Abstract :
Several studies have looked at “Africa” in the Western imagery,
and explored how it is constructed for Americans through popular
media. This article offers a preliminary query into whether Chinese popular
media functions in a similar way by examining a 2004 Hong Kong-produced
soap opera that uses a medical humanitarian mission in Kenya to advance
its plot and central themes. While many tropes regarding Africa found in
Western media are repeated, there is a conscious effort in this production
to embody a more enlightened approach. Nevertheless, the core relationship
is marked by humanitarianism, and necessarily one embodying unequal
power relations. The soap opera thus avoids critical questions of development,
globalization or even post-colonial solidarity, and instead rests more
on older, safer paradigms of modernization. Still, an analysis of the
drama reveals contradictions and unresolved tensions in which the relationship
with Africa parallels Hong Kong’s relationship with mainland China.
This study posits that popular culture can offer unique insights into understanding
dynamics affecting the evolving relationship between China and
Africa.
