Common cultural ethos key to Chinese identity

If you switch on the mobile phone of a youngster from Macao, you can see it contains similar, if not the same, apps (or their international versions) that their counterparts on the Chinese mainland use. In August, when I took a group of teenagers from the Macao Special Administrative Region on a "tour" of gaming giant Tencent's office, I found many of them had already downloaded King of Glory－one of the most popular mobile games of Tencent－on their phones.

Enthusiastically, the teenagers invited me to team up for a game, saying they had accounts for both the international and domestic versions. Apart from playing the most common online games, some Macao youngsters also watch mainland TV series on domestic video-streaming websites and, like their mainland counterparts, follow mainland stars.

By contrast, most youngsters in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region prefer to download Western apps on their cell phones, and neither play mainland online games nor follow mainland celebrities. Actually, very few Hong Kong teenagers know much about mainland celebrities.

This gives an idea why youths in Macao and Hong Kong think differently about the motherland even two decades after the two regions returned to China under the "one country, two systems" framework. Also, Hong Kong and Macao introduced national education in their school syllabus roughly at the same time－2008. Yet on the 20th anniversary of Macao's return to the motherland, the results of the program in the two SARs could not be more different.

The success of national education in Macao is not just about school textbooks, it is also about collective cultural experience in all sectors of society including the entertainment industry. Which means cultural experience plays as important a role as education in building a bond between youths in the SARs and on the mainland. It is impossible to have cultural and identity resonance if people from the SARs and the motherland don't read the same books, don't see the same movies or don't play the same games.

Unlike the past, the mainland has become a leader in many fields of technology－for example, it is a global leader in 5G technology, and leads Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in digital technology. Given its leading position in certain technology fields, the mainland should make greater efforts to produce more cultural products that would give the same cultural experience to compatriots on the mainland and in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

According to the current copyright rules, mainland products such as videos, music and games are unavailable in the two SARs and Taiwan. In fact, some Macao residents have sought my help to watch My People, My Country, a patriotic movie released on the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

Popular culture can serve as a communication bridge connecting Hong Kong and Macao with the motherland. So in line with "one country, two systems", the authorities should reform the copyright rules to enable people in the two SARs enjoy the fruits of the mainland's achievements in the digital and cultural industries, which in turn will help build a common cultural landscape.

Moreover, civil society groups can also play a role in promoting cultural exchanges in accordance with "Macao people governing Macao" under the "one country, two systems" framework.

In this regard, the National Conditions Education Association (Macao), founded in 2009, has been doing a good job by organizing knowledge contests about the country once a year for students from primary schools to colleges, and rewarding the winners with tours to the mainland so the youngsters can better understand the motherland's history and geography through firsthand experience, and by traveling through the country and tasting different mainland cuisines.

As such, on the 20th anniversary of its reunification with the motherland, Macao can say it has made many achievements by implementing the national education program.

Sun Jiashan is a researcher at the Chinese National Academy of Arts. The article is an excerpt from his interview with China Daily's Yao Yuxin. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.