‘seasonal greetings’ from shanghai
The city was Shanghai. The street was Tibet Lu. The song was “Frosty the Snowman.”
The reaction was a shrug.
Nothing here surprises me anymore. Not even the fact that the most populous city in the world’s most atheist country seems to be so jazzed about the birth of Jesus Christ. Not even the fact that a street named after an autonomous region brimming with Buddhists was rocking out to a song about a jolly, happy — and very likely Christian — man made out of snow.
12.30.2002, 7:32 AM · Observations
dvd doozies: undisputed
In Shanghai, few things are more plentiful than construction cranes, rice and neon lights. The DVD is one of them. Supposedly illegal, the bootleg industry is booming. Discs can be purchased everywhere: from back alleys and back rooms to well-lit streets and even actual stores (the owners of which must pay policemen Jackie Chan movies to look the other way). On the city’s busiest streets, DVDs are dealt like drugs. Men in suits greet you with a whisper, “Watch? Shoes? CD? DVD?” Nod your head, and he’ll start walking. Follow, and you’ll end up somewhere — a dark sidestreet, a windowless room, even upstairs at a restaurant — staring at a suitcase full of DVDs.
The selection can be impressive — everything from classics to current stuff — and if you know the Chinese name of a movie they don’t have, they can probably get it for you. Concerned about quality? Don’t be. Most DVDs here are, well, DVD quality. Even the camcorder jobs can be bearable, assuming that no one seated in front of the cameraman was called “Head-and-a-Half” in college. Yeah, you’ll have the occasional dud, but each bad disc makes a fine drink coaster — remember, unless you’re a sucker, DVDs only cost 8 yuan here. That’s $1, folks. You still get to keep the DVD cover, anyway. And in Shanghai, the DVD covers are often more entertaining than the movies they come with.That’s what this part of the website celebrates.
Some fool with Photoshop obviously worked very hard on these masterpieces of misinformation. All the parts are there — title, photos, synopsis, cast, credits, the occasional critic’s quote or two — but it never quite adds up. If something is actually spelled correctly — and that’s a big if — it likely has nothing to do with the movie contained inside. At least the title is usually right … usually. I suppose this all makes some sense. Most people buying these DVDs read Chinese and nothing else, so any English letters and words are just there for show. But the errors occur so often, the wrongs so randomly, that getting it right would seem to be a much less time-consuming task.
Here’s hoping they never get it right.
And now to today’s DVD Doozie …
what does christmas mean to you?
I asked that question to my students at Shanghai University. Here are some of their unedited responses.
Christmas is an important festival in western countries. Foreigners regard Christmas Day as ceremonious just like that we Chinese regard Spring Festival like New Year’s Day. According to a reliable survey, Christmas became popular with a group of fashionable young people about 30 years ago. But it was not well-known in most normal families. It was thought as a fresh thing. Nowadays, with the development of China and contact between west and east, more and more people know and celebrate this special day in many ways.
12.25.2002, 7:58 AM · School · Comments (2)