Marketing Culture

Here's the story I wrote. It's called "Marketing Culture."

I haven't figured out how to compress videos and add them to my blog, but once I do, I will post the video as well. Anyone care to teach me how?

Here are some pictures. You can find more at my homepage: http://homepage.mac.com/michella.weng

Lead-in:
As Taiwan’s manufacturing industries are increasingly moving overseas, the government wants to make sure that other industries will be able to step up and take their place in the economy. In our feature story today, Formosa TV’s Michella Weng (翁) takes a look at what the government is doing for the tourism industry and culture at the same time.##

Opening stand-up:
The Keelung lantern floating festival is one of several cultural events that Taiwan's Council for Cultural Affairs has been helping to promote.

Taiwan's government has in recent years been pushing harder to upgrade its tourism industry to become a more integral part of the economy. A year ahead of schedule, 2004 was named the “Year of Taiwan Tourism.” And this year, the government is helping to market 21 different venues by packaging them into the 2005 Formosa Arts Festivals. Even Premier Frank Hsieh appears in the commercial and often makes apperances at venues as well.

Dr Chen Chi-nan, Chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs wants Taiwan to be a land with a showcase of traditional and also newly invented festivals in ten years, somewhat like Japan.

Soundbyte: Dr Chen Chi-nan, Chairman of Council for Cultural Affairs
Taiwan already passed the stage of agricultural economy, light industry development and also semiconductor industry and the next stage, we define it as a kind of cultural and creative industry.

But it's not just about selling Taiwan to tourists. According to Chen, it's also about creating an identity and local pride in an era where globalization is also forcing people to think about localization.

Soundbyte: Dr Chen Chi-nan, Chairman of Council for Cultural Affairs
The best way to cultivate local identity is through this kind of arts and festival activities. Culture is the basis of local identity.

Ten years ago, county governments didn't seem to be confident or interested in holding cultural and arts events. Now they see the significance and are playing a big role in cultivating the attraction of Taiwan's ethnicity and a sense of local identity and pride.

As regional governments become better at hosting and promoting festivals and their culture, the national government can gradually scale back their support; and they have.

Ending stand-up:
The quality and consistency of their work has been much better, so they've been able to ease off the funding and reallocate it to other uses. This is Michella Weng for Formosa TV, reporting in Keelung.