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Ivan Zhai

After decades of following the motto 'to get rich is glorious', people in Guangdong  are starting to focus on culture.
The provincial government will host a public forum tomorrow  on how to turn Guangdong from the factory of the world into the centre of a Chinese renaissance. Last weekend, top leaders met to approve a guideline for promoting Cantonese culture and developing related industry.
While details have not been released, official media said the government had earmarked 25 billion yuan (HK$28.6 billion) for new cultural projects in the next five years.
By 2020, the guideline says, Guangdong's culture industry should become one of the pillars of its economy. And it should also actively seek cultural co-operation with Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Ironically, the push comes at a time when Cantonese culture and language are at a low ebb. A move to switch programming on the main channels of a television station in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, from Cantonese to Putonghua has sparked heated debate and spontaneous protests in recent weeks.
Grass-roots groups plan to express their support for the Cantonese dialect at public gatherings tomorrow. With the authorities extremely paranoid about rallies of any kind, it serves as a powerful indicator of the pervading mood in the province.
'Guangdong must change. The old ideas [of development] are limiting our growth,' said Wen Xianyuan , a researcher at the province's Academy of Social Sciences. 'For far too long our people have been too pragmatic and have only wanted to make fast, easy money.
'This [pragmatic approach] has contributed to the Pearl River Delta's rapid growth in the past three decades. But for Guangdong to move to the next stage, we need to foster vibrant and powerful local culture.'
Wen's view is shared by many in Guangdong. For three decades, Guangdong people have been known nationally as China's 'money animals' - street-smart, competitive, extremely adaptive and indifferent to politics or ideological debates.
Guangdong is proud of itself as a land of opportunities. It was the first province to throw open its doors to foreign investors, and its proximity to Hong Kong meant that for a long time it served as China's bridgehead to the outside world. The vibrant and daring spirit of the 1980s and 1990s drove Guangdong to the forefront of the nation's economic miracle. 
The per capita gross domestic product in Guangzhou topped US$10,000 last year but its finest moment economically seems to have come just as it started to lose its edge.
The Pearl River Delta's growth model has been overtaken by the larger and more 'cultured' Yangtze River Delta and is being challenged by other emerging regions such as Tianjin  and Fujian .
Its manufacturing industry is at a crossroads. Rising land and labour costs, curbs on pollution and the loss of preferential policies have driven many factories to inland provinces.
Culturally, its influence has also been waning on the mainland. In the 1980s and 1990s, Guangdong served as the centre of China's popular culture. Movies, TV dramas and pop music from Hong Kong captured the hearts and minds of millions of young Chinese.
'But when people in inland provinces can watch movies from Hollywood and listen to the music of the whole world, Hong Kong- or Guangdong-style movies, TV programmes and songs are not catching on any more,' said Hua Ming , a senior editor at the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Television Station. 
Hua said Guangdong lacked the truly talented professionals needed to have a thriving 'creative' industry.
'We always have to travel to Beijing, the cultural centre, where you can easily find many screenwriters,' he said. 'There are plenty of art schools, investors and important first-hand information from regulators, without which you can't have a strong culture industry.'
At the same time, the large influx of migrants from other provinces has put local language and culture under pressure. 
The trend has worried local people and also alarmed the provincial government - which understands that without a strong and unique cultural identity, Guangdong may never be able to recapture its role as the vanguard of China's success story.
Feeding the mind
The amount, in yuan, official media say Guangdong is to spend on cultural projects in the next five years: 25b



Guangdong scrambles to regain place in sun with culture push