Before discussing culture promotion, we should know what culture is, and why we need to promote it. First of all, according to Oxford Dictionary, cultures are the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group. From the definition, we notice it comes from a group of people or a country, and it is the core of life. Without culture, people will not realize where they come from or who they are. It is culture that makes human beings different from other species. Different cultures stand for different values, they differ among humans with different power and influence. Some have more power and influence, some have less to no of them.

The cultures among the aboriginal people in Australia and North America, at least, as I know, are few known. Why? When in 1788 the Britain ship first disembarked on the land of Australia, the indigenous people were still living in hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They certainly had cultures, but they were either not widey recognized, or the rest world deemed that they had been out of time.

Even worse than that, some cultures were unluckily stopped from passing on. Some disasters can vanish the culture in an instant. Those missing cultures, for instance, those in Atlantis just disappeared in a sudden for no reason. Others’ disappearance was due to the lack of inheritors, partly because they deemed it worthless, partly because there were better cultures emerging.

Some cultures became less powerful because of no exchange or interaction. China, when it came to Qing dynasty(1644-1912), had less interacted culture. There were nearly any culture exchange with other countries. The emperors closed the country gate, considering them as the universal leaders. They didn’t realise where America was, nor did they know where Britain was. As a result, Chinese cultures just inevitably withered.

From those examples, I found the reasons which lead to weak cultures:

1. They are either not widely recognized, or people outside of them deem them worthless.

2. There are not many people inherit their cultures, or promote them year by year for a long time, which should be lasted for decades at least.

3. There is no exchange or interaction with other cultures

Let’s also check out why some cultures are so popular. As far as I know, America culture prevails in domestic and overseas as well as Japanese cartoons. Why?

1. they have universal values that are embraced by all. I have never met a person who doesn’t like watching movies, or reading comic books. On the contratry, nearly every kid watches animations or reading comic books in mordan world, and every adult watches films. That builds a demand or basis for the cultures’ prevalence.

2. They are widely spread. American films or Hollywood are wide spread, so is Japanese cartoons. They are not just popular in their home countries. That leaves one advantage, which makes it impossible to be instantly wiped out unless the whole world is destroyed by an asteroid.

3. They are exchanged and interacted, and are refined through exchange and interaction. Now that they have penetrated in many countries, exchange and interaction of cultures between those and the domestic cultures is irresistable, which makes them even more powerful.

Based on the knowledge above, how do we promote Chinese culture?

1. Now that it is the values that play key roles in a culture, we must find them in our own culture. On the other hand, an environment from which valuable culture derives, if not exist, can be created.

2. One thing that Chinese cultures were not wiped out is perhaps because the large population. They can spread inside the country, even though not landing overseas. However, that is not enough, cultures should be exchanged and interacted.

3. For not all cultures are beneficial, China must at first dump the unpleasant cultures, which means it must know its cultures’ advantages and disadvantages at the beginning so that only the good ones are got promoted, not the bad ones.

Being put in a furnace, all cultures over the world are ores, and exchange and interaction is the fuel. In turn better new shining ones are ultimately extracted. After having contributed their values, those old ones should go backstage, as what actors do after finishing their performance.

Reference:

1.https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E5%8A%A8%E6%BC%AB/8993244?fr=Aladdin

2.https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E7%BE%8E%E5%9B%BD%E7%94%B5%E5%BD%B1/73575

3.https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%BC%AB%E7%94%BB%E5%8F%B2/2626618?fr=Aladdin

4. https://wenku.baidu.com/view/05ff279987c24028905fc31b.html

5.https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E6%96%87%E8%89%BA%E5%A4%8D%E5%85%B4/93247?fr=Aladdin