China’s slick new game show aims to get millennials studying Xi Jinping
Prime-time quiz programme on one of the country’s popular television channels features futuristic themes and sleek graphics to win hearts and minds
When young Chinese workers and students returned home on the eve of the week-long National Day holiday, an unlikely prime-time entertainment was waiting for them on one of their favourite television channels: a quiz show dedicated to the political doctrine of President Xi Jinping.
The show, titled Studying Xi in the New Era, is part of the ruling Communist Party’s latest – and sometimes clunky – effort to shape the minds of the country’s millennials, who have grown up with more influence from foreign pop culture than orthodox socialist teachings.
The five-episode show has, since Sunday, taken the evening prime-time slot on Hunan TV, the country’s second most watched channel, which is wildly popular among the younger generation for its entertainment shows and idol dramas.
Why Beijing isn’t Marxist enough for China’s radical millennials
In what could have been a scene out of a science-fiction animation, its first episode opened with a sleek spaceship named Studying Xi gliding past the moon and thrusting into outer space.
From its command room, a beaming host in futuristic-style dress welcomed a live audience of 100 applauding young 20-somethings, drawn from the country’s companies, universities, rural villages, urban communities, the government, the military and the online sphere.
“General Secretary Xi Jinping has called for the whole party to launch a great study campaign,” said the host, referring to Xi’s title at the helm of the party.
The show, she claimed, was the country’s first such quiz programme to promote the study of Xi Jinping Thought – and was aired just before the one-year anniversary of the party's 19th congress.