The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 798 The Influence of the Asian Media Empire!!!

Lin Zhiyuan noticed a yellowed ledger in the corner of the silversmith's counter. The title page was inscribed with the four characters "Harmony brings wealth" in calligraphy, and the date was 1949.

Following his gaze, Wu Dafang explained, "These time-honored brands all emphasize 'three generations of tradition.' Look at that herbal medicine shop across the street..."

Following the direction of his finger, one could see the old shopkeeper in a Tang suit weighing angelica root with a steelyard under the gold-lacquered signboard of "Renjitang". Behind him, the medicine cabinets were covered with labels in traditional Chinese characters.

A pharmacy clerk at the counter was dispensing medicine with a prescription written in Chinese, while a Malay youth wearing a white hat was asking about the effects of the herbs.

"The Chinese who went to Southeast Asia back then brought their ancestors' things with them, which also influenced other races..." Wu Dafang said, leading him into a side road. Suddenly, a huge mural appeared on the mottled arcade wall: children of various races released sky lanterns together under Zheng He's treasure ship passing through Batikbu.

The sound of gongs and drums came from deep within the alley; it turned out to be a group of teenagers practicing high-pole lion dance.

The most eye-catching thing was that there were two Malay teenagers in the team, wearing red waistbands, learning horse stance from a Chinese coach.

“Our Chinese culture is profound and extensive, while Malays have no cultural heritage. Hehehe, of course we are deeply influenced…” Wu Dafang laughed. “Last year, during the National Day parade, the Malay lion dance team from Selangor even won the gold medal.”

Just then, a satay vendor pushed his cart past, with halal chicken and Hong Kong-style char siu skewered side by side on a charcoal grill.

It has to be said that Malaysia is a truly diverse place, with scenery as beautiful as a painting and a rich blend of cultures.

Because of its long history of colonization, people from outside flocked in, resulting in a harmonious blending of Eastern and Western cultures.

Kuala Lumpur is not only the "heart" of Malaysia, but also its largest city. It is among the world's top tourist cities, a "treasure" of Southeast Asia, and practically a "world museum".

Kuala Lumpur is home to three major ethnic groups: Malays, Malaysian Chinese, and Malaysian Indians.

Kuala Lumpur has a total population of about 1.8 million, and Chinese people make up more than 30% of that.

Therefore, whether it's the Chinese people or Chinese culture, their status in Kuala Lumpur is truly "pivotal," and no one can "look down on" them.

Petaling Street is located in the southern part of Kuala Lumpur's old town.

This place isn't very big in terms of area, but it's incredibly crowded, especially at night or on holidays. The crowds are so dense that it's practically shoulder to shoulder. You can imagine how crowded it is.

It is the most "Eastern" part of Kuala Lumpur's multicultural landscape. Here, the strong sense of life in the city of "Eastern University" is simply "rushing towards you". You can "get a glimpse" of all aspects of Eastern University culture here.

Every time Chinese New Year or other festivals come around, this place becomes incredibly lively, the most festive spot in the entire city, with a deafening cacophony of drums and gongs.

As Lin Zhiyuan and his group walked into this old street, they could see a Chinese-style archway from afar. The three golden characters "Petaling Street" on the archway were so dazzling that they were almost blinding.

Because this is a place in Kuala Lumpur where the Chinese community is concentrated, most of the shops on the street are run by Chinese people. Hotels, restaurants, Chinese medicine shops, Chinese bookstores, teahouses, and so on—you name it, they have it.

And the red lanterns hanging high, the shouts of street vendors, the Chinese character signs everywhere... everything exudes the vibrant and lively atmosphere of life in the city of Dongda.

Lin Zhiyuan felt as if he had stepped into a large wholesale market in China. Everything was familiar, and he even had the illusion that he was in China. The scene was exactly the same as going to a market on an old street in China.

The goods here may not be as "high-end" as those in shopping malls, and the streets are full of "counterfeit" and "cheap" goods, but the wide variety of products, the fair prices, and the various kinds of Chinese food are truly "attracting bees and butterflies," drawing tourists in just by "smelling the aroma."

When the sun is shining brightly, a cup of monk fruit, longan, rock sugar, and winter melon stew is incredibly refreshing and thirst-quenching.
Or have a bowl of hot Yiqin brown sugar tofu pudding, paired with a bowl of refreshing and sweet soy milk. I guarantee that after drinking it, you will feel refreshed and the summer heat will be swept away.

As evening fell, the place became even more lively, almost like a festival, incredibly bustling!
Both sides of the street were crowded with all kinds of stalls, selling clothes, snacks, jewelry, handicrafts and everything else. It was dazzling to look at, and you wished you had three heads and six arms to see everything.

The place is packed with people having late-night snacks. Stuffed tofu, sweet rice balls, pork offal porridge, braised duck, beef brisket noodles, charcoal-fried Hokkien noodles, claypot chicken rice, and rat noodles... one delicious dish after another is laid out before you, making your mouth water. It's just like when we eat barbecue or stroll through a street food stall. The outdoor tables are full of people, and everyone is rolling up their sleeves and enjoying their meal. You can really feel the street food culture of Malaysia from that scene. It feels so down-to-earth.

Lin Zhiyuan believes that after RT-Mart supermarket group sets up its headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, it can open another branch near Chinatown, where the high foot traffic and consumption level will ensure a "huge profit".

In addition, Chinatown is surrounded by a full range of entertainment facilities, including a large cinema that attracts countless young men and women; this is the famous "Asia Pacific Film City".

Asia Pacific Film City is a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Asia Pacific Film Group, which operates cinemas throughout East and Southeast Asia.

Lin Zhiyuan was gazing intently at the street scene when he was suddenly drawn to a familiar Cantonese dialogue.

Turning around, you can see that the giant LED screen of the "Asia Pacific Film City" is playing trailers for the latest Hong Kong police and gangster movies.

A long queue formed outside the cinema, with young people from various ethnic groups holding cups of bubble tea, chatting and laughing as they waited to enter.

“This cinema is no ordinary place,” Wu Dafang said, pointing to old photos in the display window. “It was originally one of the Chinese cinemas invested in by the Shaw Brothers decades ago…”

"Later, in the mid-1980s, Shaw Brothers' cinemas were acquired by Hong Kong's film and television giant, Asia Pacific Film Group."

"After changing its name to 'Asia Pacific Film City Group,' it began to expand rapidly, with cinemas in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the entire Southeast Asia region, boasting 20,000 screens, making it the undisputed cinema tycoon."

Lin Zhiyuan's gaze was drawn to the yellowed old photos in the cinema's display window.

In the photo, a female ticket seller in a cheongsam is smiling as she hands out movie tickets, with a Cantonese opera movie poster that was popular in Southeast Asia in the 1960s in the background.

“Back then, a ticket only cost 50 cents,” Wu Dafang said, stroking the glass display window. “My father always said that when Shaw Brothers Cinema showed ‘The Butterfly Lovers,’ almost the entire Chinese community in Kuala Lumpur turned out.”

On the graffiti art area on the side wall of the cinema, several street artists are creating new works that blend Chinese ink painting and Malay batik styles.

An Indian boy with dreadlocks is sketching the outline of Zheng He's treasure ship on rice paper with a brush, while a Malay girl wearing a headscarf is adding golden star and moon patterns to the painting next to him.

"Want to go see a movie?" Wu Dafang pointed to the electronic display screen. "They're showing 'SPL: Sha Po Lang' today. I heard it stars Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, and Simon Yam. It's awesome..."

"Really? Shall we go take a look?" Lin Zhiyuan's eyes lit up at the suggestion. He was also a seasoned movie buff, and his favorite movies were Hong Kong films, especially crime films.

Lin Zhiyuan and Wu Dafang followed the crowd toward the cinema, the sweet aroma of popcorn wafting through the air.

Exciting clips from "SPL: Sha Po Lang" were playing on a loop above the ticket counter, with Donnie Yen's powerful legwork eliciting gasps of amazement from the queue. "Would you two like a popcorn combo?" the ticket seller enthusiastically recommended. "Today we're giving away a limited-edition movie poster!" Wu Dafang was about to reach for her wallet when Lin Zhiyuan suddenly grabbed her arm: "Wait, look over there."

In a corner of the cinema lobby, several young people were gathered around an old-fashioned film projector in front of a display case.

A cinema attendant in a retro shirt is explaining to tourists: "This is a 35mm projector left over from the Shaw Brothers Cinema. We use it to screen classic old films every week, giving you a taste of the 1950s and 60s..." The clicking sound of the projector turning seems to pull time back to the 1960s.

Most of the moviegoers were young people, but there were also middle-aged people in their forties and fifties who grew up during the most glorious era of Shaw Brothers cinemas.

Therefore, Shaw Brothers had a great influence in Southeast Asia, which is why the Asia Pacific Film Group spent a huge sum of money to acquire it.

In the 1950s, the Shaw Brothers owned over a hundred cinemas and ten amusement parks in Southeast Asia and various towns in Malaysia, including Chung Hwa in Kuala Lumpur, Great World and New World in Lee Kappoa, Chik Lok Park in Malacca, Jubilee Garden in Ipoh, Coronation in Taiping, Great World in Klang, Great World in Tua Pek Kong, New World, and Great World in Alor Setar.

These amusement parks, equipped with cinemas and various entertainment facilities, were once among the most bustling entertainment venues in various cities, and popular places for people to relax and have fun.

Back then, Shaw Brothers and Cathay Organisation dominated the Southeast Asian film market, with Shaw Brothers being the largest player.

In fact, when Shaw Brothers first entered Southeast Asia to develop its film industry, in order to avoid competition from its peers, it used Singapore as its base and expanded its cinemas to Malaysia using mobile cinema.

At the time, Shaw Brothers hired several mobile projection trucks and personnel to set up tents in rural areas of Malaysia, where there were no cinemas, to conduct traveling open-air movie screenings for the people.

This strategy not only allowed Shaw Brothers to break through competition in Southeast Asia, but also successfully earned its first capital and laid a solid foundation for Shaw Brothers' future development in the Malayan film industry.

Thanks to their initial experience with mobile film screenings, Shaw Brothers was able to connect with audiences in the most direct and intimate way, allowing them to become familiar with the viewing psychology and interests of the general public.

Therefore, whether in its early film selections or later productions, Shaw Brothers chose films with simple, easy-to-understand, and highly entertaining themes, and infused them with a strong sense of atmosphere. This not only helped some overseas Chinese alleviate their homesickness, but also enabled the descendants of new immigrants to continue their cultural identity.

For a long time, Chinese-language films have not only occupied a place in Southeast Asia, but can be said to have a dominant position, and it can be said that the Shaw Brothers cinemas have made an indispensable contribution to this.

After being acquired by the Asia Pacific Film Group in the 1980s, it experienced a boom period, and now Chinese-language films can compete with Hollywood in East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Both Mandarin and Cantonese films are very popular in East and Southeast Asia.

Lin Zhiyuan stared at the old-fashioned projector, and he could almost hear the hissing sound of outdoor movie screenings from his childhood.

He turned to Wu Dafang and said, "When I was a child in the country, what I looked forward to most was the mobile film projection team coming to the village."

Back then, everyone in the village would bring their little stools and arrive early to reserve a spot.

Wu Dafang smiled knowingly: "That's right. We watched a movie called 'The One-Armed Swordsman' in the 1960s, and we even practiced swordsmanship for a few months afterward." He pointed to the yellowed old photos in the display case, "Look at this one, it's a scene from the open-air screening in Johor back then."

In the photo, hundreds of people are sitting around a white screen, with children in the front row, looking up at the screen intently.

Fireflies could be faintly seen fluttering in the beam of light projected by the projector.

Lin Zhiyuan noticed that in the corner of the photo, several Malay youths were also squeezed in the crowd, watching a Cantonese martial arts film with great interest.

Wu Dafang said that Chinese-language films have a considerable cultural influence in Southeast Asia, using images and a common language as tools to become a concrete cultural foundation for the Chinese imagined community.

Wang Gengwu divides the identity issues of "overseas Chinese" into three categories: the first generation strongly identifies themselves as "human beings" in terms of immigrant sentiment.

The second generation still identifies themselves as human beings, but at the same time, they are also influenced by the culture of their new place of life.

The third generation consists of Chinese immigrants who have lived in China for a long time and have gradually broken away from the culture of their country of origin, developing their own unique cultural identity.

"Cultural identity" is a derivative of "social identity." Chinese immigrants to Malaysia are constantly reorganizing and redefining their identity consciousness due to the continuous changes in their surrounding environment.

However, while the identity of first-generation and fourth-generation immigrants may differ and change, their cultural identity remains constant, demonstrating that the "Chinese culture" existing in Malaysian Chinese society is continuous.

Such cultural existence has also ensured the continuation and existence of the Chinese community who have migrated overseas.

The period from the 50s to the 70s was the time when the second and third generations of immigrant families before and after the War of Resistance against Japan were born. This generation of Chinese were born in Malaysia and did not have the same emotional attachment to their birthplace as their parents and grandparents.

Their impressions of China, as heard from their elders, are more like the imagination of a diaspora group that has migrated to other places about their place of origin.

However, the general environment in Malaysia has always been unfriendly to the minority Chinese ethnic group. Under such circumstances, three generations of Chinese in Malaysia, although born in Malaysia, are also defined by society as "others" who are not of our ethnicity.

Under such conditions, it is difficult for Chinese people to take root in the so-called Malay culture and develop a new ethnic identity after multicultural integration. Instead, they may return to the cradle of China's three thousand years of profound culture and develop and maintain the orthodox Chinese culture in Malaysia.

Under such circumstances, Chinese-language films became an important window for cultural transmission and interpretation. At that time, Chinese people explored and sketched out the so-called Chinese culture on the movie screen.

Gaining cultural identity in theaters, Chinese-language films can be said to have been an important source of national sentiment and culture for Chinese people at that time, in addition to family life and kinship. They were also an important driving force for the Chinese community in Malaysia to find a cultural root for their ethnic identity in the process of returning to their hometown.

Even setting aside cultural factors, the entertainment value of film in real life has made it an important social tool for Malaysian Chinese.

In the 1970s, most young Chinese Americans used going to the movies as a way to date, just as people in the South Island used betel nuts as a token of love.

In the social context of that time, if a woman was willing to accept a man's invitation to go to the theater together to watch a movie, it was tantamount to acknowledging that their relationship was developing further.

Compared to its dominance in the financial sector, the profits in the cultural industry are negligible.

However, the influence of the cultural industry cannot be achieved with money, which is the main reason why "Liu's Overseas Capital" spent huge sums of money to build Asia's number one film and television group.

Since the establishment of the "Asia Pacific Film and Television Group," it has been equivalent to controlling the mouthpiece of the media.

(End of this chapter)