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November 23, 2005
Chinese TV
One of my newest loves is Chinese television. It’s at least as vapid as American television, but for language learning, you can’t beat it, especially since a lot of programming in China includes closed captioning. I watch cartoons, game shows, sitcoms, soap operas, the news, documentaries, infomercials, English-teaching shows (useful for learning Chinese because they translate everything) – I’m not too picky.
There’s a PSA they play on the kids’ channel that has brought tears to my eyes more than once, including the first time I saw it, more than a year ago. It opens showing a mom washing her son’s feet in a basin – he’s about four. She leaves him in his bedroom to play and then goes and washes her mother’s feet, saying it will make her more comfortable. Grandma says, “You’ve been busy all day!” and Mom replies, “I’m not tired.” It’s the closing that gets me – the next thing you see is the little boy carrying a basin down the hallway, splashing water all over the place, saying, “Mom, wash your feet!” Then the announcer says, “Parents are children’s best teachers.”
The way family members care for each other is one of my favorite aspects of Chinese culture; but I think my favorite thing about the commercial is how the Communist government-sponsored broadcasters accidentally stumbled upon such a well-known symbol of Jesus Christ’s servanthood in their promotion of traditional Chinese values.
| By huzzlecoo | 07:52 PM
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Comments
I know which PSA you meant.It's really moving and meaningful.Everytime I feel warm when watching it.Plus it's also my favourate aspect in our culture.
Posted by: Sherry at January 21, 2006 12:23 PM
