Culture Counts: two sessions’ creative calculusCulture Counts: two sessions’ creative calculus

Micro-dramas. Video games. Web novels. Inbound tourism, international exchanges, and the integration of cultural tourism and heritage protection. These probably aren't the first things that come to mind when you think about China's key annual political gatherings. I'd wager they don't come to mind at all.

But they arguably should. That's why, this year, China Daily is continuing our special video series, Culture Counts: Two Sessions, One World. This program examines how policy influences the way we play and creates culture in our lives — not just in China but globally.

It looks at how the annual meetings of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee — the nation's top legislature and political advisory body, respectively — develop measures that will guide China's cultural development in the year ahead and beyond.

We debuted the program last year, introducing such innovations as stop-motion animations and a "scrapbook" commemorating the experiences of covering the sessions.

I developed these creative concepts as I approached my second decade of covering the two sessions in some form, and my ninth year producing videos from the front lines. I realized that if I wanted something different — something new — almost certainly, so did viewers. It also addressed a challenge that video journalists who cover the sessions are all too familiar with — the meetings are important but the venues offer only a few shooting locations.

As such, how do we present visually captivating content? Last year, we featured yak rides, ethnic dances and lamb snuggling "on the roof of the world". There were kingdoms of life-size castles made of ice and literal fireworks to add pop and sparkle.

We inscribe written policy with visual poetry to go beyond repeating the nearly identical shots of the outside of the Great Hall of the People, the Ministers' Passage, the main auditorium and the smaller meeting halls — again and again, day after day, year after year, video after video.

Beyond style, Culture Counts also addresses a lopsidedness in content.

Understandably, virtually every product from virtually every media focuses on the sessions' heavy-hitting impact on the economy, geopolitics, environmental protection and ecological restoration and the like, to the point of oversaturation. Yet, there's not enough coverage of how the sessions shape cultural development.

But measures adopted at the sessions every year not only influence but ultimately steer how cultural activity unfolds. And this year is of elevated importance, since the sessions will consider adopting the draft outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30).

Looking to the future, in every sense of the term, we see that tech is the thread that ties together these proposals — especially those related to "New Popular Literature and Art". Culture Counts demystifies related terms that can seem either too abstract or too technically dense, making them accessible to ordinary audiences as well as wonks, for TikTokers and think-tankers alike.

For instance, "heritage and innovation", here, means using new ways to dynamically preserve, develop and invigorate tradition. Think of the video game, Black Myth: Wukong, which is not only based on the classic novel, Journey to the West, but also features Shanxi province's ancient architecture. International cultural influence identifies micro-dramas, games and web novels as pillars to tell China's stories globally.

My own family's life shows how these aren't mere buzzwords.

My wife regularly flies around the country performing in microdramas, acting in verticals filmed for international audiences and dubbing domestic shows in English to expand their global reach. My 10-year-old son is obsessed with video games, and my 14-year-old daughter won't stop talking about the Chinese web novels she reads.

And so, as the two sessions map the country's overall trajectory, Culture Counts zooms in, beyond the big-picture GDP targets and five-year plans, to see how political and economic planning will frame culture in our lives.

These measures don't just cover pages with ink but fill our screens, galleries, stages, auditoriums, novels and dinner tables.

What does this mean for you?

You can count on Culture Counts to use a fresh formula to solve the equation of what this will add to your life.