One of America’s biggest exports is entertainment and it permeates the (online) world of China. As part of the final examination this semester I individually interviewed about 200 senior English majors out here. I took note of what they liked:
TV:
Prison Break
Desperate Housewives
Friends
Heroes
24
Ugly Betty
Two and a Half Men
How I Met Your Mother
My Name Is Earl
Music:
Anything you can sing at a KTV including Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey. Guys liked Lincoln Park and hip hop artists such as 50 Cent.
Movies:
For women: Titanic and Sleepless in Seattle. And any genre that stars anyone that is handsome or beautiful (Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and even Tom Hanks). Guys typically liked Kung Fu movies. Go figure.
Computer Games:
Despite their intense study schedule (a million hours a week, seriously), a number of students in each class had level 70 characters in World of Warcraft built from several years of play. Many of the guys also enjoyed Counterstrike. Girls like to chat on QQ.
Literature:
Dickens, Faulkner, Austen, Twain. They gobble up the classics like their Western counterparts.
Physical games:
Basketball reigns supreme. A large slab of concrete, a couple acres in size, is near my apartment complex. It is continuously filled with both men and women shooting hoops irrespective of weather or light conditions (it has been negative Celsius for the past two weeks and people are always on it). Yao Ming is usually their favorite player, although many like Kobe, Lebron, Nash or Nowitzki. Badminton, soccer and ping pong are also very popular.
Other random activities they to do: kite flying. I drive past a park each day on the way to class and there are always 3 or 4 kites flying in the air. Guess who invented that? Also, if there is any excuse to blow up fire crackers, you do so. That includes Western holidays, weddings, store openings, good grades, and anything worth celebrating. Guess who invented that as well?
One last universal phenomenon: women here like to window shop, wear high heels and gossip with their friends.
The zeitgest in review. This is not to say that they ignore Chinese literature or culture. If they had their druthers, many prefer to curl up and read a Yuan dynasty book (700 years old) or maybe something from the Song era. Rather, this just shows you that contrary to what you are led to believe by sinophobes like Drudge or O’Reilly, many young Chinese people enjoy various aspects of American culture.