Posters of the Star Cat series (FILE)
The first Tibetan language cartoon program, Star Cat Animation City, began airing on Kamba Tibetan language satellite TV (KTLSTV) in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northwest China's Sichuan Province. The half-hour program is broadcast at 6 p.m. every day. The cartoons are mainly domestic animations such as the popular Star Cat series. It is reported that some other domestic animation, such as The Bright Moon of Qin Dynasty and Happy Farm will also soon be broadcast by the channel.
The cartoons are warmly welcomed by Tibetan children. Zhao Yu, an editor of the KTLSTV channel said, We have received many letters from our young Tibetan viewers. They have all become fans of our program. Many Tibetan children are, for the first time, watching cartoons they like and can fully understand through this program.
We all like watching Star Cat very much. The first thing for us after school is watching cartoons. We also know Star Cat is a cartoon star nationwide, a Tibetan child said in a letter.
The KTLSTV began to operate on October 28, 2009. The channel serves about 2.4 million people in the Kamba Tibetan language-speaking areas in the Tibet Autonomous Region, Sichuan, Qinghai, Yunnan and Gansu provinces. Because it has recently opened, it lacks program resources, especially for children. Star Cat Animation City is no doubt a great gift for Tibetan children. Though the cartoons are translated from Mandarin Chinese, they are loved by local children.
The launch of the cartoon is encouraging but several difficulties lie ahead. the most difficult thing is finding resources for programs, said Zhao. She said there are so few companies engaging in minority language animation because it is hard to look for the right persons to do the dubbing and master the content of animation.
