【Cultural Review】
Under the new era pattern of deepening exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and building a community with a shared future for mankind, enhancing the dissemination and influence of Chinese civilization is an important issue for establishing Chinese style and style in the world pattern. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out that it is necessary to adhere to the position of Chinese culture, refine and display the spiritual symbols and cultural essence of Chinese civilization, accelerate the construction of Chinese discourse and Chinese narrative system, tell Chinese stories well, spread Chinese voices, and show a credible, lovely and respectable image of China.
Cultural symbols are an important carrier of the spiritual symbol of Chinese civilization, especially traditional cultural symbols condense the rich Chinese spirit and Chinese values, and are widely praised and recognized around the world, and their profound historical and cultural connotations themselves are high-quality materials for telling Chinese stories well. For a long time, we have mainly paid attention to the external dissemination of traditional cultural symbols such as martial arts, traditional Chinese medicine, porcelain, and food, and most of the traditional Chinese cultural symbols with high popularity and influence in the world are Chinese traditional cultural symbols, while contemporary Chinese cultural symbols are rarely mentioned or paid attention to. This imbalance in the cognition of cultural symbols will inevitably lead to bias in the construction of national images. The construction and dissemination of national image is malleable, which requires not only the profound historical connotation of traditional cultural symbols as the foundation, but also needs to keep pace with the times in the international communication pattern and constantly update and expand the national cultural symbol system. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's socialist construction has made great achievements, and it is all the more necessary to tell the story of China's modernization with contemporary cultural symbols that match it. To show a comprehensive and three-dimensional China to the world, it is necessary to have a collaborative narrative of "resonance at the same frequency" between traditional cultural symbols and contemporary cultural symbols.
Starting from practical problems, we need to take a head-on look at the shortcomings of contemporary cultural symbols in telling Chinese stories well, so that it is possible to seek answers to the problems. The first problem is that contemporary Chinese cultural symbols have not yet constructed a clear narrative framework. In layman's terms, in the past, we mainly relied on traditional cultural symbols to spread the national image, vigorously developed economic construction in the process of modernization, ignored cultural innovation, and did not build a corresponding cultural symbol system. When we vigorously promote the capacity building of international communication and construct the Chinese discourse and narrative system, we find that the scattered, weak and even absent contemporary cultural symbols have led to the great dilemma of China's modern narrative. Therefore, it is very necessary to reflect on China's contemporary cultural symbols from the standpoint of "cultural consciousness", we need to understand which are the cultural symbols that can represent China's socialist modernization construction, what shortcomings they have in expressing the Chinese spirit, Chinese values and Chinese strength, and how to give Chinese contemporary cultural symbols richer story content and value ethics, making them an important starting point for telling Chinese stories well.
In addition to sorting out the existence of contemporary Chinese cultural symbols, it is also necessary to ask "what is the content of contemporary cultural symbols telling Chinese stories well". Chinese-style modernization has created achievements in the political, economic, and scientific and technological fields that have attracted the attention of the world, but the contemporary cultural symbols we have created in this process, such as high-speed rail, WeChat, the Spring Festival Gala, online novels, landmark buildings, etc., cannot tell wonderful stories, resulting in the dilemma of "reason cannot be said" and "what is said cannot be spread". This requires us to carefully comb through the contemporary historical context, digging into stories that may be obscured but valuable and resonate emotionally.
Contemporary cultural symbols tell Chinese stories well, and the appeal and expression of values are equally important. The aphasia phenomenon in the international dissemination of contemporary Chinese cultural symbols is very important because there is a deviation between the Chinese stories told and the issues and values that the contemporary world is concerned about. Common values are the premise of international cooperation, and when we tell the Chinese story to the international community, we hope to find the greatest common divisor of diverse civilizations through the values contained in the story, and reach a consensus on mutual understanding and values through stories, which is the only way to build a community with a shared future for mankind.
On the one hand, we can think about how contemporary cultural symbols can be integrated with cultural symbols of worldwide significance in the process of telling Chinese stories well, such as the program "Shining Snowflake" at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, "dove", "snowflake", "heart-shaped" and "olive branch" represent the common value appeal of all mankind for peace, fraternity, mutual assistance and cooperation, which can naturally arouse the emotional resonance of audiences around the world. In addition, the symbolic elements with unique Chinese traditional cultural connotations such as blue and white porcelain, Chinese knots, paper cutting, and Chinese red in the show are also eye-catching. This shows that the integration and commonality of values between traditional Chinese cultural symbols and contemporary cultural symbols can be achieved through specific forms of expression, and the cosmology, international view, social view and moral view contained in traditional Chinese cultural symbols provide a valuable source of thought for contemporary cultural symbols to tell Chinese stories well. As General Secretary Xi Jinping said, "Carry forward the cultural spirit that transcends time and space, transcends countries, is full of eternal charm and has contemporary value, and disseminates the achievements of contemporary Chinese cultural innovation that inherits traditional excellent culture and carries forward the spirit of the times, based on the country and facing the world." "Traditional cultural symbols and contemporary cultural symbols can sing the "double reed play" well, and Chinese stories can be told more excitingly.
(Author: Feng Yueji, Professor, Yangtze River School of Journalism and Communication, Shantou University)