Chinese TV

Often Chinese people will ask me about how they can improve their English, leaving me casting around for an better answer than ‘practice harder’. In general I tend to mumble something about trying to use English as much as possible and try to make some friends who they can speak English with regularly. I usually also mention that it might be worth watching some English TV shows as it may help their listening skills. Until recently though, this was advice that I had never employed personally in my Chinese studies, though in the last few weeks I have been watching more and more Chinese television to test out my own advice.

When flicking across TV channels it seems like the airwaves are dominated by costume dramas and low-budget sitcoms. There is one common thread however that links all Chinese shows – terrible acting. Whilst not a thespian myself, I feel quite certain that I can act better than most Chinese TV actors and remain convinced that fluency in Chinese is the only thing standing in the way of me taking the industry by storm. What you do see a lot is ridiculous over acting that only belongs in poor quality panto. One comedy show that is quite popular right now is Aiqing Gongyu (iPartment) which follows the lives of a small group of young people living in the same apartment building in Shanghai. On the plus side the production values are actually quite good, though on the downside it is not funny (a pretty big problem for a comedy) and is guilty of copying entire scenes from other shows (notably Friends from which some scenes have been copied word for word).

Similar to most other countries in the world, reality TV programming and in particular talent show contests command huge audiences. Equivalents of The Voice, Britain’s Got Talent and The X-Factor can all be found and follow much the same blueprint as those in the UK and the USA. One such show is Zhongguo Hao Gequ which is essentially the same as The Voice, however contestants are only allowed to sing songs that they wrote. I have to say it is actually quite good, with singers performing music from a fairly broad range of genres.

Another show that is pretty huge right now is Baba Qu Nar? which follows five celebrities as they travel to rural places in China with their children taking part in activities and challenges. This show regularly gets 75 million viewers per episode, though I am not really sure why. I think one of the key attractions of the show is finding out more about the celebrities and how they interact with their children, though as someone with no prior knowledge of the fathers in the show this is basically lost on me – I’m essentially just watching five random guys traveling with their children.

Almost all Chinese programming is accompanied with subtitles, so watching TV can be a good way of practicing both your listening as well as reading. As such when viewed as a learning resource it does have several benefits for Chinese learners – when viewed as a source of entertainment however it has less going for it.