SHARING: Chinese and African singers find the same note

Here's a new way to get African television watchers to stop changing the channel: show Chinese actors speaking Swahili. The popular Chinese soap opera A Beautiful Daughter-in-Law Era, which has been dubbed for African telecast, may achieve just that.

"This is the first time in history a [Chinese] TV series will be dubbed and broadcast in Africa. We're looking forward to it," says Yu Peng of Era's inclusion in the programming for Chinese Culture in Focus 2011. Yu is the deputy director general of the Bureau for External Cultural Relations at the Ministry of Culture (MOC). This year's showcase features nearly 130 exchange programs.

Unlike the first Chinese Culture in Focus held two years ago, 2011's iteration has many high-ranking officials both Chinese and African participating in activities.

On May 20, Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the 11th National People's Congress (NPC), attended Chinese martial arts performances during his official visit to Namibia. In April, Li Changchun, Member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony for Exhibition of China in African Painters' Eyes in Nairobi, Kenya. And Chen Zhili, NPC Standing Committee Vice Chairwoman, celebrated the newly completed Senegal National Grand Theater alongside Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade and Mali's President Amadou Toumani Touré. Live performances by the China Disabled People's Performing Arts Troupe and Senegalese and Malian arts troupes completed the springtime ceremony.

But A Beautiful Daughter-in-Law Era is expected to be the biggest highlight of Chinese Culture in Focus 2011.

"[It] shows ordinary people's lives today," Yu says of the television show. "We dubbed it into Swahili because it's the most widely used African language, the language of ordinary people." The show follows a contemporary Chinese family, set against the backdrop of China's economic boom and shifting social structures. Blind dates for the young, remarriage in middle and old age, and in-law dynamics are the meat of the often-humorous show.

While the Tanzania Broadcasting Corp. was involved with Era's Swahili dubbing and distribution, Chinese Culture in Focus events are typically organized by Chinese government agencies, including MOC and African-based Chinese embassies. MOC and first-time participant the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), jointly covered travel expenses for the China Disabled People's Performing Arts Troupe.

Chinese Culture in Focus came into being at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2009. The conference's Sharm el-Sheikh Action Plan (2010-12) proposed that Culture in Focus events should be held alternately in Africa and China on an annual basis. That year, the first of these ran in Africa. This year marks China's second venture at organizing the showcase on the continent.

Yu sums up its function, "Just like we need to learn more about contemporary Africa, Africans are also willing to learn more about contemporary China."