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on august 24, the contemporary reality tv series "happy grass" about foreign aid, which had just finished airing on cctv-1, made its debut on shandong satellite tv, sparking widespread heated discussions across the internet. the play shows the kindness and love of the chinese juncao foreign aid team of "teaching people how to fish" and the mutual help with foreign friends from a perspective with a strong sense of life, deeply interpreting the profound theme of building a community with a shared future for mankind. so, how did this small "chinese grass" bloom a big "happy flower" all over the world? recently, our reporter interviewed li jiuhong, member of the party committee, deputy general manager, director of shandong film and television media group, and screenwriter of the play, and asked her to unlock this "happiness code".

li jiuhong:the story of "happy grass" is in the same vein as the hit tv series "mountains and seas" that year, telling the story of the prototype character professor lin zhanhui continuing to go overseas. with the selfless dedication of professor lin zhanhui and others, a small mushroom grass, carrying the friendship and love of the chinese people, has gone to the world and taken root in more than 100 countries around the world, including fiji, central africa, rwanda, lesotho, and south africa, playing an important role in promoting local development and people's well-being, and has been widely welcomed.

in this context, i got my creative inspiration from studying the materials of juncao and his team before my first online interview with professor lin zhanhui on march 19, 2022. i remember watching an interview program on dragon tv at that time, and i was shocked as if i was electrocuted. i immediately screenshoted this sentence. professor lin, who was interviewed on tv at the time, said that we are a nation that "endures great hardships, endures great labor, takes the overall situation into consideration, does great things, and achieves great things." the feeling of goose bumps when i was ignited is still there, as if all my sensory organs were instantly opened. these five "big" became the initial creative support and also became the beacon for the creation of our play.

li jiuhong:due to special reasons, all interviews were conducted remotely on tencent conference in 2022 when the creation began. professor lin's daughter, nephew, brother, team technicians, diplomats, chinese businessmen engaged in trade in south pacific island countries, etc., all became netizens. this is the first time for all the creators to experience the story of field trips, and the experience is also unique. in august 2024, two and a half years have passed since we first met the prototype professor lin zhanhui online, but professor lin's humble elder style is still deeply engraved in my memory. from the beginning of his storytelling, we have felt his peaceful, tolerant, tenacious, persistent, meticulous, and excellent elder style and scientist spirit, and his interesting expression of hard experiences has given us full encouragement and touching. the suffering, hardship and setbacks in the process, the sweet and sour, spicy and salty intertwined, helped us finalize the uniqueness of the main character li changhuan and the dramatic structure.

in january 2023, we began to go deep into life, and continued until the end of march. we interviewed and surveyed in yunnan, fujian, and fiji. without these three months of field interviews, it would be impossible to have the inheritance of the rich hakka culture, minnan culture, austronesian language family and other excellent traditional cultures in the story. thanks to the hot life, we can really superimpose the small and beautiful, novel and unique romantic poetry and realistic care of juncao in our works, paying tribute to the spirit of scientists and the national spirit. these are impossible to make up sitting at home or sitting in the study.

li jiuhong:poverty alleviation and foreign aid are both national strategies and grand propositions. in the year when china achieved a well-off society in all respects, according to statistics, there were 20-30 poverty alleviation dramas alone, but most film and television practitioners knew little about poverty alleviation and were far from real life. why was "mountains and seas" filmed in a small, subtle and delicate way? as small as how to grow and sell mushrooms, as small as how to divert water to irrigate seedlings and how to screw screws in factories. this is also the focus of "happy grass" learning from "mountains and seas". foreign aid is not a simple copy of poverty alleviation. we must strive to make small cuts, call for real power, and present rich details. through rich details, we can show the unique exotic culture and experience and establish a foundation for empathy with the audience. the cultural collisions, resource shortages, and even life-threatening situations encountered by professor li and his team in the process of foreign aid are uniquely expressed in place, making this foreign aid story vivid and vital.

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of "mushroom grass aid to foreign countries", and 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the belt and road initiative. it is not an easy creative task to tell the story of how this happy grass seeks happiness for the people and development for mankind. after a deep understanding of the story of "mushroom grass aid to foreign countries", we have conducted repeated discussions. this is undoubtedly a rare good story and a good subject. whether from the national standpoint or from the perspective of literary and artistic creation, telling a good story, capturing the viewing experience, and innovating the expression path are all essential.

li jiuhong:the 24 episodes broadcast on cctv-1 were edited and deleted. the re-edited characters' action lines, psychological lines, and emotional lines are more refined, the rhythm of the whole play is more lively, and the drama is more tense. the performances of the actors are also remarkable. guo tao's li changhuan, chuo ni's li zhiwei, zhang chao's diplomat zhao qifeng, han dong's zheng weilong, and many foreign actors have captured the characteristics of the characters. the friendship performances of feng lei, li jian and others are also in place, ensuring the authenticity and lifelikeness of the group portraits. as our editing director zhou xinxia said, this is not a strong plot drama, but an expression of the flow of life. to attract the audience, especially the young audience, not to watch the show at 2x or 3x speed, the performance of the actors is also crucial. thanks to everyone on and off the stage of "happy grass". good works are the result of collective wisdom and dedication.

juncao technology is an original technology that my country fully owns the intellectual property rights for. it is also listed as an important project of the "china-un peace and development fund" and is a "golden signboard" of china's foreign aid that is comparable to hybrid rice. today, my country's juncao technology has spread to more than 100 countries around the world, bringing wealth and hope to people of all countries and contributing chinese wisdom and solutions to local sustainable development. knowing each other is not far away, and being thousands of miles apart is still a neighbor. let us walk into the tv series "happy grass" together to understand the true portrayal of china and the people of the world working together to create a happy life for mankind in the new era.

source｜china shandong net reporter liu bo