Asiavision

I stumbled on a BBC online news which dated September last year. Apparantly, Asia is about to launch our very own version of Eurovision - Asiavision! Rumoured to be the host of the first season, Singapore is also the home of the organising company. Afterall, this is not the first time Singapore bid for large scaled international competition, just last year, we witnessed the success of the country's debut in Formula One, Singapore is also preparing for the first ever Youth Olympics next year too.

Actually, such international song competition have also been organized in the past. Asian Idol is one good example of ...failure. To be honest, I don't put up high hope on the Asiavision. In Europe, the contest is a matter of national pride. It is exciting to see different countries with different cultures background compete against each other on a stage. It is dubbed as the "Olympics of Music". However, in Asia? I afraid, it will not be as exciting as in Europe.

Most countries will probably approuch popular culture songs to favour the voters. Most of them would probably performing English, pop/rock/ballad genre. In that case, Asiavision has lost it's true meaning already....it is simply not Asian culture anymore. It will be rather boring and lifeless. Unless the organizing community set a rule to make sure each country sings in their respectively national language or at least have a song related to the cultures, or else, it might very well be the first or the last Asiavision.

Like all televoting events, biased voting has always been a pain. Even Eurovision can't escape from the fate of biased voting. Especially in Asia, biased voting is obviously an enormous problem. Look what happened in Asian Idol, in the end, someone unfit won the contest due to biased voting. Therefore, Asiavision must develop a good voting system to prevent such mess.

So far, only 16 countries are expected to debut in the competition, including, Malaysia. And please don't send Jaclyn Victor again. Another interesting participant is Hong Kong.

Of course, by comparing to Eurovision 54 years history, it does take some time for Asiavision to reach the same popularity.......and exceed it. If Asiavision is properly planned, it will for sure be better than Eurovision. Why? Hey! It is Asia! We have half the population of the world over here, and 4000 thousand years of cultures will be showcased in one fantastic night! How can that be not cool? Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Malay, and so much more countries with rich cultures competing on a stage is not things we see everyday. It will be a stage diverse of colors and cultures!

I can't help but wonder, whether Turkey and Australia are eligible to join the contest. First, Turkey is half Europe, half Asia (Turkey also took part in Eurovision). Second, Australia was eligible for Asian Games (or something like that...) So far, these two countries have not expressed their wish to participate. Anyway, since it is rumored to be held in Singapore, as a die-hard fan of the competition, you can expect me to be watching the show live! I am really exciting for the Asiavision.

If you are really free and want to find out more about Eurovision, you can watch the video following. It is basically an introduction to the contest based of Eurovision 2006 Greece.

This is a text post. The original post can be found on www.kelberos.blogspot.com