Chinese People Say the Darndest Things

So I have a sort of interesting situation developing. One of Dunc's friends, Bang, really liked my idea for Future Spence and wanted to invest. Cool, I thought to myself. Now though he's been in China for a while and started dating a girl who works in the film industry over there. She's looking for scripts and he asked me how would I feel about the movie being shot in China. I'm very pro this. Only problem is, aside from 'Japanese bad,' which I learned from Chu's Gung-gung (Sp? Grandma), I don't know anything about Chinese culture. Will they get my jokes? My movie references? How can I figure this out?

Solution? Become penpals with a whole bunch of random Chinese people on myspace. Yes people, this is how I spend my time. Its been really interesting and I thought I might post some of the responses I've gotten. Some of them are things I probably should have known but never realized, others are tid bits on culture I found interesting and some are strange statements I had to read a few times to figure out what the hell they were talking about. Of course their English is a hell of a lot better than my Manderin/Cantonese!

This one's from Serena Wan, I asked her about where people go on dates and about restaurants, this was in her reply: "KFC and McDonald have great success in China, so the Berger King came into China too. They opened some chain stores in Shanghai. When KFC and McDonalds first came into China in the 90s, last century, Chinese people thought they were some high-class food. I remember that if I got a good result of my exam, I would like my mom take me to the KFC." I'm glad to report Serena has figured out KFC is not high class food, unfortunately many, many others have not. Ah, America- making everyone Earth as fat as us.

I asked a girl that directs shorts for fun about the rating system of Chinese movies, this was her reply: "In china there isn't any rates, it's still a controversional issue about whether shoulk we begin to rate movies or not. now the imported movies we see arenot mostly recutted after being shown to the public. so if there is some shot with sex nudidy and over violence this will disappear we the people watch in the cinema."

About schooling, which is pretty intense there, this came from a boy in his early twenties: "i think school life is like a jail.. most of students think of it this way,,, excepte those the grades are really good that they are able to get in to a famous college..and i guess that is all.."

From my new budy Chol Jun on the school experience: "in our ages is prepareing for life changes so we did study alot and we really dont know how to have fun,,, b/c natually this society made us like this way,,, but we all do it secretly,, like going to the PC room and don't go back to home..and go to the KTV with friends and go to SaWoNa" I have no idea what a SaWoNa is but KTV I've learned is karaoke.

On cultural diversity: I feel like this is something I should have realized, and to some extent I did, but I never thought the number 55. I thought it was more like 15. All the old Chinese maps I've ever seen made it seem like China was carved into about ten or so large provinces and I assumed there was mostly harmony within the province and discord between provincies... well as much as there's ever harmony anywhere. Anyway, "we are 55 different nation groups.. for more deeper let you understand( let mean in US,,, has white and black people) we do have 55 differet cultures and tradition......"

My Questions: "On sub cultures: Are the liumang (the only subculture in China I could find any info about on the interweb) still a large subculture? Do Chinese kids divide themselves into different groups like Jocks and Punks?

Neko a 20 year old girl from Beijing: "Oh my god...what are u talking about,man? well to be honest I think this Liumang subculture things have been exaggerated by some westen people.I have no offence to say so.liumang is a really really bad word,means hooligan，gangsters without any education and moral. u think Chinese people are all like this??? it has never been a subculture in chinese history. And Chinese kids are good educated now with proper emotion." I can only speculate she thought I worked for the state.


About Pornography, Liu's good shits, so I don't bust his balls too much. This creeped me out a bit though: "I have a little busy now, so let me answer the most easy one. Pornographic material is illegal in China, to somepeople they do not want to accepted the fact, but the Pornographic material is a part of the young people life, not for everyone,but a lot of to the boy who living in the city. Although people find them on the web is not very easy,but if you want you can get it. And like the movie,music,game and other goods,most the Pornographic material is free to the ueser.By the way, i like it, so you can ask me,hehe." Thanks Liu, but I think I'll pass.

Well I won't make this too big, but I have some more quotes about how long a school day is over there that seems like it just must suck. Kids, young kids, frequently go to school for 13 hours a day.