CCTV Spring Festival Gala
plum blossomBeginning 20:00 hours on the eve of the Lunar New Year (the Chinese people's biggest night of the year), China Central Television (CCTV), the leading television broadcaster in the country, presented a Spring Festival Gala to hundreds of millions of viewers around the world.
Since 1984, when CCTV hosted its first such evening party, it has been an annual event, which usually lasts some four hours to entertain Chinese families (like mine) who will stay late into the night for the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year, and has been a popular part of the grand celebrations.
However, it has become a tough job for the organizing party to prepare the program and they have to work harder still to attract the audiences. It is indeed difficult to cater for all tastes.
The theme of the 2005 CCTV Spring Festival Gala is "Golden Rooster, Harbinger of the Dawn". Being close to ordinary people's daily lives is supposed to be the most striking featur
e of the gala. To my disappointment, the performance as a whole was only mediocre, far from splendid.
As always, the most eagerly anticipated parts of the gala involve singing and dancing. I anticipated a singing cast with more popular figures, like Taiwan's all-girl group S.H.E. and Dao Lang to deliver an enthralling night. Though Hong Kong action movie star Jackie Chan and his son Jaycee Chan, together with new mother Na Ying and other veterans or new promising stars, were highly expected to add fresh blood to the program, which as suffered declining ratings over the past few years, I got the feeling that most, if not all, of the songs, composed especially for the gala, are not likely to become hits.
Instead, I was fascinated by the enchanting visual arts where high-tech plays a major role. Sometimes, my focus was not on centerpieces but background scenes!
Dances are excellent with a perfect combination of folk charm and modern dance elements. I regretted not to watch the Guanyin Dance that appealed to my wife immensely. When played, I was away for a karaoke to enjoy myself, as the previous items seemed rath
er boring to me. 
A successful sketch can make for an unforgettable evening show. But this time, a number of comedians, including Zhao Benshan and Pan Changjiang, failed to do just that, while an 11-year-old boy did take my breath away with a stunt called Plum Blossom piles.