When was the last time you saw a test pattern? Pretty common here in the wee morning hours. They don’t even fill the dead hours with Infomercials. Infomercials are just starting to catch on here, I am sure that America invented that torture so I feel I should apologize to all my Chinese friends – Sorry! I keep seeing one on some contraption you wear like a kidney belt that is supposed to improve your posture and give you bigger looking boobs (if you are a girl of course). Anyway I figured I would inform you guys about what Chinese TV is like. In Hangzhou there seems to be about 35 channels. Different locations have different choices. The 4 star hotels MAY have BBC and/or CNN, which are still censored. A month ago in Nanjing, I was so excited about watching CNN that I had it on the entire time I was in my room. One morning during a newscast there was mention of a protest in one of the censored “T” words. The channel cut off immediately. During the hourly repeats you never even heard the lead in to the story, just a 45 second blank screen. Here at ZUFE they have one English channel – CCTV 9. It repeats A LOT. Generally the programming consists of short news shows, china travel shows, and business forums on the advantages of doing business in China, etc. Yesterday I saw a forum show that I had seen the first week I was in China when I was actually watching a TV and not watching a computer.
Side Note: Just in case you were not aware I watch American TV shows on the computer. Yes, I am totally caught up on Prison Break & Heroes (Both VERY popular with the kids here), Ugly Betty, Boston Legal, Studio 60, Gilmore Girls, Nip & Tuck, Numb3rs and a couple of others I am too embarrassed to mention. They all have Chinese subtitles. Most Chinese that have a computer and Internet watch American TV shows and movies this way. I wonder what they think of Americans after they watch “My Name is Earl” and “Two and a Half Men”. Last year I brought all my seasons of 3 or 4 TV shows that I thought the students would like - What a waste of suitcase space! They had seen them all and with the Chinese subtitles (which mine did not have)
Back to the topic of China TV. At ZUFE they have a music channel, a shopping channel, a sports channel, lots of those “American Idol” contest shows and lots of soap operas. Chinese Soap Operas are different from ours. Most of them are historical soap operas or mystical soap operas like the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon movie. The last ones are sort of fun to watch and add your own subtitles. There is lots of spinning, punching, flying and slow-mo action. The American Idol type of shows are very popular. They always have beautifully dressed up male and female announcers and no negative comments. Mostly they are the singing contests, but they even have one where couples compete in a variety of tasks such as cooking a cheap meal, sports, dancing and of course singing. Last Spring the most popular contest type of show was "Super Girl", a show where lots of skinny girls sing, model and dance their way to glory. Sound familiar?
