The New Dominion

Uyghurs dressed as Mexicans and Brazilians? Kazakhs and Tartars posing as Russians? Skulking Han Chinese teenagers with Japanese rising sun headbands? Central Asians exulting in German patriotism while the real German begrudgingly cheers for America? And artistic masterminds and overlords from Hong Kong pointing fingers and cameras in all directions barking orders in English? What is this smörgåsbord of cultural identities, both real and imagined, doing in a stadium in Xinjiang? It’s the filming of a Pepsi commercial, of course!

I point any passersby to a most excellent interview with Kelly Hammond by Micki McCoy hosted at The China Beat, about a Pepsi commercial filmed in Xinjiang that required a motley crew of various ethnicities and nationalities to pull off. At the most basic level, this was nothing more than a Hong Kong production crew pulling some extras together to make an advertisement. But for Kelly, a scholar doing research in Xinjiang  who happened to be lassoed to play a foreigner extra on the huge set, the shoot was so much more. With an incredible eye for detail, Kelly describes the commercial shoot as an unprecedented cultural exchange. Western educated Hong Kong artists, technicians, and movie makers come to Xinjiang speaking English better than Mandarin, and ally with Pepsi, an American conglomerate, to produce a narrative about Chinese rallying behind a foreign drink into a single “Chinese” identity thus overcoming a vague foreign opponent in a football match – an opponent whose fans ironically are portrayed mostly by actual fellow Chinese, namely, Uyghurs employed for their “exotic-looks value.” In the process, we also learn about Chinese (or at least Cantonese) conceptions of Mexicans (sombreros), Brazilians (carnivalesque outfits which the Uyghur women didn’t take kindly to, to the befuddlement of the liberated Hongkongers), and Americans (scantily clad cheerleaders played of course by Kazakhs). Not to mention the high schoolers who were delighted to see the pop culture icon starring in the commercial but were appropriately angsty when recruited to portray Japanese. But enough talking on my part, Kelly’s observations are insightful and inspiring enough on their own. Check it out.

P.S. Yes, I pretentiously typed smorgasborg with all the Swedish character markings, but I did it because the spellcheck installed in the browser recommended that as a proper spelling and I found that to awesome to decline. Thanks, spellcheck.