By Loretta Chao
China’s efforts to put its best face forward have ranged from a large advertisement in New York’s Times Square to a documentary channel by state broadcaster China Central Television featuring films about historical Chinese sites.
But Jonathan So, senior adviser at Imagi, the studio that owns the rights to “Pleasant Goat and the Big Big Wolf,” a popular Chinese animated television series that is now being distributed by Disney in 52 markets around the Asia Pacific region, said that showing red flags and images of the Great Wall may not the best way to win audiences over.
Mr. So –- whose cartoon about a family of goats and their adventures escaping from a wolf is now showing in places such as Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines and India with voiceovers in many different languages and dialects –- said as many as half of the fans of “Pleasant Goat” may not even know the cartoon originated in China. But for those who do, animation shows there “really are not too many boundaries” between cultures, he said.
“You really don’t have to put a Chinese story, or to have the Great Wall in the scenery, or to wear something red,” said Mr. So, who started out as a toy manufacturer. “Pleasant Goat,” created in 2005, has a “sense of humor,” he said. “We put a lot of family elements in there, representing the Chinese family and how the kids are thinking, how they live their lives.”
Continue reading on China Real Time.