Cloudy in Beijing Blogging about my time in China

To boldly go…

Last night I went to a movie theater for the first time in China. Me and a friend saw Star Trek, which came out the day before.

It was a good movie. But except for maybe a handful of other people sitting with us, we were the only ones watching the film.

Granted, there probably aren't too many trekkies on the mainland. But surprisingly, going to the movie theater isn't a very common thing in China.

Why? The same reason so many of my students don't do a lot of things: "It's too expensive," a class of students once told me.

True that. Things in China usually cost much lower. But as for the movie theater, one ticket cost me $7 dollars, the same price it would in America. (I felt like I was being robbed as I paid for my ticket.)

In China $7 dollars can go a long way. Specifically, you could buy about 7 pirated DVDs, each a dollar a piece.

From music and movies, to even books, bootlegs can be found everywhere in Xi'an if you know where to look. The quality might be sub-par, (such as shoving all 9 seasons of Seinfeld on 4 DVDs) but I've already amassed my own mini-library of movies.

Most of my students, however, don't even do bootlegs. Instead, they just download them or watch them online. All for free. TVs aren't allowed in the dorms, and not that many students have their own computers. So they go to a school computer lab, and watch there. (That's one strangely good thing about Internet piracy. It may be wrong, but people who genuinely can't afford to buy movies or music still have a way to enjoy it).

Yea, so I wasted some money last night. But it was worth it, although I was worried about my friend when we went to go see it. Star Trek was being played with Mandarin subtitles, and she had no prior knowledge of the famous sci-fi series. (Can you imagine Kirk talking in Chinese?)

Furthermore, one could translate the Chinese name for Star Trek ???? as Interstellar Disorientation. I also cringed a little as the words Romulans and Vulcan came flying out, along with the whole time travel storyline. Will she get this? Or is she confused out of her mind?

"I really liked the movie," she said.

Whew. Star Trek can live, even in China.