Heh. He said “wang wang”.

Back in the Missus’ hometown now. 2 hours until the state television gala kicks off. Dinner consumed, drinks eaten, decorations stuck on and around the door, as well as on the windows.

The wife’s family speak the Chinese equivalent of a West Country dialect - all linked words, and lots of mumbling. No matter how well my chinese has progressed (and it’s fucking tight nowadays), going home is always a test - I can never understand a fucking word they say!

This year, though...smashing it. A lot of her family members think my chinese hasn’t gotten much better in a year. It hasn’t, I’m just now better at deciphering hick-speak.

I love spring festival.

Meh - your English is better than my chinese. If you hadn’t mentioned English wasn’t your first language, I wouldn’t have guessed.

The cctv spring festival gala is on now. There’s comedic skits with moral messages about love and family, there’s reminders that China is strong and the ethnic groups are harmonious.

A dance number has just finished, called 旺旺年 - a pun using the fact that 汪汪 and 旺旺 are homophones - the former being “woof woof” (year of the dog, innit) and the latter being “prosperity”. So, the “woof woof year” becomes “the year of prosperity”.

A man dressed as the monkey king from journey to the west did gymnastics, children dressed as flowers and chicks danced, dogs with dyed orange tails and ears did tricks. There were people in dog and panda suits. There was a massive dog made of balloons. And there was ALL the colours. It was weird as fuck and made me feel like I was tripping balls.

That sounds brilliant.

The TV broadcast, not tripping balls.

Now Jackie Chan is singing a song called “China”. Sample lyric:

China is my mother country
Gives me prosperity
Gives me happiness

Jackie Chan is such a shill - he’ll turn up to anything if there’s money in it. Dude appears at so many state-run events and on these kinda tv shows. Does fuck loads of celebrity endorsement / general advertising, too.

Oh my god! There’s a black-faced woman coming on stage with a giant prosthetic arse, fruit on her head and a monkey sidekick!!!!!!

I wish I was joking!!

I'm torn.

Mal0wner wrote:

Prosthetic arse black-face makes the news - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-43081218

And the story is blocked over here - had to VPN it. Yes, that’s the skit. Not sure what’s worse - that they even thought it was a good idea, or that they haven’t removed it from all the times the gala has been repeated today.

Thing is - there’s no doubt a lot of chinese people bristling at the suggestion that the shit was racist. There’s a different set of cultural baggage and history here, so it’s not as simple as blackface = racist. The reason that blackface is considered racist in many western countries is due to culture and media (e.g. Black and white minstrel show) that the Chinese were never exposed to.

My wife and her cousin couldn’t believe it - being a younger, more internationally aware generation, they got what the problem was. But a lot of people won’t get why it is problematic and, from the other side, most western media and critics won’t know enough about China to argue why such a thing should be racist in China rather than just exporting our own ideas of what should and should not be acceptable.

Agreed.