This Spring Festival Gala in 2009 is very special. Friends, space heroes and Olympic athletes from the earthquake-stricken areas were invited to the scene, and even traditional folk singer Song Zu Ying and pop singer Jay Chou were arranged to sing together.
"I didn't expect the Spring Festival Evening to change so much." Like many ordinary people in China, Li Guangde and his family have watched the Spring Festival Gala in front of the TV every year for more than 20 years. Since the founding of CCTV Spring Festival Evening in the early 1980s, it has become a habit of China people to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new.
This Spring Festival Gala is constantly changing in the expectation and strict requirements of more than one billion people in China. From the initial small stage, dozens of actors, to today's high-tech special effects, live broadcast in three languages, and a strong lineup of 800 actors performing on the same stage-"it's like fighting a war with yourself." Yang Guang, a student at Xi Jiaotong University, said.
"The requirements of the audience and the development of the times are forcing it to progress. I seem to be able to see a war without smoke on the stage. " Yang Guang, 24, said.
Despite continuous improvement, the audience's response is still far from perfect. "It's really hard to adjust!" In the rehearsal process of previous Spring Festival Galas, it is not difficult to hear such feelings.
In recent years, more and more local TV stations began to hold high-quality Spring Festival Gala, and joined this "war without smoke".
"We hope that the Spring Festival Evening will be more diversified." Ma Hao, director of Hunan Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala this year, said. Ma Hao, born in 1970s, created a young and themed Spring Festival Evening featuring entertainment cards for Hunan Satellite TV-Happy Home. "We mainly want to express the meaning of' on the road'." She said.
"Blizzard, earthquake, Olympic Games ... too many things happened in 2008, which left us a lot of thoughts. We will make great strides with these thoughts in 2009."
In Ma Hao's eyes, she never thought of "challenging" CCTV Spring Festival Gala. "CCTV Spring Festival Gala has always been our role model, and we all hope to learn from it, both in terms of experience and scale." Ma Hao said.
The real "challenge" is a grassroots party founded by a common man named Lao Meng: "Spring Festival Gala in Shanzhai".
"We just want to make a Spring Festival Gala that is different from CCTV and let the people perform their own programs." Lao Meng set up a company in Beijing a few years ago, specializing in wedding photography and host training.
"Shanzhai Spring Festival Evening" earned enough attention in the preparatory stage. Lao Meng said that he would select the best programs from thousands of programs and present them to everyone. However, a few days before the party started, several online media announced their withdrawal from the live broadcast. At eight o'clock that night, only one TV station of Macao Aoya Satellite TV broadcasted the party live.
No matter from the human and financial resources, stage setting, star lineup or audience recognition, CCTV Spring Festival Evening and "Shanzhai Spring Festival Evening" are far from an order of magnitude. Although for various reasons, the "shanzhai Spring Festival Evening" has become a recording and broadcasting, the debut of the latter has made some viewers have more expectations.
A netizen from Futian, Shenzhen, said that it was originally planned to watch alternately on CCTV and Australian Satellite TV. Results From 8: 00 p.m. to early morning, it was estimated that 90.5% of the time was spent watching Aoyou, and 10% of the time was spent changing channels. Programs such as ventriloquism, Tibetan poetry, shadow play, reflexive calligraphy, and cottage driving skills are all refreshing.
Wang Xiaofeng, a reporter from Sanlian Life Weekly, thinks that perhaps the fake version of the Spring Festival Evening is simple and rough, the stage effect is not satisfactory, and the actors may be unprofessional, but they are free and full of folk flavor.
"I believe that folk wisdom will be more attractive than elite wisdom, and people's pursuit of happiness will be more exciting than elite's pursuit of education," he said.
According to Wang Zhongwu, a sociology professor at Shandong University, the diversity of the Spring Festival Gala can meet people's diverse needs, and the preferences of audiences with different cultural backgrounds can also be met accordingly.
He said that China is rich in performing arts talents, and if more TV stations hold the Spring Festival Gala, they can get a bigger performance stage. In addition, there are many choices for multiple Spring Festival Galas, and the resulting competition is objectively the driving force to make the program arrangement of Spring Festival Galas more refined and create better products.
No matter whether CCTV Spring Festival Evening is good or bad, it is still a must-see program for ordinary people every year, and some old elements and faces are the reasons why everyone watches it.
"Just like the Spring Festival Evening, there can be no shortage of oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, and of course there can be no shortage of Spring Festival Evening." The 73-year-old man said in vain.
"Especially Zhao Benshan's sketches, if he is missing, it seems that there is something missing every Spring Festival." She watched TV while wrapping jiaozi, and said slowly.
Zhao Benshan's program is my most unforgettable Spring Festival party in 2009. It's really wonderful and wonderful.