Chinese Have More Fun With Their TVs Than We Do

I hate to break the news, especially to the millennial's, but Chinese have a lot more fun with their television's than we do. Imagine, if you can, streaming a television show that has its own  embedded Twitter line running across the top of the screen. In Mandarin it's called Tan Mu and it provides a running commentary on the TV show you are streaming from a Chinese site that is like Hulu or Netflix.

Many of the Chinese shows are about the Chinese Communists and the Kuomintang, who are allegedly fighting the Japanese. In fact, we know that Jiang Jia Shi (Chiang Kai Shek) was a corrupt official who was kept in office by Shanghai  gangsters. That's why, in movies like this, you look for the most beautiful actress, because she is the communist spy hidden in the structure of the Kuomintang.

In a recent episode, another communist spy refused to have an affair with this beautiful woman because he was concerned about her safety. Across the top of the screen you had men offering to take her off the guys hands. "If he doesn't want her, I'd like to help out."

Another guy complained that the women on the show had faces that were too long. "I want round faced women," he said.

When the show gets slow all sorts of people complain about it. "This is terrible. I'm falling asleep here."

The other night as it grew late, one women complained, "where is everybody? This  is  really boring."

A man who follow the show is called  a zai nan (guys who don't leave their house, but watch TV all day). So they've introduced a social aspect to watching television. You can complain about the stars, the story line, the slowness of the plot, etc.

 Imagine when Alias had lost its plot line. You could comment on the ineptitude of the producers who hadn't bothered to know where the plot was going, and hadn't planned how it would end. We could have saved Sydney Briscoe from flowing down the TV drain.