Trans-Chinese imagination: film and cross-Strait perception as a historical case study for contextual journalism education

It is a truism that film, like many other visual media, can stimulate and assist the social imagination of their viewing audiences. At the same time, it can also be an implement in the toolbox of the cultural journalist. Through textual analysis of Ermo (1994, People’s Republic of China) and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994, Taiwan, Republic of China), we explore how these two films project the concepts of modernity, gender relation and, most of all, the virtues and inflictions of being Chinese. A joint Trans-Chinese imagination emerges through these two separate films, despite the reported political and ideological differences in these two societies. As Taiwan and the mainland China (and other similar geopolitical situations around the globe) continue to negotiate their political future, we use this historical case-study to propose a cross-disciplined, contextual journalism education which includes popular culture, in this case film, as a tool for media pedagogy.