Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, November 5 – China has become a bit stricter with pirated DVD’s and movies in areas where there are more foreigners, but for the most part, I think the practice is still everywhere. We have a small local movie/CD store where we buy our movies for 5 or 10 rmb each, that’s 75 cents to $1.50 USD. At first I struggled with doing this, but, although we have Netflix and Amazon Prime, the internet is usually too slow to watch movies. So, while in China, we do as the Chinese do, and watch pirated movies! Actually, the majority of Chinese just download their movies and music (for free). Where we used to live, there were movie carts, and they would set up in the evenings. Every so often you wouldn’t see them for a while and then you’d know that the police were cracking down. The picture is the back of a music CD that was translated to English; enjoy reading the song titles :-) Out of curiosity, I typed the ISBN number into Google search, a bunch of Chinese results came up, so I clicked the first one and the music instantly started playing, it was Chinese songs though, not English, but this was a set of multiple CD’s, supposedly for listening to in the car, so maybe it was mixed. If you go to the large chain bookstores and department stores, you can find DVD’s and CD’s that are supposedly official, but the English selection is very limited. www.myownchinesebrocade.com
Bernard Bear or Backkom
Life in China 2016: A Picture A Day, October 18 – Backkom or Bernard Bear, although from South Korea, is quite popular here in south China. Does anyone know if he is elsewhere? USA, Australia, Europe, or other places? Anyhow, he is a polar bear with some other animal friends. I think I’ve seen the lizard most often, and there are more. It is a cartoon series done with computer animation, with his beginnings back in 2006. It is supposedly a kids show, but has a lot of humor that, although funny to kids, would have a whole different meaning to adults! They run from a few minutes to a couple full length movies. He even has a Facebook page, search for ‘Bernard Bear (Official)’ and you can enjoy a regular dose of Bernard in your newsfeed :-)! There are also plenty on You Tube; try this episode about Bernard fishing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QoEiBpr1PM We were at a local Chinese restaurant last week and they had three screens of Bernard Bear playing! He is ALWAYS good for a few laughs :-)
Movie Theater
We have avoided going to the movie theater because I thought the movies here were all dubbed in Chinese. Honestly…Do you see ANY English on the advertisement? We recently found out that English movies ARE in English with Chinese subtitles :-) So, this afternoon, Leah and I went to see Jungle Book in 3D. Leah said that the name in Chinese, Qi Huan Sen Lin,” literally translates as “Fantasy Forest.” Leah bought our tickets ahead on my phone, and they were 50 rmb/$7.75usd each. There were only about 20 people in the theater for the time we went. I can’t remember the last time I have been to a movie in the USA, so it’s hard to make any kind of comparison! We really enjoyed the movie and the whole experience though :-) I guess we’ll be seeing more movies now! Maybe we’ll try a Chinese movie if it has English subtitles!
Wuba from the movie Monster Hunt
I kept seeing this character around and wondering who/what it was? I’ve learned…. Just ask a teenager…they can usually help with this type of question! Leah knew it was from a movie. Its name is “Wuba” and he is from a Chinese movie, named Monster Hunt, that came out last July and was the highest grossing Chinese film up to that time!! Wuba is a cute baby “monster” who supposedly looks like a white radish… has 4 arms, pointy ears, a little tail, a very cute laugh and a head of greenery instead of hair!
Quoted from BBC: “The surreal comedy is set in a fantasy world resembling ancient China, where monsters and humans co-exist uneasily in two separate lands. When revolutionaries in the monsters’ world attempt to overthrow their royalty, the monster queen flees to the land of humans and impregnates a hapless human man, Tianyin, with Wuba. He ends up being pursued by both monsters and monster-hating humans keen on capturing the newborn Wuba.”
We watched it the other night and it was pretty good! It supposedly was released in the USA in January, I’m curious if anyone in the USA has seen it? Here is the USA trailer: http://themoviebox.net/8230 , not sure where you can see the whole movie there, but for my friends in China (and it may work elsewhere), you can watch it here (for free): http://www.le.com/ptv/vplay/23517204.html The Chinese translates literally to “Vampire Killers Mind”! Don’t worry…it’s a comedy not a horror film! Good for all ages! This link is for the Mandarin movie with English subtitles, which is supposedly better than the one dubbed in English.
