hardboiled

ni hao, biculturalism!

by cecilia tran

With the sweeping popularity of the charismatic Dora the Explorer, it became unmistakably clear that the days of Barney and his minority quota casts were over. Rather than just having characters of several ethnicities appear on children’s shows, there was finally a show that focused on culture and bilingualism. The interactive show that had children everywhere shouting in Spanish at their television sets has now given way to another revolutionary bilingual show.

As an experiment built upon the success of Dora the Explorer, the new Nick Jr. series Ni Hao, Kai-lan! hopes to continue the phenomenon of preschoolers shouting at inanimate objects while simultaneously learning. The new edge being that this time, the gleeful shouts will be in Mandarin.

The wholesome content of Ni Hao, Kai-lan! aims to help preschool children develop important interpersonal skills while also learning to appreciate Chinese culture. The title translates into English as “Hello, Kai-lan!” and of course revolves around the charming cartoon character, Kai-lan. Kai-lan Chow is a bubbly Chinese American five-year-old with a crew of equally exuberant animal friends and a wise grandfather whom she endearingly calls YeYe.

Kai-Lan is the quintessence of cuteness with her large brown eyes and pinned up buns, a cross between Sanrio and Sailor Moon animations. Her smooth, unaccented English and girlish giggle has the very ethnically-neutral quality of her predecessor Dora. Clearly the emphasis has been on developing a character that is distinguishably Asian yet very much American. Even more refreshing is that her grandfather, YeYe is also far from being the stereotypical Chinese cartoon.

Toonzone’s cartoon critic Ed Liu remarks that YeYe is “refreshingly free of a thick Chinese accent and whose dialogue neatly dodges the usual fortune cookie maxims and faux-Chinese wisdom that infects even the best elder Asian characters on TV.”

Thus far, the show has succeeded in fair portrayals of Chinese Americans. Creator Karen Chao based the show on her upbringing as a Chinese American girl who had close ties with her immigrant grandfather. In regards to her show, Chao claims, “It’s really 100 percent American and 100 percent Chinese. What we really don’t want it to be is this isolation of one culture.” This perfect balance between Chinese and American ideology is great in theory, but can it actually work?

The show does it’s best to portray the vague concept of Chinese American values. Chinese language and Chinese practices such as tai-chi are incorporated into typical themes such as developing patience and being a supportive friend. According to the show’s mission statement, “Ni Hao, Kai-lan! reinforces the idea that being bicultural and bilingual is being American.” The term “bicultural” is meant to encapsulate the core ideology and values of American and Chinese society.

The show is said to champion ideals such as taking “the perspective of others to maintain harmony in relationships with other people.” The show heavily focuses on child psychology and teaching ways in which children can handle their emotions and conflicts in calm and rational manners. The grandfather character, YeYe, also provides a unique intergenerational aspect to the show that demonstrates the importance that Asian culture places on respecting elders.

In essence, the show is like any other children’s show with the usual lessons of playing well with others, team work and patience. Then why the sudden infusion of Chinese culture? Although it would be ideal to believe that this fascination the media has developed with bilingualism is mainly motivated by a desire to spread cultural awareness, at the end of the day, television is still a marketing institution that wants to appeal to the largest audience possible.

Ted Anthony of the Tribune News attributes the creation of the show to the fact that there are currently 3.6 million Chinese Americans since the 2006 U.S. census not including Chinese citizens living in America. In the same manner, it would be safe to say that Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go and Dragon Tales would have probably never have come into existence had it not been for the large Latino population in America.

This does not mean that the shows are not beneficial to young viewers. In fact, they are valuable tools in developing racial tolerance and cultural appreciation through non-stereotypical representations. Even more importantly, shows like Ni Hao, Kai-Lan! not only demonstrate culture of another country but also what it means to retain a different culture while simultaneously being American. There have been other popular shows about Asian culture before. For instance, the PBS hit, Sagwa, is a well known creation based on Amy Tan’s children stories about imperial China.

Yet, Ni Hao, Kai-Lan! is a breakthrough show because it portrays Americans as being people with ethnic heritages. However, the creation of such culture-based shows should not be dependent on the size of the ethnic population in America. In a world of expanding technological advances, the global community has become smaller and more accessible. Because of this, it is crucial to teach children early on about the vast array of culture and not simply the ones with the largest population in the United States.

As seen from Kai-lan and Dora, shows have been able to represent a culture without the infringement of stereotypes. Liu enthusiastically says, “It’s also fascinating to see the subtle way that Kai-lan and YeYe’s designs make it clear that they are both Chinese without resorting to the usual caricatured features.” Why stop here? From this success, we can gain motivation to continue along this pathway of developing culturally savvy children’s media, extending the concept to many more ethnic groups. With an optimistic outlook, we can bring ourselves to say with the enthusiasm of preschoolers shouting along with Dora and Kai-lan, “Ni hao, biculturalism!”