CCTV Director’s Roots in Hangzhou

The Spring Festival is the most important traditional celebration in China. The CCTV celebration show at the eve of the Spring Festival is the biggest national television program in the country since 1982. Chen Linchun, a CCTV director with his family roots in Hangzhou, has been the director of the great variety show for seven times.

As the annual show has run for 26 consecutive years, the glitz and the glamour of the gala has waned a bit. With some people bored, the audience rating of the annual gala has dropped slightly and some provincial television networks have offered entertainment shows to compete with CCTV on the biggest night of year. However, the 2008 show created a CCTV record since the new century. Surveys showed that 80% of the audience rated the show satisfactory and that 96% of the people in the country watched the show.

Chen Linchun was one of the two directors who jointly produced the CCTV’s 2008 Spring Festival sensation. He worked with director Zhang Xiaohai and succeeded in putting the show back on the right track after sliding ratings over years. Chen ascribed the desired success to teamwork, though. Moreover, the year 2007 had a lot of big topics such as the success of the 17th national congress of the CPC, the success of the spaceship Shenzhou, and the snow disaster in southern provinces of China in early 2008 before the traditional Spring Festival and the oncoming 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. These topics, according to Chen, made the choreography of the show much easier.

However, Chen is very modest about the part he has played in the past seven shows and he doesn’t think he is ready to direct the 2009 gala. He comments, “You need to prepare yourself pretty well over a long period of time before you can say you are geared up to another gala show. As a man who has directed the show more than any other director, I have adequate knowledge of dos and don’ts. Radical approaches and repetitions do not work. Previous successes are by no means a guarantee for next successes. I need to sit back for two or three years and get myself prepared again before I can make a decision.”

Chen had this modesty in his middle school years in Hangzhou. Commenting on his habit of keeping a low profile, he says his modesty has nothing to do with Beijing, a city where he has stayed since 1983 when he successfully entered the Beijing Broadcast College, the predecessor of today’s Communication University of China. His modesty has everything to do with Hangzhou where he grew up and went to primary and middle school. He recently attended a reunion party with his former classmates in the middle school in Hangzhou and to his great surprise he found that most of his fellow students had not changed much in personality. “They more or less keep a very low profile and abhor publicity and grand statements. But many of them are really excellent people.”

What he acquired through his early school years has helped him work with other people to achieve goals. The honesty and down-to-earth spirit characteristic of people in Zhejiang can also be seen in Chen Linchun. He comments, “Don’t boast and say honestly what you expect to achieve. Everybody will be happy when the goal is achieved. We people from Zhejiang find it easy to work with others.”

Fond Memories of Hangzhou

The best memory Chen Linchun has of Hangzhou is about a group of pioneering young television journalists in the capital of the province in the early 1980s. As a media student of that time, he was first attracted by some bold programs produced by the Zhejiang Television such as News Apocalypse. The fast-paced News Apocalypse changed scenes rapidly by second, something never done before in China. The program was adopted as a case study at the college. Chen was very proud of the production because it came from his hometown. He made friends with many members of the crew that made the program and many of them are still close friends today.

Chen and his wife visit Hangzhou for a few days every year. He is highly concerned with the news of Hangzhou. Changes brought about by improvement projects around the West Lake surprise and delight Chen. Of all the cities he has visited, Hangzhou is most impressive in its preservation and development of the natural and artificial beauty around the West Lake. These new efforts not only maintain the original charms but also add new pizzazz. The couple enjoys driving along a lakeside wooded avenue on the west side of the lake.

Chen also feels sorry about the demolition of some age-old urban residential compounds in the urban development in recent decades. He sighs regretfully whenever he mentions the bygone old houses and alleys around Qingchun Road in the old urban area. In his opinion, if the city had maintained some old urban areas and chosen to build a new area across the Qiantang River, Hangzhou today will be the greatest city in the country.

Chen thinks people in Hangzhou should not be modest about its historical significance preserved in numerous stories, legends, sites, etc. In his opinion, once these sites are developed and restored, no one can take them away.

Although Chen Linchun now works at the CCTV, he comes back to Hangzhou to “revisit his roots and absorb the vital energy of the hometown”. “I come home to better understand who I am and do away with false self-images. I can see clear indications in myself and people around me that I need to stick to my true self and forget that I work for the national media.”Although Beijing offers great attractions in its cultural undertakings, Hangzhou is where Chen chooses for his retirement. “I want to retire to Hangzhou and enjoy my evening years in my hometown.”