Thai Film Freedom & Chinese Cultural Clarification
China's Ministry of Culture has recently announced its new policy proposal regarding cultural production - that is to implement certification exams for some 30 professional categories of cultural workers. Please read the article and interview, Ministry of Culture explains the culture certification system, on Danwei. An excerpt from that article:
SW: What are current problems in the cultural sector?
Liu: There are all sorts of problems right now. In state-funded cultural work units, the employment structure is unfair: there is a high degree of randomness in recruitment, skill levels are dropping among some hires, and a few low-quality, poorly-skilled people have joined cultural organizations and arts troupes. Some employees of cultural organizations are not the greatest, programs are of poor quality, and may even involve sex. And in some commercial talent competitions, singers can't even read music, they just get a ragtag group together and go onstage. I think this isn't normal.As the professional certification system is rolled out, from now on jobs will require certification. There'll be survival of the fittest, which will standardize the disordered marketplace and standardize the abnormalities of selection and hiring.
It appears that the much aligned Social Darwinism of the past has followed through to its natural successor, Cultural Darwinism. And how does one go about standardizing abnormality? Well, to be officially certifiable! As you might guess, this proposal was met with some skepticism, and you can read about it in the post, Talent shows applaud the new professional exams; everyone else scoffs. Meanwhile Thailand goes through the growing pains of updating its post-coup cultural policy:
Thanks Som for the update! Sutthirat 'Som' Supaparinya is an artist based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She maintains her blog at: http://sutthirat.blogspot.com/
