The Central Chinese Television Tower – “Big Underpants” or “Hemorrhoids”?
The Central Chinese Television Tower – “Big Underpants” or “Hemorrhoids”?
Although this mostly relates to our discussion earlier in the semester about high modernism, the CCTV Tower in Beijing, China has come to mind on numerous occasions during our class presentations. It wasn’t until I did some searching online when I learned that the official name of the tower is Zhongyang dianshi tai zongbu dalou (Central Television Station General Headquarters). I had come to know the building as the da kucha’r, or “big underpants.”
The “Big Underpants” was completed in 2009 by architects Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren. I remember passing by the giant building on a bus while it was under construction in 2007, thinking that it was the strangest looking building I had ever seen. It was then when a friend riding with me on the bus told me, “Oh yeah, we call it the da kucha’r. I don’t know what the actual name of it is, though.”
As this TIME blog article points out, nicknaming is very common in Chinese society. Nearly everybody has at least one nickname, if not a few, given by family, friends, and colleagues. This is also the case for iconic structures such as the National Center for the Performing Arts, which looks like a giant egg and the Olympic Stadium that resembles a bird’s nest.
Of course, the people at CCTV are unhappy with their headquarters’ nickname and have been trying to promote alternative names. One possibility was the “Wisdom Window,” but that could easily turn into yet another humorous nickname of “hemorrhoids,” which are both pronounced zhichuang.
The author of this article, Austin Ramzy, makes an interesting connection to Confucius’s famous saying about the “rectification of names.” Basically, according to the Great Sage, we should call things what they really are. The Daoists, especially Zhuangzi, might argue that coming up with terminology to distinguish between countless different things only leads to confusion.
It never occurred to me that this kind of nicknaming could be an effective means of expressing public support or protest against an act of founding, such as that of the CCTV Tower. How does this nicknaming phenomenon fit in with founding and preservation? Do we see this happening in other societies? What are the effects?
P.S.: The tower mysteriously caught on fire in 2009 during the Chinese New Year, which stirred up a great deal of controversy. There are some interesting pictures and information on this website:
http://www.chinasmack.com/2009/pictures/beijing-cctv-building-on-fire-news-censored.html
In resistance to the founding of the Sadove Student Center, a lot of students on campus (mostly seniors... although I suppose this will soon die out as current students graduate) still refer to Sadove as "ELS," in remembrance of the decrepit, gritty old frat house that used to exist. My dad was in ELS when it was a fraternity, and although he believes that the building is now put to better use as a student center, he can't bring himself to call the building anything other than ELS. For him, and for those students that still remember what the "old" Sadove was like, referring to the building as ELS is a way of preserving memories and traditions.
Although it may seem that the name of a place has no bearing on its character and meaning as a place, I think your blog post and on-campus examples show that the opposite is actually true!
One need only look at the controversy that surrounds the naming of soccer and other sport stadiums around the world to realize that names can play a significant importance in individuals conception of places. For example, my favorite soccer team recently had the naming rights to its stadium (Goodison Park) valued at 1.6 million pounds, meaning that the team could receive approximately 1.6 million pounds in a sponsorship deal in which they changed the name of the stadium to reflect some companies name or product. What may seem shocking to some is that there exists a great deal of resistance to the idea of making any changes to the stadiums name. One writer summed up others doubts by questioning if "losing the identity of Goodison Park really [can] be justified by the paltry sum." Fans seem to really place a lot of store in their stadiums name and as the quote reveals, the name plays a role in their conception of the stadium as a place, so much so that changing the name risks "losing the identity of Goodison Park". 1.6 million pounds is no small sum, even in the extravagant world of English Soccer and fans unwillingness to change the name provides us with a concrete example of names importance. What attitudes, such as the above, reveal is that names and nicknames don't only reflect peoples attitudes towards places, as the CCTT article and comment suggest, but also help form our conceptions and attitudes towards locations, arguably contributing to their authentic character.