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xiakeponz · 1 year

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for modern AU fics - what chinese media did diaspora consume?

making this post because some of us in the diaspora server were having a chat about what Chinese media "Diaspora Chinese" watched in the 90's - 2000's (and even sooner than that) while not having access to satellite chinese media or streaming services - this is in the context of writing modern AU fics based off Chinese media/novels (so your main character's grandpa or uncle is not, in fact, watching an episode of Friends or Shortland Street or something as flavour text because sorry what the hell-)

We generally watched a lot of stuff on VCDs, including bootlegged and non-bootlegged movies, shows, anime/donghua. My household had a whole VCD album of this, and a lot of VCDs (even if they were pirated editions) would have a fancy hardcover box with a magnetic clasp and some artwork representing the show on it.

All of this is Mandarin - so not TVB stuff, because I'm from Northern China and I don't know any cantonese - but Canto friends, please feel free to add to the list! This is mostly stuff my parents liked to watch, or I liked to watch with them, with the exception of a few which I mainly watched with friends/cousins when I was maybe (in most cases) eleven/twelve years old onwards. This is a pretty personal list, meant to give people general idea of a possible "ballpark" of sorts, and by no means exhaustive.

Now, for the list of shows which I can confirm I had or someone I know had on VCD or some kind of offline media format lol (I'll try add release year stamps and links to the EN wikipedia where possible):

Period dramas (mostly Qing Dynasty stuff):

Huan Zhu Gege 还珠格格 (1998, April-) This is a classic, so many memes come from this show; hugely popular series, basically cemented Zhang Tie Lin's face as the face of the Qing Emperor for about a decade. Tie Chi Tong Ya Ji Xiao Lan 铁齿铜牙纪晓岚 (2002-2010) - I loved this show as a kid and watched all four seasons on repeat with family... The "trio" in this show are well known and loved.

Amazing Detective Di Ren Jie / 神探狄仁杰 (2004) A very popular and addictive show. Ok now the Big Four:

Romance of 3 kingdoms 1994 / 三国演义 (1994) - a classic that has had many remakes, my older cousin would play this on repeat...

Hong Lou Meng/红楼梦（1987） - another classic with many remakes, but I think the most recognised by the public one is the 1987 one.

Journey to the West / 西游记 live action (1986) - I think the 1986 version of the live action is the most recognised one. *Shui Hu Zhuan / 水浒传 (1998) - I am not too familliar with the live action of this one in my household tbh bc my mum doesn't like it lol (she keeps saying it's too depressing) but I'm sure it's up there with the rest of the big four, if anyone has an opinion on this one please let me know!

Modern setting shows:

My dad loved all the Sun Honglei (孙红雷 - actor name) stuff, iirc it was a lot of MinGuo period espionage stuff, your shanghai 1920's sxc aesthetic. This actor has been around since 1999? Qian Fu （潜伏）was very famous, and Ren Jian Zheng Dao Shi Cang Sang （人间正道是沧桑）。 These were around '08 and '09.

Chuang Guan Dong - 闯关东 (2008) (Baidu link, sorry - couldn't get an EN wikipedia one). This show was huge when it was airing, everyone was watching it. I was pretty young but even I watched it and got invested ... and I thought it was such an "old person" show at the time lmao. Xiao Bing Zhang Ga / 小兵张嘎（2004） (sorry, again Baidu link) - yo, anti-japanese war movies set between 1937-1945 were crazy popular - this is one of them and was very popular):

Donghua/Anime (all the stuff kid me watched and some which I didn't but were popular):

喜羊羊与灰太狼 (2005-) Calabash Brothers / 葫芦兄弟（1986-1987） Black Cat Detective / Hei Mao Jing Zhang 黑猫警长（1984-2010） Lan Mao Tao Qi 3000 Wen 蓝蓝猫淘气3000问 AKA 蓝猫 (blue cat) (October 1999 - Present) Legend of Ne Zha 哪吒传奇 (2003) Journey to the West/Xi You Ji 西游记 This was truly the Donghua I grew up on from when I was a bb, the OP song and ED song are classic bangers all kids know. Slam Dunk/ 灌篮高手 - People truly watched a lot of anime that may or may not have been terribly dubbed into mando (possibly canto too). Late 80s and 90s kids were all over this, and Dragon Ball, Crayon Shinchan (labixiaoxin).

Taiwanese Dramas:

This is mid-late 2000's, I would be remiss to not talk about the Taiwanese dramas of this era. Mike He, Rainie Yang, Wu Zun (amongst many, many others) were huge. Stuff like Dou Niu Yao Bu Yao, it started with a kiss, Hua Yang Shao Nv (Taiwanese version of Hana Kimi) were all pretty popular. Not sure if these shows all hold up in 2023, but boy were they popular at the time.

Note about CNY:

For CNY, people would try to tune into 春节联欢晚会 (the CCTV official CNY show) at that One Friend Who Had China Satellite TV's house. Zhao Ben Shan / 赵本山 was a comedy staple, and the show would often feature people from the music industry to perform. Eventually these people became more and more relevant to my gen and Jay Chou etc started appearing.

Last but not least Xian Jiaaaan 仙剑:

In 2005 I was all over 仙剑奇侠传 (Chinese Paladin), based off the video game. This show was crazy popular and probably sent me and a whole lot of other kids into Xianxia / Wuxia hell (and Hu Ge hell, and later I came back to love Liu Yifei). Thank you. The OST is a true banger.

#cnovel #mdzs #cdrama #chinese diaspora #danmei #not a lot of jinyong wuxia shows here so people who have opinions please chime in!#whew that was more than i thought #music could do with another post #but i dont know too much about my dads music i was just a 2000s cpop nerd #also this doesnt cover movies either #please no lan qiren watching friends #this breaks me out of my immersion immediately unless there was a specific reason why shufu is watching friends #not even sure how to tag this #late 2000s you could pretty much stream and download stuff i think i did that for bbjx when it came out #even tho my parents hated The Internet i managed #feel free to add more to this in a post or tags or whatever

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seventeenlovesthree · 3 years

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I know I'm probably sounding like a grandma again, but there is actually something very special in instant availability of music these these. I was raised by a mother who never really bought me any CDs growing up, because she could just ~download them - so I just never bought them myself, 12 year old me didn't see anything wrong with that, as we didn't have much money anyway. Once Youtube and converters were a thing, it all switched to downloading stuff from there (if GEMA allowed it), no matter how shitty the quality was. I remember refusing to get any streaming services a few years back, whether it was for movies, tv shows or music - I was so used to pirating this stuff and never believed that it would actually harm me or anyone in the grand scheme of things. We didn't have much, so what's the deal with downloading three songs or so?

Nowadays, as I am earning my own money, I have an Amazon Prime account, Netflix, Spotify, you name it. Endless possibilities that make me end up sitting 30 up to 60 minutes unable to decide what I want to watch or listen to. This can actually be annoying, especially if you, like me, aim to do things more mindfully and want to learn to not do three things at once while not focussing on any of it. On the other hand - it made me appreciate the things I pick a lot more. And it can actually help you to become more mindful.

I finally watched "Into The Spiderverse" recently and it made me tear up. I forced myself to put my phone down for the entire duration and actually paused it if I had to pick it up for an important conversation.

Yesterday I've read about the new Taylor Swift album and I have only listened to two songs yet, because I want to cherish it. I want to pay attention. When I went to therapy, I had one playlist I listened to over and over again and the songs now have a special meaning to me. Similarly to what the youtube rabbit hole of music used to be, I am regularly discovering new music - definitely a reason why I enjoyed the Spotify Wrapped Up this year. My first year of actually using Spotify because there was a song I couldn't find on YouTube.

Streaming is something I bond over. When my mental health was on the decline, I could barely watch or listen to anything for a while, I don't even remember how long it has been. And I'm just starting to rediscover the fun in different universes, imagination and just talking to others about it. It's a process. And I'm thankful that streaming brought me closer to it.

#there's of course still the capitalist aspect to it all #but in these difficult times it is important to grasp for everything that fulfills you in some way #personal #rant

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