"He went outside the wire to collect leaves for us to eat," his mother explains in a trancelike whisper. She tells Father Jerry Martinson through an interpreter that her son has risked his life "almost every day, " slipping through the fence of their guarded compound to gather firewood or greens to supplement their meager rations. The odds of collecting a sniper's bullet or a landmine as well are perilously high.
It is 1985 on the Thai-Kampuchean border. The scene is from a documentary film entitled "Beyond the Killing Fields," which is largely the work of a Taiwan-based, non-profit media institution, the Kuangchi Program Service (KPS). The organization, founded in 1958, has become well-known throughout Taiwan for providing a wide range of professional media services, including radio and television programs, live action and animated films, video cassettes, and multi-image slide programs. The 145 Chinese members of the KPS staff handle each step of production from basic idea planning to scripting, filming, dubbing, and packaging. All profits are reinvested back into productions, equipment and training.
Two things make KPS particularly unique among Taiwan's media companies. First, a review of the company's involvement in television in many ways is the same as tracing the history of the medium in Taiwan. KPS introduced some of the first television equipment to the island, and early on emphasized its educational powers, especially through drama programs aimed at general audiences. This orientation has continued since the mid-1960s. For example, "Mandarin Theatre," one of Kuangchi's first productions, brought classical Chinese theatre to television, successfully introducing a revered traditional art form to the world of high technology.
Second, KPS—like its forerunner the "Kuangchi Recording Studio" —is administered by the Society of Jesus for the Roman Catholic Church. The founder, American Jesuit Father Philip Bourret, selected the name Kuangchi because the constituent Chinese characters mean "light" and "inspiration." This is both consistent with the traditional aims of Jesuit missions during their long involvement with China, and a reminder of a prominent Society figure.
Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci's arrival in the Middle Kingdom during the late 15th century began many contacts that influenced both China and the West. Ming Dynasty Prime Minister Hsu Kuang-chi realized the potential national benefit that China could gain through Western discoveries in such fields as geography, astronomy, and mathematics. Himself a Catholic convert, Kuang-chi "Paul" Hsu is still credited with initiating the charge that the KPS namesake is dedicated to carry out.
"We are concerned with shaping the 'whole person' through a raising of spiritual consciousness," says Father Raymond Parent, who was recently appointed Program Service president. He adds that the Society of Jesus has traditionally emphasized this theme rather than aiming specifically at conversion to the Catholic faith. As a result, programming at Kuangchi has sought the common ground between Christian values and Chinese ethics. The Society attempts to facilitate the merging of traditions with the challenges of the contemporary world.
KPS fulfills its mandate by providing social services to the public through "group" and "mass" media products, and by training talented local Chinese in the media arts. Kuangchi sets high professional and ethical standards for all its programming. The challenge lies in advancing the philosophical goals of the organization while still attracting audiences that want to be entertained. Group media programs, as the name suggests, are directed toward classroom or small group environments. Designed to stimulate discussion immediately after viewing, these slide presentations or short video "stories" are characteristically open-ended, leaving viewers to choose appropriate responses.
"Hope at the Window," a recent video production in this category, traces the growth of a special friendship between two young neighbors whose rooms face each other across a narrow lane. From their windows, they exchange gifts and messages until the boy professes his love for the girl. At that juncture she slowly draws her curtains closed. He soon discovers that his new love is confined to a wheelchair and he is consequently faced with an emotionally challenging decision. "Hope at the Window," which is slated for international distribution, uses no dialogue in portraying the bridge of friendship and love that develops between the two youths. Educational and discussion aids such as this are used in public schools in Taiwan as well as in parish discussion groups throughout Asia.
In recent years, KPS mass media productions have included a polished slide presentation on nuclear power in the ROC and a commercially upbeat "Welcome" to the Taiwan electronic products display at Taipei's mammoth World Trade Center. The company often works in cooperation with the three local television networks to create new programming and also initiates proposals itself for network consideration.
Proposals generate ideas, and some evolve into large projects such as this season's popular "Heroic Destiny," which chronicles the adventures of four heroes in the tumultuous times of early twentieth-century China. Programs of this quality may influence a station's future programming by setting a mood accepted, then expected, by a large audience. A domino effect is created, thus meeting Kuangchi's goal of raising ethical consciousness.
The networks often come to KPS with general ideas for programs, such as an educational children's series, and ask for more specific ideas to implement them. "This is when the fun really begins," says Fr. Parent, whose own interest in Chinese culture and audio-visual media both stem back to university studies in art and philosophy in Canada. "For such a project we will call in experts in child development, psychology, and education to consult with our program designers." The result of this activity is even more on-the-job training for KPS's young staff members, who average only 31 years of age.
"Young people are willing to try new things and provide a wealth of ideas," Fr. Parent observes. And beyond this, the training provided to people like Chen Ming-fang, who is a 19-year old design artist with exceptional natural ability in illustration work, is invaluable in training personnel for Taiwan's growing media production and design industry. KPS encourages this development by providing training facilities for communication arts students from various local colleges and universities, and by offering student seminars during winter and summer vacations. Recently, international participants have also been invited to take part in 6-week planning and production courses.
The staff has done exceptionally well. Its documentary "Beyond the Killing Fields" brought special satisfaction. Kuangchi's ubiquitous Ding Shen Fu (Fr. Jerry Martinson) leads viewers from the anguish of individuals surviving on the edge of the intolerable to their living faith resonant in the hymns of Indo-Chinese Catholics and the chants of ochre-robed Buddhist monks. Enduring the tedium of endless waiting and total dependency, the refugees unwittingly participate in a drama that has not changed scenes for almost a decade—a drama threatened with relegation to the corners of obscurity by virtue of its endurance.
"There is a limit to the number of notes the human ear can take in comfortably during one sitting," gasped an Austrian monarch after a Mozart opera. Similarly, the producers at Kuangchi walked a narrow path between arousing and losing audience interest in the refugee situation. They had to avoid "pity fatigue." One member of the project says: "We didn't want these issues to slowly vanish from societal consciousness, for public interest is the only way to keep political leaders moving toward solutions. The Kampuchean refugee issue has received attention from the media since the mid-seventies, and still no solution is at hand."
The documentary was prepared in five different language versions for international distribution. Last year the one most widely distributed collected two Golden Horse Awards (Taiwan's equivalent of the U.S. Oscar), including "Best Documentary" and "Best Documentary Direction." But KPS staffers derived even more satisfaction from the results of a five-installment showing of the program on the China Television Service network: local viewers contributed over US$500,000 to relieve refugee hardships. These funds have since been used to feed, house, and in some cases relocate refugees to Taiwan. KPS staff members agree that Kuangchi "Paul" Hsu would be pleased with the ethical consciousness of his countrymen.