 08/25/2007 page4)
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he capital's major mass-circulation papers,
reported on Tuesday that leading hotels in Beijing have resumed supplying
disposable articles such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, combs and
slippers.
This means that they have turned their back on the pledge made at last
year's launch of the "Green Hotel Campaign."
And it's the second time that such a "campaign" has ended in failure,
said the paper's report, pointing to a similar case in 2000.
As far as these failures are concerned, some hotels blamed the demands of
their guests, while higher operating costs were to blame in other cases.
This may be true, but it also shows these hotels have not worked hard
enough to fulfil their promise.
Going "green" is not a public relations tactic to lure customers, nor
should it be a short-cut to reduce management costs.
It should not have been restricted to a "campaign," an operation or
series of operations that only have a short-term goal.
Going "green" should be more than this. It should become a way of life.
Hotels have a duty to take the lead.
In the past, the hotel business was considered a non-polluting industry.
But in actual fact, the building of hotels and their operation in the
country's booming tourism trade has already caused great concern by
damaging the environment of many scenic areas.
Meanwhile, hotels have turned out to be major energy and water consumers
and equally major generators of waste.
Beijing's star-rated hotels, of which there are more than 600, guzzle 80
per cent of the total electricity consumed by the hotel sector in the
Chinese capital. Meanwhile, these hotels generate 4,000 tons of waste
from disposable items and account for 10 per cent of the city's total
water consumption.
As the number of tourists increases every year, their energy and water
consumption as well as garbage production will continue to soar.
Hotels have an opportunity to contribute significantly to saving power
and water and reducing waste generation when they adopt environmentally
friendly practices.
In fact, Beijing has assured the world that the 2008 Olympics will be
"green." To this end, it has already announced specific guidelines for
hoteliers to improve their infrastructure and installations.
By late April, 109 of Beijing's hotels had already signed "green"
agreements with the Beijing Olympics' organizing committee.
Meanwhile, the China National Tourism Administration on March 23 issued
the national standard for hotels that hope to call themselves "green,"
requiring them to promote recycling and reducing power and water
consumption.
It will take time for all the people tourists included to embrace this
ideal and change their way of life accordingly.
But hotels should not sit back and do nothing. And it is even worse when
they abandon what they set off to do.
They have many ways to help their customers join the effort to go green.
For instance, they can place promotional leaflets in hotel rooms, helping
their customers understand why they should use disposable items as
sparingly as possible.
They should have persevered with the campaign and only distributed
disposable items whenever customers specifically requested them.
Meanwhile, the media should not simply report the failure of hotels to
keep their "green" promises as the fault of hoteliers and their customers.
They should call on the public especially every traveller to adopt a
green way of travel, to help protect the earth upon which our livelihood
depends.
Email: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 06/01/2006 page4)
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