I’m not even complaining about their editing out large portions of foreign movies being shown; they’ll cut out 20-40 minutes worth of material and think nothing of it. Fine. But what does really get me is that the cuts to commercial breaks are so abrupt and in absolutely random places. They’ve even cut off actors in the middle of a speech, and it’s not even a graceful fade to black, or a transition piece (e.g. “The Patriot will be back after these messages”). Instead it’s something like:
“This time they have gone too far! Give me liberty or give–”
guy [in Chinese]: WOW! JUICY FRUIT IS SUPER YUMMY! HEHEHEHE! [makes flirty eyes at nearby girl]
girl: OOH HE SMELLS SO GREAT! I THINK I WILL HOOK MY ARM AROUND HIS AND WALK AROUND THE PARK WITH HIM AND MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE A STUD! HEHEHEHE!
It happens with pretty much every program, except those that have hosts (news, talk shows, etc.). It jars the hell out of me. It’s like there’s absolutely no respect for the TV shows and movies that they’re airing. How hard would it be to move the cutting to commercial breaks to moments when they actually make sense?
Also, a drive-by fuck for the Chinese obsession with airing Pearl Harbor (the movie). I know y’all hate the Japs, but God damn, pick a better movie!
How about when they show a random chunk of the middle of a movie? Last time I was there we had on the kids channel (CCTV14 I think). After a dubbed Bugs Bunny cartoon it switched to a 20 minute scene from the middle of Disney’s “Sword in the Stone”. After the break, some completely different anime import.
Or the all-Microcosmos channel. A channel that showed the French insect documentary “Microcosmos” 24/7 for the entire 5 weeks I was there.
Best thing about Chinese TV - late night infomercials for boob jobs, with before and after shots, and computer animation showing the growth. I don’t understand much Mandarin, but I’m quite fluent in boobies.
Another neat thing I noticed was their penchant for showing the exact same advertisement multiple times in sequence, sometimes the entire advertising space would be occupied by the same ad being show 6 times.
Chinese TV is sort of a fast-forward microcosm of the development of a consumer culture.
