Talk of the town

Wang Zhenyu (left), deputy mayor of Linfen, Shanxi province, and Yue Puyu, Linfen’s Party chief, appear on The Impressive Scenery of Shanxi, a program made by Shanxi Television. [Photo Provided To China Daily]

Viewers flock to a TV program that shows local officials in an unexpectedly casual light, as Cao Yin reports.

Shelley Fan, who has lived in the United States for 20 years, was desperate to catch up with her favorite Chinese TV show, even though she had watched an episode online just a few days before. "A TV program has never made me miss my hometown so much," said the 39-year-old native of Datong, in the northern province of Shanxi.

The show that has captured her imagination is The Impressive Scenery of Shanxi, which has been broadcast every Friday since May 9. Although viewing figures are not available, the show is thought to attract millions of viewers on TV and via online catch-up services.

In the show, cities in the province bid to host a tourism-development conference by promoting their own tourism resources and projects.

What makes the program so different and compelling for the viewers is that for the first time local mayors and Party chiefs are seen standing on a stage delivering a business pitch - a far cry from their usual public pronouncements.

The officials have to explain why their city is a great place to visit, and their pitch is backed up by songs, dances and short dramatic sketches performed by other members of the delegation. The performances are judged by studio guests and scores are awarded by the 100-strong studio audience, a panel of experts and online voters.

The final, which will air on July 22, will be contested by three cities: Datong, Yuncheng and Linfen.

Fan has rarely watched Chinese TV since her arrival in Pittsburgh two decades ago, but having learned about The Impressive Scenery of Shanxi via Wechat, a popular instant-messaging platform, she decided to watch it.

"I was very surprised to see the Party chief of Datong, my hometown, on TV. I called my friends (outside the province) and urged them to vote online and also to visit Shanxi, which is something I rarely did before," she said.

An Xing, a vice-president at a telecommunication company in Shanxi owned by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, said he watched the show to see if it would help to drive local economic development.

"It's the first time I've seen officials perform on television, but as a resident of the province, I really hope the program will benefit local people," he said. "It differs from other shows involving 'celebrities' because it relates to my interests. It's not just an escape from my busy work schedule."

The show's director, Gong Qiaoli, who has long experience of making programs related to culture, said the participants shed the image of stereotypical officials, even though few of them have ever spoken publicly about issues unrelated to their work.

"Asking them to act naturally while delivering a pitch is not an easy job because they are accustomed to speaking about serious matters in the public arena," Gong said. "I could sense how nervous the mayors and Party secretaries were, but being on stage made them seem more approachable.

"Before going on stage, some of them asked me how they should behave and the expressions that would be suitable for their speeches, which has never happened in previous programs," she said.

The show has attracted the attention of people born in the 1990s and early 2000s, and a large number of them have praised it on Bilibili, a leading video-streaming site, saying it's an excellent way of publicizing developments in the tourism sector.

In addition to its public popularity, The Impressive Scenery of Shanxi has also been noted by the provincial leadership. Wang Yixin, Shanxi's vice-governor, has said that every city should use the program as an opportunity to develop local tourism, and on June 9 he volunteered to work at the provincial museum to do exactly that.

Tao Yixiao, the station director of Shanxi Television, said Wang made a major contribution to the program by insisting that the votes of the studio audience and online viewers should be given more weight, and when some of the cities began to get cold feet about taking part, he urged them to continue.

"We don't deny the show gets a lot of attention because of the officials' participation, but really, they are just members of each city's delegation. We just want to reignite people's affection for their hometowns and encourage them to join us to develop tourism," she said.

Although it's the first time Communist Party officials have competed in this type of program, it's not entirely without precedent because they are appearing on TV shows with increasing regularity.

In March, top officials from four counties in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region appeared on Questioning Officials on TV broadcast by Nanning TV in the regional capital, where they answered audience members' questions on a wide range of local issues.

Those deemed to have performed poorly or evaded questions were presented with fly swatters - a reference to President Xi Jinping's now-famous statement that corrupt officials would be punished irrespective of whether they were "tigers" (high-ranking) or "flies" (lower-ranked).

Many audience members felt that some grassroots officials in the four areas had either overstepped their authority or were suspected of corrupt practices, and the fly swatters were a public plea for them to mend their ways and atone for their mistakes, according to Zhou Jun, the program's producer, who noted that last year the show helped to resolve 89 administrative disputes in 39 local government departments.

Zhang Jifu, Party chief of Datong city in Shanxi, speaks with performers and audience members during the recording of The Impressive Scenery of Shanxi. [Photo Provided To China Daily]

A scene from the program.[Photo Provided To China Daily]