China is smitten with a military-themed romantic television series from its neighbor South Korea. But for the Chinese army, it’s a love that’s not meant to be. 

To say that the show “Descendants of the Sun” is popular among Chinese is an understatement. On video-streaming website iQiyi, the series’ exclusive broadcaster in China, the first 10 episodes have racked up a combined 1.8 billion viewings. On microblogging platform Weibo, posts about the show have been read more than 8.6 billion times. Millions are eagerly anticipating the six remaining episodes, one of which will be released each week.

The series tells the story of a special forces captain, played by Korean heartthrob Song Joong-ki, who is deployed on a peacekeeping mission to the fictional country of Uruk. He leaves his love interest, an army surgeon played by Song Hye-kyo, behind in South Korea. Later she is deployed to Uruk as well, and their romance continues.

Jiang Ziwei, a 25-year-old from eastern China’s Fujian province, is among the show’s legion of Chinese fans. She told Sixth Tone that while she thinks military storylines rarely make for appealing television dramas, “Descendants” is different. She likes it for its combination of modern plot and beautiful people. “The male lead is especially attractive,” she said.

The popularity of “Descendants” has many in China asking why there are so few Chinese military shows that capture the imagination of audiences the way South Korean ones do, and play a part in boosting the image of China’s armed forces — the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

At a Ministry of National Defense press conference on March 31, a reporter even asked what China might learn from South Korea in order to make the PLA more appealing to the nation. The spokesman, who said that he too was a fan of military dramas, declined to comment specifically on “Descendants.”

Chinese military-themed dramas mostly focus on the Japanese occupation and are popular mainly among older Chinese. “Descendants” fan Jiang, for example, said these shows provide little appeal for people her age. Some feature what she describes as “crazy plot lines where people tear apart Japanese soldiers with their bare hands.”

The “Descendants” debate has prompted some commentators from newspapers linked to the PLA to lament the quality of China’s own productions. 

One writer described Chinese military shows as “tasteless and boring.” Another said China hadn’t had a blockbuster military TV drama that appealed to a broad audience in a decade, let alone one that could appeal to viewers overseas. 

The last military show to garner a wide viewership was “Soldiers Sortie,” which first aired in 2006.

“When it comes to popularizing the military, isn’t this what we should hope to achieve as well?” said yet another commentary.

Still, a Chinese equivalent of “Descendants” could be a long way off.

On her blog, media commentator Wen Jing said that producing such a show in China would not be not easy, citing the distance between the PLA and the entertainment industry and the tight web of regulations that constrict military shows as potential obstacles. She also said those involved in the production of current military-themed dramas were too old to understand today’s young people and their tastes.  

Wen Haojie, a scriptwriter who has worked on military shows in the past, said in an interview with Sixth Tone that in China love cannot be the main thread in a military-themed script: “If the story does not closely resemble the actual military, then they will not support your show.”

In Wen Haojie’s view, a Chinese drama along the lines of “Descendants” could be a hit with the public, but a military story in which the protagonists have the time for romance would probably be dismissed by Chinese soldiers as unrealistic. “Their reaction would be, ‘We don’t have that luxury,’” he said.

Additional reporting by Wang Lianzhang.

(Header image: Xu Sanduo, played by Wang Baoqiang, crawls through a muddy training obstacle in a still frame from ‘Soldiers Sortie.’  Xiong Tao/VCG)

In early March 2016, the leaking of censorship guidelines produced by China’s leading body on television drama production led to criticism from Internet users and television audiences.

The guidelines were created by the China Television Drama Production Industry Association (CTDPIA), an association with almost 400 member production companies that, combined, account for 90% of China’s TV production. Among the criticism levelled at the CTDPIA’s guidelines was the accusation that they discriminate against gays and lesbians. The guidelines classified homosexuality as “abnormal sexual behavior,” and unsuitable for television audiences. Other banned themes included extramarital affairs and one-night stands, as well as content that contradicts “the spirit of scientific reason,” such as witchcraft, reincarnation, or “feudal superstitious beliefs.”

In an interview with Sixth Tone’s sister publication, The Paper, head of the CTDPIA You Xiaogang — himself a TV drama director with over 40 titles to his name — explains the thinking behind the guidelines. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Yang Siting: When were the guidelines put into place and what was the driving cause behind them?

You Xiaogang: Last year around September, we [the CTDPIA] had a meeting with the head office of [government media supervision body] the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT), where we suggested that we come up with something that built on the basic principles of TV censorship, as a reference for those in the process of production. The idea was to prevent producers having to make changes once their work had already reached the censorship stage, which can be a burden and cause losses.

The rules and regulations set out by SAPPRFT are the industry’s bottom line. The new guidelines are about self-discipline within the industry. They are consistent with the industry’s basic principles to maintain public order and moral standards. For practitioners in the field, it is a kind of safety net, as well as a reminder, lest they make mistakes during productions that lead to losses.

The guidelines are there to tell everyone what is appropriate and what is not based on our country’s current situation. It’s just like building a highway — if you don’t paint the lanes, it will be utter chaos.

Yang Siting: So the guidelines won’t be a set of mandatory rules?

You Xiaogang: Well, the association is not a law enforcement agency. The guidelines do not carry judicial validity. However, members of our industry, for example members of our association, should follow it as a self-regulation measure. Otherwise, you’ll be on your own when the time comes and you can’t pass the screening process. What we are giving everybody is the end result of years of experience in production. It’s there so that no one’s work will be in vain.

Yang Siting: Internet users have questioned the categorization of homosexuality as “abnormal sexual behavior,” along with incest and sexual abuse. Some suspect that behind it is discrimination against the gay community.

You Xiaogang: That’s not exactly the case. I’m not going to get into whether homosexuality is acceptable socially or legally. What it comes down to is that homosexual content won’t pass the censors. The guidelines we’ve made are solely about production, there’s no need to go off on tangents. Should we let them go ahead with production, knowing that the work won’t be broadcast? Is that being indiscriminant? Why waste your money? Why waste all that production?

Yang Siting: In many specific provisions of the guidelines, words like “excessive,” “specific,” and “overly” are used to describe levels of restriction. Where do you draw the line?

You Xiaogang: There isn’t a single item in the guidelines that is new. We didn’t create them on a whim. These are rules that have been in existence for years. They’re like traffic rules: you can do this, but you can’t do that. If at one point something that used to be a no-no is allowed, then so be it. If all of a sudden there is another policy adjustment and we have to think again about certain content, well then everyone will have to pay attention. These things are fairly subjective. We all just have to look out for ourselves.  

Take spiritual possession for example. It shouldn’t be portrayed as a supernatural event, but approached scientifically. For example, how are you going to represent the reincarnation of Tibetan monks? It’s simple: Respect the religion and customs of our Tibetan compatriots, don’t approach it looking for novelty, and don’t portray it without due care in other material, lest we create unnecessary misunderstandings between different ethnic groups.

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Another example is kissing or fondling scenes in normal romances. What are the standards? How do we shoot them in a way that can get past the screening process? The key is to be sensible. It’s perfectly fine to portray romance in a healthy and moderate way. However, gratuitous content that is simply there to excite the viewer should be avoided.

We also advise producers to restrict representations of romantic relationships between minors, along with underage smoking, drinking, and fighting, all of which exist in reality. Puppy love isn’t illegal, but we shouldn’t encourage it, should we?

There is also the regulation that stipulates producers should “avoid appeals for the reconsideration of historical figures about whom verdicts have already been made.” In assessing this, we must ask: Where does the verdict come from? Are there specific time periods or individuals involved? Here I must say that TV dramas are there for a mass audience. There is no need to upset existing conclusions about certain events or historical figures that are already accepted by the public. There’s no need for sensationalism. Questioning history is the job of historians. As TV producers, you don’t need have the need — nor the qualifications — to take on such research duties.

Yang Siting: Will the guidelines bear any relevance to imported foreign shows?

You Xiaogang: Foreign shows are the remit of SAPPRFT. Our guidelines cater to Chinese productions.

Yang Siting: There has been talk that policies on web series are tightening, that “what doesn’t belong on TV doesn’t belong online either.” Is that true?

You Xiaogang: I can’t comment on that. However, I don’t think it’s about tightening or not. It’s just about whether there’s standardization. It wasn’t standardized before, so let’s standardize it now.

Yang Siting: Will this kind of environment keep creators from pushing the boundaries and creating new things?

You Xiaogang: Of course you can try new things, as long they are within the boundaries of what is permitted, and are compatible with today’s social order. Of course you can experiment, be it on TV or the Internet. But surely the existence of a rule is better than the absence of one, isn’t it? We’re giving you the guidance up front, a yardstick for creators to keep in their minds.

That SAPPRFT has publicized their points of views is a good thing. You can make adjustments accordingly. If you refuse to adjust, and insist that you write it in your own way, then go for it. You are free to do as you please, but whether your work makes it out or not is down to the rules. So you may as well just follow them. Of course, the rules might change, and you can just wait until they’re changed. It’s very simple. It’s how everything is.

Yang Siting: What would you like to say to the Internet users and audiences who have been following this matter with both interest and skepticism?

You Xiaogang: The guidelines are for the industry, not the audience. It’s part of our production procedure. They’re like safety regulations in the food industry. We’re providing the manufacturer a set of industry standards. Whether the customer buys the product or not, whether they eat it or not, is another matter entirely. People have no need to overreact. It’s just how we’ve always done things. You want to produce a TV show? Well pick up the guidelines and have a look. If you’re just an audience member, just choose the shows you like.

Internet users don’t make TV dramas — they are the audience. The guidelines are something we’ve developed with SAPPRFT to prevent producers from pushing the boundary too far and slamming into a brick wall as a result. If something had slammed into that wall, the audience would never even have seen it. So I don’t understand their skepticism. This isn’t the U.S. This isn’t Korea. This is China. Surely, Chinese television should reflect China’s society.

(Header image: Three teenagers at the Wuxi National Digital Film Industry Park watch a TV broadcast of the hit series, ‘The Empress of China,’ in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, June 6, 2015.  Zhu Jipeng/VCG)

Papi Jiang, whose humorous video clips are a sensation on the Chinese Internet, has run afoul of China’s censors for her use of swear words.

According to a short news article by party newspaper People’s Daily, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT), a government media supervision body, has told Papi Jiang to take her videos offline. The videos can be uploaded again when the coarse language has been removed and they adhere to regulations, the People’s Daily reported on its mobile app on Monday.

SAPPRFT decided to censor Papi Jiang “following reports from the public and evaluations by experts,” said the People’s Daily.

Papi Jiang is the nickname of 29-year-old Jiang Yilei, a graduate student at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing. She started uploading short video clips last year mocking everyday situations in a variety of languages, and quickly rose to fame. Jiang now has more than 10 million followers on microblogging platform Weibo, and her videos have been viewed nearly 50 million times on the streaming website Youku.

Since Monday evening Papi Jiang’s videos were no longer available on Youku, her public WeChat account, and other websites, but could still be viewed on Weibo. Papi Jiang's agent did not respond immediately to questions from Sixth Tone.

Papi Jiang last month received investments totaling 12 million yuan ($1.85 million) from venture capitalists. Advertising slots for her videos will be auctioned later this week on April 21. 

Earlier reports of Papi Jiang being censored that had appeared on public WeChat accounts earlier on Monday had been dismissed by her investors as rumors.

In reaction to the news, Yang Ming, a business partner of Papi Jiang, told Sixth Tone’s sister publication The Paper that they “will continue to make videos in accordance with socialist core values.”

On Monday evening Papi Jiang released a new video ridiculing weight loss. She added a message, saying that she accepts the criticism and will improve upon her mistakes. That video contained no swear words.

This article has been updated to reflect new developments.

(Header image: A screenshot of Papi Jiang performing as a character in one of her video clips. Jin Wen/IC)

With contributions from Wang Lianzhang.

Zou Shiming has boxed his way to two Olympic gold medals for China — first in Beijing in 2008 and then in London four years later. At last week’s Beijing International Film Festival, Zou was once again in fighting form, as he put on a headset and took swipes at a virtual opponent.

Virtual reality (VR) was one of the hottest topics among the film elite and industry insiders gathered at the festival. There were at least five forums dedicated to the topic, such as “The Peak Is Coming,” which identified VR as the next big thing for the Chinese film industry, and “The Future of the Film industry,” which declared 2016 as the first year of the “VR Age.”

Both the Chinese movie industry and VR technology itself seem on the cusp of making it big. Many Chinese film companies see VR as a weapon they can use to take on big-budget competition from Hollywood in the near future.

According to Ye Ning, CEO of Huayi Brothers Pictures, the hype surrounding VR shows the ambition of today’s Chinese filmmakers. “China is on the way of becoming the biggest film market, and the most important film power, in the world,” Ye told Sixth Tone. “Therefore, it is our responsibility to bring cutting-edge technology like VR to the movie industry.”

Yet in sharp contrast to the hype, the quality of current VR films is underwhelming. At the forum “The Future of the Film industry,” 90 percent of attendants identified themselves as “VR insiders” or “VR fans.” Yet they all struggled to name even one VR film which they would recommend.

Even some of the VR insiders most invested in the technology are skeptical about VR movies. One of these is Ding Liang, senior vice president of Fantawild Holdings Inc., a Shenzhen-based company that started to explore VR technology as early as 2000. Ding told Sixth Tone that although he firmly believes VR technology will excel in fields like gaming, education, and social networking, he remains cautious about the prospects of VR in the movie industry.

“The essence of VR is a panoramic self-exploration, so it is sure to break the so-called fourth wall,” Ding said, referring to the boundary between the viewer and the movie. “So the big problem is, how can a VR film provide a number of interactive experiences yet still be a movie.”

Jin Wenjun, director of the first Chinese VR short film, the 12-minute “Live Till the End,” told Sixth Tone that shooting a VR film is totally different from traditional methods of filmmaking. Close-ups, long shots, montages, fast cuts — all are common movie-making techniques that cannot be used when making a VR film, he said. According to Jin, the only tools available to the director of a VR movie are the actors’ performances and the plot design.

Jin said the ideal is that audiences feel free to explore a world and a plot created by the filmmaker, but that they make only the choices the director wants them to make. “But I don’t know how to do this, at least for now,” he said, referring to making VR movies.

Besides artistic obstacles, the technology itself has a long way to go, too. VR equipment is still inconvenient to use and uncomfortable to wear. More importantly, some people feel dizzy after watching VR images for more than a few minutes.

But many in the industry are nevertheless determined to explore the realm of VR films. “What we really have to overcome is the limitation of our thinking and imagination,” Dong Aihui, CEO of VRision Film, told Sixth Tone. “Instead of worrying about the harm that VR might bring to traditional film, we should think about how to use existing film techniques to make a VR film.”

Zou, the boxer, seems ready for the battle ahead. After waving his fists in the air for a few minutes, he took off his VR equipment and excitedly announced he is going to make and star in a VR film on boxing.

“One thing we have to realize is that VR technology will bring a revolution to the film industry, and, unlike 3-D or IMAX, this revolution will be earthshaking,” Li Jie, senior vice president of Youku Tudou Inc., a popular Chinese video streaming service, told Sixth Tone. “In terms of film technologies, Chinese filmmakers have always lagged behind, but now, when it comes to VR films, we are standing on the same starting line as Hollywood,” he added. “This time we should not lose.”

(Header image: Delegates use Gear VR headsets at the Samsung Unpacked launch event ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Feb. 21, 2016. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images/VCG)

With an all-star cast and a total investment of 120 million yuan (over $18.5 million), a new television drama will be the first major production with an anti-corruption theme since the predecessor of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT) banished such programs from prime time in 2004.

At that time, SAPPRFT’s predecessor did not give many details as to why the genre fell out of favor, but industry players said the crackdown was because too many TV series focused too closely on the dark side of Chinese politics. So, for more than a decade, shows that featured corruption could only be broadcast after 11 p.m., considered a bad time slot in a country where people go to bed early.

But now a revival is on the cards in the form of a 42-episode series titled “In the Name of the People,” a drama that tells the tale of officials and workers who vie over ownership of a state-owned factory.

“In this latest production, what we will present are the clashes between corrupt officials and the disadvantaged group — average citizens,” the show’s writer, Zhou Meisen, told Sixth Tone. A crew of 300-plus has already started filming in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, and the recording is expected to take four months to complete.  

Fan Ziwen, vice director of the Film and Television Center under the China’s prosecutor’s office, is closely involved with the production. He told Sixth Tone the show will air at the end of 2016. “I have great confidence that the production will pass censorship by the SAPPRFT,” he said.

In July 2015, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) discussed film and television productions that deal with corruption with SAPPRFT. According to a report in the Beijing Youth Daily, the director of the Television Series Administration Bureau under SAPPRFT, Li Jingsheng, said his office now has a mission to produce at least a couple of quality films, and two or three good television series, that have themes related to bribery each year.

President Xi Jinping launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign in November 2012. According to the CCDI, 34 provincial or ministerial-level officials were taken down on corruption charges last year alone.

Fan recalled that in 2014, the central government’s anti-corruption campaign was in full swing, yet anti-graft-themed television productions were rare. “I realized there ought to be television or film productions to reflect this social problem,” said Fan. He then got in touch with Zhou, who had previously composed four major television series within this genre.

What is also remarkable about this new series when compared to previous dramas in this category is the seniority of corrupt officials portrayed. In “In the Name of the People,” for example, one of the characters is a top ranking government leader.

Anti-corruption scholar Li Yongzhong told Sixth Tone that the changes in the authorities’ attitudes are encouraging, and that the role television productions can play in the campaign to stamp out unethical behavior should not be underestimated.

“They make the public understand how corruption is all around us,” said Li. “Most importantly, they inspire people to rethink our power system — that too high a centralization of power does us no good.”

(Header image: A security officer stands guard during the third plenary session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, March 13, 2016. Damir Sagolj/Reuters/VCG)

A tale of David and Goliath featured a movie executive kneeling and kowtowing before the camera on Thursday, asking China’s cinemas to give an arthouse film a bigger shot compared to the blockbuster competition.

As billions continue to pour into China’s movie market, which is projected to overtake Hollywood in 2017, non-mainstream productions are finding it increasingly hard to get in on the action. In China, a lack of dedicated arthouse cinemas means that low-budget movies often have to compete with multi-billion dollar productions in mainstream venues.

Fang Li, a movie producer, urged theater chains across China to offer more screen time, especially during prime time, for “Song of the Phoenix.” The film was released on May 6, and is the swan song of famous Chinese filmmaker Wu Tianming, who died shortly after the film’s completion in 2014.

“Song of the Phoenix” tells the story of a rural musician who takes on a young apprentice and teaches him in the ways of the suona, a traditional Chinese musical instrument similar to the clarinet.

In the 52-minute long video posted to his Weibo microblogging account Thursday evening, Fang told the camera that the film was struggling to reach an audience, with a total screen time amounting to just 1 percent of all current films. “This is a Chinese film about China’s own culture,” he said. “Can managers of all the theater chains give our own culture a chance?”

Although Fang was not involved in the production of “Song of the Phoenix,” he has joined around 200 other volunteers in promoting the film. Speaking to Sixth Tone, he said that he had stepped up to help with the distribution of the film because he loved it and was willing to do everything he could to help.

The film hit movie theaters the same day as Hollywood blockbuster “Captain America: Civil War,” which has netted about 835 million yuan (almost $130 million) at the Chinese box office revenue so far.

As of Friday afternoon, the takings of “Song of the Phoenix” totaled about 5 million yuan, according to CBO, a website tracking China’s box office.

The film will be phased out from movie theaters next week if it is not able to retain the 1 percent show times over the weekend, Fang told Sixth Tone.

His appeal to the theater chains appears to have borne fruit.

According to Fang, China Film Stellar Theater Chain, a Chinese cinema chain with one of the highest numbers of movie theaters, promised him on Friday that its more than 300 theaters across China will arrange prime-time slots for the movie this weekend.

In a similar move, movie theater chain Huayi Brothers Cinemas announced on its official Weibo account Friday that it would increase showings for the movie to a minimum of two screenings a day, with at least one during prime-time, at 17 theaters nationwide. In its statement, the cinema chain called on other major movie theaters to follow their footsteps in “contributing to the healthy development of China’s film industry.”

However, some observers believe that an increase in screenings alone will not do enough to help the arthouse movie industry in the long term.

Lu Meng, a drama and film expert, believes that if arthouse movie makers want to boost the revenue of their films at the box office then they should develop better promotion strategies.

She said that there is a place for films like “Song of the Phoenix” in China's movie market. It’s just that audiences “need to be nurtured,” she said. 

(Header image: A still frame from ‘Song of the Phoenix.’ IC)

In February, Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise appearance in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress — the largest mobile industry conference on Earth — caused a flurry of activity across social media platforms. He was there to discuss Facebook and Samsung’s new virtual reality (VR) partnership, and since then search results in China for VR have exploded, according to data released by Baidu Inc., China’s largest search engine.

However, while interest in the industry is at an all-time high, China is facing two major problems. First, its focus is on hardware production. There are currently over 1,000 companies catering to this in Shenzhen alone, a city in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. And yet, many countries besides China are pursuing the complete opposite approach. In an online conversation with He Jibo — an associate professor at the Wichita State University Psychology Department — he told me that most immersive multimedia companies in the United States are focusing their research efforts on content and software development over hardware.

Second, while the VR and augmented reality technology overseas has been applied to some extent in the military, medicine, and education sectors, in the rare instances of the Chinese market producing software over hardware, it is almost always based around gaming or leisure pursuits that focus on male users. It’s extremely uncommon for VR content to be produced with female users in mind.

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For the moment, it seems the industry China is slumped in an uncreative limbo, producing unvaried content capable of satisfying only a fraction of the market — that is, when it even creates software at all.

Hu Liubin, a film director who currently teaches at Shenzhen University, said that one of the reasons the Chinese industry is having such a hard time developing is that it is very difficult and expensive to produce in-depth computer-simulated content. “The unity between what the character sees and what the user sees, the ability of the content to spark an emotional reaction in the user, the resonance of human-machine interaction after the tech merges with our bodies — these are all challenges facing the creation of VR content,” he said.

It would seem then that the industry is simply lazy, looking only to turn a quick profit. This was further substantiated by a visit I paid to an immersive multimedia company in Shenzhen. Since a lot of my published work focuses on cybersex, I was invited by them to come discuss my research as they were in the process of developing an adult product. We spent most of the time discussing my work in the field of “virtual lovemaking.” Afterward, I offered to participate in the research and development process for their new product but was swiftly refused. Apparently the company had just wanted a few sexology theories to use in their presentations to increase their credibility with investors.

This only goes to show that Chinese computer-simulated content production is mainly concerned with fulfilling the fantasies its male producers and consumers have toward girls and generally have no interest in what a woman has to say on how to form the product. The industry is currently able to satisfy the demands of its male users, but to diversify its market, VR must expand into other sectors. To be fair, there have been a couple examples of Chinese companies trying to branch out, but so far the scale has been very small.

At the recent Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism Architecture Conference held in Shenzhen and Hong Kong, a piece was exhibited called “Shenzhen Leaps.” Audience members were invited to sit on two moving chairs while wearing VR glasses which took them on a 1990s tour of Gangxia — an old village in downtown Shenzhen that remained undisturbed as the metropolis grew around it.

This exhibit was a comment on the enormity of Shenzhen’s urbanization over the last several decades. It was a collaborative effort by governmental departments, public institutions, and private enterprises, and its great success at the conference showed that there is a lot of potential for VR in the education sector.

VR is also moving to media. Shen Xiaolei previously worked in Africa for Phoenix Television. On returning to China in October 2015, he launched an immersive journalism studio called Seelephant. This type of journalism uses VR to create a world that users can explore for themselves, thus absorbing them entirely into the story. Seelephant focuses on contemporary African news and documentaries, and while its content may not be China-specific, it nonetheless shows an expansion of the domestic immersive multimedia industry.    

Shenzhen Leaps and Seelephant offer a glimmer of hope forward for an industry that is currently stationary. China must continue to use its technological supremacy in the world to diversify its market and create content that engages users in more profound ways than first-person shooters or online sex.

(Header image: A man demonstrates a virtual reality first-person shooter game at the Yiwu International Expo Centre, Zhejiang province, April 27, 2016. Lu Bin/VCG)

Over the past two years, mergers and fierce competition have slowly whittled down the number of Chinese online music platforms. The two that have pulled ahead of the pack are Alibaba Group’s Ali Music and Tencent Holdings Limited’s QQMusic. Ali Music’s focus has been on gathering user-generated content, while QQ’s has been on stockpiling the rights to an ever-growing library of content. But while the approaches of the companies may differ, they both share a common goal: monetizing the digital music industry.

But this won’t be an easy task, as businesses in China have previously struggled to sell music to consumers. Chinese music consumers clearly remain unimpressed by current “freemium” models. According to the Wall Street Journal, paid accounts in 2015 made up less than 10 percent of QQMusic users. To exacerbate matters, music companies are worried they’ll lose customers if they include advertisements on their streaming websites. The main reason for this is that people simply aren’t willing to pay for content or watch advertisements when the readily accessible market for pirated content offers so many free alternatives. To date neither freemium nor ad-based models have been profitable.

And yet while the Internet may have helped usher in an era of piracy, dealing a severe blow to the music industry, it has also helped increase the exposure of up-and-coming musicians and producers. Computers offer people the ability to upload content, digitally alter it with sound effects, and stream it online.

The industry needs to try something new to increase profits. Music sales have always hinged on the constant creation of new content, but this is apparently overlooked by China’s music platforms, which continue to remain focused on connecting with consumers over artists and producers. The music industry cannot survive if it prioritizes consumption over production of professional content.

Song Ke, the CEO of Ali Music, said at the FTChinese Annual Forum, held by the Financial Times in October 2015: “Users aren’t always just satisfied with listening to music; they may also want to make a song for someone they love. It may only make a hundred yuan, but they just want a chance to create something for their kids.”

Song’s remarks were an early indicator of Ali Music’s future plans, and in March the company announced that a new service named “Alibaba Planet” was undergoing internal testing. The platform was formally launched on May 18.

The multitude of services available on Alibaba Planet’s app speaks to Ali Music’s ambition. It will be aimed at all levels of the music industry and will combine into one integrated platform the ability to record, edit, buy and sell music, advertise, sell concert tickets, rent venues, and more. It will also provide a channel for artists to upload and stream their own music, thus linking producer, artist, and consumer.

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Previously, to purchase a song or find a performer for an event, the consumer would have to go through an intermediary organization, in the form of an online store, a management service, or a private individual. In return, the intermediary would receive a fee for providing the service.

Alibaba Planet is attempting to create a different kind of music platform — one which eliminates the need for middlemen, and one that allows both amateur musicians and industry professionals to connect directly with consumers. Of course, the company will impose its own fees, but it has promised that they will be minimal and completely transparent.

If done well, Alibaba Planet could disrupt the music industry the same way that Taobao, another Alibaba Group subsidiary, revolutionized e-commerce in China. But platforms like Alibaba Planet and Taobao rely on large user bases to effectively match businesses with consumers.

Promoting the new service will be the responsibility of Ali Music’s triumvirate of leaders: Song Ke, He Jiong, and Gao Xiaosong — three leading figures in China’s entertainment industry.  It is a task they are well suited for, and the Alibaba Group, which already owns a host of online streaming and commerce platforms, has both the resources and experience to lay the groundwork for success.

Of course, for Alibaba Planet unifying and consolidating all of the planned services into one platform will take time. There currently isn’t a single company in the entire world that has managed to successfully merge video, music, and social networking into a single service. Google has only just begun to unify YouTube and Google Play Music through a new subscription service, but even this lacks the sleek social networking tools Alibaba hopes to incorporate in its new platform.

The ultimate goal of Ali Music is to re-emphasize the role of producers in the online music industry. The company is hoping its users will be able not only to enjoy new music, but also to participate in the exciting creation process, giving everyone a chance to experience feelings of fame. The underlying idea is that people will happily pay for such a personal experience, and that this will steer the digital music industry onto a new path of profitability.

Ali Music has said it plans to launch an English version of its Alibaba Planet later this year. At this point, it seems that 2016 may see a complete overhaul of the Chinese music industry, and, if successful, it probably won’t be long before Western companies begin emulating Alibaba’s model.

(Header image: Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of the Alibaba Group, gestures during a speech at the WSJDLive conference in Laguna Beach, California, USA, Oct. 27, 2014. Lucy Nicholson/Reuters/VCG)

News outlets and social media accounts across the Western Hemisphere were ablaze with blessings for Bob Dylan on Tuesday as the folk legend celebrated his 75th birthday.

In China, where Dylan made his concert debut just over five years ago, the reaction was underwhelming, despite the fact that a number of modern-day rock musicians cite him as a crucial influence in their work.

On Baidu Tieba, a Reddit-like forum platform with over 300 million active users, the big day was marked only by a solemn post in a forum dedicated to Dylan that read “The forum’s so quiet on his birthday.” That post has since elicited a handful of “Happy birthdays” in response.

Homages to the singer were also hard to come by on Zhihu, China’s most popular knowledge-sharing platform akin to Quora. As of Tuesday, the most popular questions related to Dylan were “Why did Bob Dylan start painting?” and “What do you think of [Dylan’s newly released album] ‘Fallen Angels’?” — to which a user offered the plaintive response: “Just don't be like Bowie and release a new album and die.”

On streaming service Xiami, a platform that attracts fans of Western music, Dylan has around 65,000 followers. By comparison, China’s “godfather of rock,” Cui Jian, who has cited Dylan as a key inspiration, has almost half a million.

On the day before Dylan’s birthday, pedestrians on the streets of Beijing struggled to identify the musician from several photographs depicting him in his youth up to the present day.

Graduate student Xiao Qi, 24, resorted to wild guesses: “He’s a politician? Or some kind of revolutionary? Maybe a drug dealer?”

Twenty-eight-year-old IT technician Huang Junjie, though equally unable to conjure up a name, did have some insights to offer. “I think he probably understands people. Maybe he’s a lawyer, or in sales,” Huang said. “His eyes look like he can see right through a person.”

A lack of recognition for Dylan was also made apparent prior to his 2011 Shanghai concert, which disappointed some observers outside of China who had hoped he would use the concert to spur debate about China’s political system. On the China side, matters weren’t helped when the Shanghai-based newspaper Xinmin Evening News mistakenly printed a photograph of country music legend Willie Nelson in their coverage of the concert.

Despite Dylan’s less-than-prominent profile in Chinese pop culture, he is cited by several of Chinese rock’s biggest stars as a primary source of inspiration.

Among them is singer Wang Feng, currently one of China’s biggest rock stars. Though Cui Jian, whose early style was influenced by Dylan, is credited as bringing rock to China, Wang is widely considered to have brought it into the mainstream. His carefully cultivated rock star image has earned him a place on the panels of Chinese TV’s biggest talent shows and has made him a poster boy for countless marketing campaigns. He is also married to megastar actress Zhang Ziyi.

Wang’s 2009 album “Belief Flies in the Wind” was seen by many to be a tasteful nod to Dylan’s 1963 hit “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

But when Wang released the song “Hero” the following year, however, many felt the homage had turned to outright plagiarism. Dylan’s China-based fans upbraided Wang with accusations that, barring its Chinese lyrics, the song was little more than a sped-up version of Dylan’s 1994 “You Belong to Me.”

But criticism didn’t stop Wang’s song from becoming immensely popular. It even became the official anthem of the Beijing Guoan Football Club for a period of time.

Zhe Xiahou, a Beijing-based music producer and audio engineer, believes that Dylan’s following in China, though limited, can be attributed to the work of Cui Jian. “I think the biggest influence Dylan made on China is through Cui Jian,” Zhe said.

“He was really influenced by Dylan. If anything, Dylan made it into Chinese rock through him.”

Additional reporting by Anthony James.

(Header image: Bob Dylan performs during a concert at the Shanghai Grand Stage, April 8, 2011. Liu Xingzhe/Sixth Tone)

After being picked up for using marijuana in Beijing in August 2014, award-winning Taiwanese actor Ko Chen-tung, better known as Ko Kai, is back — this time as a patriotic police officer during the Japanese occupation.

His new show, “Wu Ying,” started filming in early May. Details such as a release date have yet to be announced.

Two months after the arrests of Ko and Jaycee Chan, son of star Jackie Chan, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film & Television (SAPPRFT), China’s media regulator, announced a suspension of unspecified duration on the careers of actors caught doing drugs. 

Ko’s speedy redemption suggests the industry has softened its stance towards actors with drug abuse histories.

A commentary in party newspaper People’s Daily on Thursday called on audiences to be forgiving. “If he sincerely regrets what he did, if he turned over a new leaf and starts giving out positive energy once more, then he should be given a new chance,” it said. The commentary also called for a step-by-step system to bring artists caught with drugs back into the industry, though it didn’t elaborate.

Ko was one of the biggest names to be caught in an anti-drugs crackdown by Beijing police. In June 2014 president Xi Jinping declared that drug offenders should be severely punished.

In October 2014, SAPPRFT called the media an important medium for “transmitting socialist culture and core values,” and said the actors’ behavior harmed society and adversely affected young people.

Ma Zengwei, a lawyer with the Beijing–based Limin Law Firm, told Sixth Tone that celebrities are held to a higher standard in these situations. “Celebrities are public figures, and they have an influence on society. That influence can be positive or negative,” said Ma. “The case was a typical example of trying to teach the audience a lesson.”

The government’s 2014 Annual Report on Drug Control in China counted a total of 2.5 million drug addicts registered with the government, but the nation’s assistant minister of public security estimated the actual number of addicts was 14 million in 2015. Methamphetamine, opiates such as heroin, and ketamine represent the vast majority of drugs used illegally, according to the report.

Penalties for drug crimes are harsh, with offenses such as trafficking punishable by death or lifetime imprisonment. The strategy is aimed at deterrence. However, drug usage carries a lighter sentence.

Ko served two weeks in detention and was fined 2,000 yuan (around $305). He avoided a trial, Ma said, because “taking drugs doesn’t offend criminal law.” 

In a highly publicized apology during a press conference after his release, Ko, with reddened eyes and tears streaming down his face, promised to straighten up. “I have no reason, no cause, and no excuses for what I did,” he said. “This incident is like an ugly scar that will remain on my body.”

Just three years earlier, Ko had been featured with other celebrities in an anti-drug video. “I don’t do drugs!” he exclaimed in the recording.

Some netizens reacted with wry wit to the news of Ko’s new role.

“A drug user playing a cop? Life is so ironic,” said one Weibo user. “I just called SAPPRFT to report this issue,” said another.

Others were more forgiving. 

“As long as he has changed, let’s give him a chance,” one user remarked. “Don’t be so strict.”

Additional reporting by Li You.

(Header image: Ko Chen-tung apologizes to the public for drug use during a press conference in Beijing, Aug. 29, 2014. VCG)

Don’t be surprised if you go out in Shanghai on the night of June 7 and see two groups of people charging at each other shouting “For the Horde!” and “For the Alliance!” And if someone stabs a wand in your face and tries to turn you into a sheep, be cool.

The warriors will be out on the streets to catch the premier of “Warcraft,” a Hollywood fantasy movie based on the massively popular online game franchise World of Warcraft (WoW). Interest in China has been brewing for some time, and pre-sales of its debut screenings have surpassed 20 million yuan (around $3 million).

The film’s producers have China’s devout WoW gamers to thank.

A party of 1,300 gamers will occupy a cinema in downtown Shanghai on Tuesday night to celebrate the movie. “For WoW gamers, the movie is of particular importance,” said 41-year-old Chen Xiaojiang, one of the event’s organizers. “For us old WoW gamers, the event is not only a celebration, but also a commemoration of our younger days.”

He told Sixth Tone that many gamers will come from other provinces to unite with their comrades-in-arms.

Shanghai’s event is just one among celebrations happening around the country. Wu Fan, or “Gforce” as he is known to his virtual comrades, has booked a whole theater of 300 seats in his home city of 2.2 million, in China’s northern Shanxi province, for anyone who’s ever played the game.

This is Wu’s way of expressing gratitude to the game, he told Sixth Tone. When he says “World of Warcraft has changed my life,” he isn’t exaggerating. The 31-year-old has made his name as one of the best PvP (player versus player) gamers in China — a reputation that has helped him turn his pastime into a career. He now has his own video game production studio, which has made games for the likes of internet giants Tencent and Netease.

A fairly tepid reaction to the movie abroad so far — only 24 percent of people on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film positive ratings — have not dampened interest within China. Over the past month, some stores on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao, for example, have seen an eight- to tenfold increase in the sales of WoW-themed T-shirts.

“Few movies adapted from video games can be successful, but the Warcraft movie may be an exception, judging from the pre-sale,” said gaming professional Sun Xinceng, who previously worked in the technology, media, and telecom field for 10 years.

He added that the success of such movies depends on how large the fan base is and whether the fans have collective memories of the game.

WoW seems to tick both of these boxes. Released in 2004, the game is one of the most successful massively multiplayer online role-playing games ever. At its peak in 2010, it had 12 million subscribers worldwide, half of which were estimated to be Chinese players.

The game’s popularity is by no means limited to hermits holed away in attics or internet cafes — mainstream culture has embraced the franchise, too. Its maps and characters have been borrowed by media outlets to illustrate news, with one 2008 military documentary on China Central Television using an adapted map of the game’s territories as an allegory to illustrate military drills happening in the Middle East.

That’s not to say the franchise’s path into China has been free of bumps. In its early years, the examination and approval process that foreign games had to undergo delayed release of the game’s expansion packs — enrichment to the game’s original content — by months, even years. The result was a so-called harmonized game world, where skeletons were covered with flesh, and severed heads and skulls were replaced by benign boxes and bags.

But changes and delays to the game didn’t do much to stem its popularity in China. Many of the earliest active Chinese WoW gamers were college students and junior workers. They had enough freedom from the discipline of parents or the burdens of family life, as well as adequate means to fund their passion, as the game bills users according to their playing time.

Over a decade later, WoW has become more than simply an online pastime for many players in China. Its virtual world has expanded into their real world.

Ai Li, a marketing director at a gaming company, is one of them. She started playing WoW when she was a college student, and now, at the age of 31 and with her own family, she still plays. In honor of the game, she and her husband, whom she met through the game when he betrayed his horde to join her, were married in full WoW-themed refinery. She spent the day before giving birth to their son raiding a dungeon with a legion of 10 players.

Ai is also an organizer of the Shanghai gathering scheduled for Tuesday, and she told Sixth Tone that she would sit through the premier even if it turned out to be two hours of blank screen. Her enthusiasm and dedication are shared by her peers, some of whom, she said, have sworn to watch the movie as many times as they have characters in the game. Many players have up to 10 characters.

Like Wu, Ai feels indebted to the game for her career path. “The game has taught me sacrifice and responsibility,” she said.

The game attaches great importance to teamwork, with raids often requiring the collaboration of up to 40 people. Everyone is expected to do their job for the greater good of the team, yet what makes the world even more real is that people who make the greatest contributions don’t necessarily get the best rewards.

“People remember your sacrifice,” said Ai. During the raid on the day before the birth of Ai’s son, the 10-strong raiding party seized a particularly rare beast. Everyone in the group voted to give it to Ai.

“It’s just like how your boss will see your contributions and reward them,” Ai said. “Maybe that reward doesn’t come in the way you want, but you will still get something for your work.”

Chen shares Ai’s belief in WoW’s didactic value. “Many people learn their first lesson of life from the game,” he said. “It teaches people how to get along with others. Say, when there is a conflict of interests among team members, do you fight to get what you want or give it up for others? You can’t always think of yourself.”

Chen also thinks that WoW creates a community via its system of guilds — in-game fraternity-like organizations that enable players to team up and take down stronger enemies. “Members of my guild still meet each other offline,” said Chen. “We’ve grown up together. There is a bond between us.”

However strong those bonds may be, WoW’s subscribers around the world dropped to 5.6 million last year, as aging gamers have reduced their playing time in favor of family and work. Some also complain that the game has changed too much — to them, efforts to make it easier for newcomers to grasp the game seem like “fast food.”

New gamers, however, still find the game’s grand design too complicated to pick up immediately. Wang Yihao, a college student at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, said that the campus now belongs firmly to League of Legends, a popular “multiplayer online battle arena” game now owned by Chinese tech goliath Tencent. “League of Legends is much easier to grasp and therefore more suitable for new gamers,” Wang said.

Additional reporting by Fan Jialai.

(Header image: A still frame from the ‘Warcraft’ film. IC)

An increasing number of children in China are retreating from reality and developing what are known as “2-D complexes” — a strong attachment to two-dimensional characters and the worlds they inhabit. It is characteristic for people with 2-D complexes to spend a lot of time alone, playing video games, reading manga, or watching anime.

And yet, instead of condemnation, most Chinese parents tolerate their children locking themselves away in their 2-D worlds. According to an iResearch survey, 70 percent of parents in China are fine if their children are addicted to 2-D culture as long as they maintain good grades in school. This may seem strange to Western parents, many of whom deliberately encourage their kids to spend more time outside.

Are Chinese parents crazy? Many Westerners worry about the underdeveloped social skills and negative health consequences which are a byproduct of spending extended periods inside and alone. They probably raise their eyebrows at what they perceive to be the Chinese asleep at the helm of their parenting duties, but there are three main reasons that a 2-D addiction may be tolerated in China.

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First, many Chinese parents would prefer to keep their children locked up inside instead of letting them run free outside for safety reasons. This is especially true for parents who work long hours and can’t always be around to supervise. A 2-D addiction may not be desirable, but time spent in front of a computer is safer than the real world.

Second, many Chinese parents are obsessed with their children getting perfect grades in school. In the iResearch report, about half of parents said they would let their children carry on their 2-D obsessions as long as they did well in school.

However, even if it is possible to juggle academics and a 2-D addiction, an important consideration is whether or not the artifacts of this culture, such as video gaming and watching animated films, have potential detrimental side effects on a child. Does 2-D culture actually have a negative impact on future academic success? Further research needs to be done but a study published in PLOS ONE Journal didn’t find video games to have harmful to cognitive function.

Finally, Chinese parents are also much less concerned than Westerners about potential harm to the social skills of their children. Going out and socializing with friends is not something that most parents push their children to do.

One reason for this is that having developed social skills — in terms of meeting new people — traditionally hasn’t been as important for young adults in Chinese society. Michelle Chen, a woman I know who works as a human resources agent at an American company in Shanghai told me that since people in her company already have developed social networks from school, family, and work, they have far fewer social events than the company’s offices in United States.

She told me that even at the company’s annual party people prefer to simply socialize among their groups of acquaintances. “Striking up a conversation with people you’ve never met is not the norm. People will feel weird and may even get suspicious of your intentions if you do that.”

And yet, while 2-D addictions are often associated with antisocial behavior, the rise in popularity of the culture is actually increasing socialization between young people in China. More importantly, it’s uniting people with similar interests. This is an important shift in a country where social networks are most commonly formed through matchmaking, school, or work.

More and more fans of the genre are meeting up offline with others who share similar interests — both as dates with people met online and at events organized by the 2-D websites. At a cosplay exhibition earlier this year, state-owned China Central Television interviewed one of the performers of a dance group, who said the group had formed because of their common love for 2-D culture.

These online and offline events in turn help people to break from their old social circles and get out to meet new people. Ironically, many of the things parents try to prevent their children from doing in condoning their children’s 2-D lifestyles are happening anyway.

(Header image: Two teenagers dressed up as characters from manga comics look at a smartphone at the Wuhan Optics Valley Animation Festival, Hubei province, May 1, 2010. Shepherd C.Zhou/VCG)

When the Shanghai Disney Resort officially opens on June 16, migrant construction worker Xie Jun won’t be there to show off the Fantasyland attraction he helped build to his toddler.

By then, the 29-year-old native of Anhui province will probably have moved on to a new job at the next construction site. He will still be far away from his wife, Liu Ying, and his 18-month-old left-behind son, Guo Guo.

But in Xie’s eyes, he will be a step closer to providing his family with a better future.

The couple abandoned the dreams of their youth long ago — his to teach, hers to be a writer — to play bit parts in the creation of the illusion factory that is Shanghai Disneyland.

Xie is one of an estimated 277 million migrant workers in China last year, leaving behind around 61 million children, mostly in the countryside. Many migrant workers choose to live away from their families because China’s household registration system, or hukou, makes it difficult for them and their family members to get full access to social services in their adopted cities. Construction workers like Xie, who move regularly from site to site, are particularly unstable.

Xie is tall and handsome, but his tough, calloused hands seem as if they should belong to a much older man. Still, his black-framed glasses give him the air of an academic rather than a construction worker.

“I had a lot of dreams when I was young,” Xie says. “I wanted to be a teacher so I would be able to go live in a big city. But people change when they grow up. Life forces us to change. We have no choice.”

“Reality is cruel, and it’s not as beautiful as the fairy tales of Disneyland,” Xie adds.

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In a remote corner of Anhui province, not far from the majestic Yellow Mountains, Xie’s wife Liu tells a similar story of missed opportunities.

The twenty-six-year old, who likes to wear brightly colored sports gear around the house, says that when she was younger, she didn’t envisage becoming a left-behind wife, eking a living from harvesting tea and taking care of her baby while her husband worked in construction in Shanghai.

Instead, Liu had wanted to be a writer ever since her primary school teacher commended her composition skills. But after she came down with a serious illness, she had to drop out of school for an extended period. By the time she was ready to resume her studies, her classmates had advanced so far that it was impossible for her to ever catch up.

Back in his village, Xie’s family once grew tea, but their fields have been all but abandoned ever since Xie and his parents left for the coastal cities in search of a better livelihood.

Liu, who picks tea for her family, believes that a man like Xie, still young and healthy, is better off working at a place like Shanghai Disney than scraping by on a farm. “I hope he can earn more money and make a good living for us,” she says.

But Xie says working as a builder on the first-ever Disneyland in mainland China has been arduous.

“The physical labor is endless. I feel like a machine, just going and going,” Xie says.

Disney told Sixth Tone it was among the first multinational corporations in China to introduce a comprehensive program focused on construction workers’ labor conditions and rights — a program that includes stringent health and safety conditions. Disney also requires companies it contracts to comply with local labor laws.

While at Disney, Xie was employed by Shanghai Construction No. 4 Group Co. Ltd., one of many outsourcing companies hired for the project. He is one of more than 30,000 people that construction workers estimated have toiled to complete Shanghai Disneyland since construction began in the spring of 2011.

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For his contribution to the theme park, Xie received an extra bonus in the form of three complimentary tickets for him and his family. But with the total cost of travel, accommodation, and meals, a family excursion to Shanghai Disney was still prohibitively expensive, so the couple decided against it. Xie used one of the tickets for himself and discarded the others, preferring to channel the “savings” into his own “castle” back home in Anhui province — he had promised his wife he would buy tatami-like mats that cost around 3,700 yuan ($560).

Disney’s theme parks are one of the company’s largest and most profitable divisions, generating $16.2 billion in revenue last year — nearly a third of overall revenue.

Shanghai Disneyland will become the second-largest among Disney’s six theme parks worldwide — in Asia there are also Disney parks in Tokyo and Hong Kong. The new Shanghai resort covers almost 1,000 acres and cost about $5.5 billion to build. Last year, 16.6 million people visited Tokyo Disneyland, according to industry non-profit Themed Entertainment Association, while 6.8 million visited Hong Kong Disneyland.

Between April 26 and early June, a reported 960,000 people visited the park as part of its soft opening.

Xie began work on the site in early 2015, around one month after his only son was born.

When construction was at its peak, Xie often found himself toiling for as many as 84 hours per week. For much of this time, he was on the team that built the Enchanted Storybook Castle, part of the Fantasyland attraction, designed to bring iconic Disney stories such as “Frozen” to life.

In exchange, Xie says, he got good medical and other on-the-job-related insurance, and the money was decent: around 80,000 yuan per year, roughly half of which he managed to send back home. “Shanghai is too expensive,” Xie says.

A relative introduced Xie to Liu at the end of 2013. A wedding followed, and the couple left to find work in Shanghai: Xie on building sites, Liu in textile factories.

Later, Liu returned to her village and gave birth to Guo Guo. With his arrival, Liu’s earlier fantasies were replaced with more grounded aspirations. Now, she hopes to open a small shop with her husband one day and sell milk tea or ice cream, with their profits going toward Guo Guo’s education. Liu hopes he will be able to attend a top kindergarten, or even a school in the city.

Liu’s family home is in the village of Yang, not far from Wushi Town, a small, bustling market town in the southern part of Anhui province. Liu, whose grandfather fought the Americans in the Korean War, lives with Guo Guo and her extended family in a simple wooden structure surrounded by hills and mountains. Tucked high in the rafters of the house is a swallow’s nest, considered an auspicious sign in China.

This is tea-picking country, and the fragrant leaves are an important source of income for Liu’s family, whose two-acre mini-tea plantation starts just outside the front door. At home, Liu pitches in with the planting, picking, and processing of green tea, including the storied Huangshan maofeng and Taiping houkui varieties for which this part of Anhui is famous.

At the local market a pound of tea typically fetches around 100 yuan. On a good day, Liu and her relatives can pick enough tea leaves to yield up to five pounds after processing.

On March 28 — the first day tickets were available — the resort’s page on Alibaba’s online travel service Alitrip.com sold more than 20,000 tickets, and the resort’s own website received over 5 million page views during just the first half hour.

Ticket prices range from 370 to 499 yuan. While that’s less expensive than the 690-yuan equivalent for tickets to Disneyland’s original theme park near Los Angeles, it is still relatively expensive for Chinese families. Even in the affluent city of Shanghai, a ticket costs nearly one-tenth of the average monthly income of 5,500 yuan.

This admission-to-income ratio is even higher for most other Chinese cities, where incomes are generally lower.

Still, if visitor projections for Shanghai Disneyland pan out, revenues from the new resort could boost the company’s global theme park division revenues by more than a third.

Behind such income flows is an army of migrant workers like Xie. They have come from all parts of China, from as far away as northeastern Liaoning province near Russia, to mountainous Yunnan province on China’s southern border with Myanmar.

“Construction workers are the most unstable category of migrant workers, and their job is more physically demanding compared to others," said Lu Huilin, an associate professor at the sociology department of Peking University.

Daily wages for a construction worker typically range between 100 and 300 yuan. While these wages are better than what workers in many other industries can expect to receive, annual income can vary widely depending on the actual number of days worked each year.

Construction workers are also more likely to be victims of late or unpaid wages compared to other migrant workers in China. According to the latest government report on migrant workers in 2015, some 2 percent of construction workers were owed back wages from employers — twice the average rate for all migrant workers in China.

In order to offer greater security to Guo Guo in the future, sacrifices have to be made now.

“Since he was born, I have seen my child fewer than five times,” Xie says. “When he was a year old, I saw him at home. He was so affectionate toward me, cuddling up against my chest.”

But Xie’s visits are usually short and never leisurely. “He is always in a rush when he comes back,” says Liu.

The couple have discussed living as a family in Shanghai, but they quickly dismissed that idea.

“I want to take my child to Shanghai, but I’m afraid that the metropolis will be too chaotic,” Liu says. “I feel worried about that. I think it’s safer at home.”

Besides, Xie will come back in “four to five years,” she adds.

In the meantime, Liu communicates with her husband mainly through video calls on messaging app WeChat roughly twice a week, only visiting him in Shanghai on very rare occasions.

Liu says she’s too busy taking care of Guo Guo every day to think too much about her relationship with her husband.

For Xie, the separation is hard. “Every evening after I finish work, I always miss my family,” he says. “I feel I owe them.”

“I want to offer my son a happy life, so he can study hard and do well,” Xie says. “When Guo Guo grows up, I hope he can find a good job, a decent job.”

“I hope he won’t end up doing what I do. It’s too hard.”

Additional reporting by Cai Yiwen.

(Header image: Workers from Shanghai Disneyland are seen raking the land in front of the theme park’s castle, May 14, 2016. Yang Shenlai/Sixth Tone)

With the tacit consent of the celebrities involved, Chinese media outlets recently have been hyping up non-existent “bromances” between male stars, few of whom are gay.

There are all sorts of ways to hype up such bromances.

Some of the celebrities themselves use fake coming out stories to try and increase their fan base. At the end of last year, washed-up male pop singer Wilber Pan published a picture on China’s microblogging platform Weibo of him holding hands with another man under a Christmas tree, accompanied by the caption: “Both of us here wish everyone a Happy New Year.”

The image, which many believed to be a coming out announcement, became a trending topic on Weibo, with many entertainment news outlets picking up the story. However, the next day he clarified that the two men in the picture were him and his younger brother.

However, many of these supposed bromances are instigated by the media. At China’s 2015 Domestic Television Series Awards Ceremony, the organizers deliberately sat two popular male television stars — Hu Ge and Wallace Huo — next to each other to hype up their friendship.

In March this year, the two actors also made the front cover of the Chinese edition of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. The magazine included a series of affectionate images of the men in Hokkaido, Japan. When quizzed on the nature of their bromance in another interview, the two played along and said that if the other were still single in five years that they would consider being together. Recently, Wallace announced that he was in a relationship with a woman.

It might surprise people to read about heterosexual Chinese celebrities actively playing along with innuendos about their sexuality. After all, Chinese society is conservative, and acceptance of homosexuality is still relatively uncommon. According to a study by the Pew Research Center in 2013, only 13 percent of Chinese agreed that homosexuality is morally acceptable, 61 percent thought that it was unacceptable, and 17 percent believed that it wasn’t a moral issue.

Although the Chinese media reported widely on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to legalize gay marriage, many Chinese parents expressed dissatisfaction with the ruling on social media on the grounds that it may have harmful effects on children.

For a long time, Chinese-directed films that contain homosexual content have been banned from public movie theaters and on domestic television. In 2016, the hit show “Addicted” — an online series with gay themes — amassed over 10 million views within the first 24 hours of launch, but was taken down four weeks later by state sensors.

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Soon afterwards, the China Television Drama Production Industry Association released a set of guidelines specifically outlawing the inclusion of homosexual themes in television series. They placed homosexuality alongside incest and sexual perversion on a list of “abnormal sexual behaviors.”

So why then does the entertainment industry keep hyping up relationships between men?

First, LGBT rights are a hot topic across the world, meaning celebrities attract a lot of attention simply by associating with the LGBT movement. Although the majority of Chinese hold a conservative outlook on this topic, the country’s society is still relatively tolerant compared to many other countries.

Transgender dancer Jin Xing is one of China’s most popular talk show hosts. Cai Kangyong — a Taiwanese host and writer very popular among mainlanders — is also publicly out about his sexuality.

Another reason for all of the hype is the growing popularity of fu wenhua, or “rotten culture.” The term refers to a cultural phenomenon in which straight people feel emotional connections to gay people.

The best example of this is straight women — funu, or “rotten women” — who harbor affections or fantasies toward gay men. The website “Jinjiang Literature City” is a place where people can write and share fiction on rotten culture. According to the introduction on the website, Jinjiang receives over 100 million hits daily.

Two popular Chinese series from 2015, “Nirvana in Fire” and “The Disguiser,” featured heavily in rotten culture when fans paired up the male actors in reimaginings of the shows. Video-streaming websites like Bilibili have numerous videos where users have mashed together actors to make them look like couples.

This phenomenon can be found everywhere. Several British series like “Sherlock,” “Merlin,” and “The Bletchley Circle” have been given same-sex themes by Chinese internet users. To help Merlin and Arthur “get together,” internet users even produced an alternate version of “Merlin,” in which the role of Guinevere — King Arthur’s wife — was completely cut from the story.

The entertainment industry closely monitors social media, where many people who enjoy rotten culture publish their matchmaking preferences. To play into this market, the entertainment industry has begun hyping up many supposed bromances.

Thus, the popularity of rotten culture has become an economic affair. Not long ago, the Chinese brokerage company Minsheng Securities Co., Ltd. published a research paper claiming rotten culture to be a great business opportunity, and recommended buying shares in several of the industry’s related areas.

Of course, rotten culture is by no means a gay rights movement. Actually, all that most rotten women are interested in are attractive men and idealized forms of love — they don’t care about the hostility, hardship, and other difficulties that gay people actually face in their day-to-day lives.

In hyping up these celebrity relationships, the entertainment industry only seeks to draw attention and create a story. It is precisely because those celebrities are not gay — at least not publicly — that they feel comfortable pushing such stories. They neither have to worry about being castigated by a socially conservative population, nor about the possibility of being censored by the authorities.

However, even though rotten culture ignores the real and severe social pressures that gay people come under, hyping up bromances has still increased the visibility of gay issues, leading to a growing awareness.

In April this year, the Chinese courts accepted their first ever same-sex marriage case, in which a gay male couple claimed that the decision of the local civil affairs bureau in central China’s Hunan province not to issue them a marriage license was unlawful.

The court threw out the case. In interviews with journalists, the couple said that although they were disappointed with the outcome, they felt reassured by the large number of people who had come to support them.

Such shows of popular support contrast with the intransigence of the law and social customs — for all of the gleeful hyping up of same-sex friendships, there is still a ban on the inclusion of homosexual themes on television shows. Though we have seen many positive and inspiring changes, the social environment in which gay Chinese people find themselves is still a largely conservative one. China’s gay movement still has a long way to go to achieve widespread social acceptance.

(Header image: A still shows actors Hu Ge and Wallace Huo in the Chinese television series ‘Chinese Paladin 3.’ VCG)

Footage of factory workers on an assembly line is countered by images of China’s famous terracotta warriors. It’s a striking, simple metaphor: two of China’s most formidable human forces.

As the voice-over of the documentary “The Verse of Us” goes on to explain, however, many of China’s workers often feel alienated and cast off by the global capitalist system to which they are so central: “Five years of my youth come out of the anus of the machine/ in the form of oval-shaped plastic toys/ to be sold to blue-eyed children.”

The words come from a poem by Xie Xiangnan, a poet whose work experience in factories and on construction sites inspires his writing. Like each of the worker-poets featured in “The Verse of Us,” a 2015 arthouse film directed by Qin Xiaoyu, Xie puts words to the stark experiences of China’s migrant workers, whose stories often go untold.

It seemed like the perfect film for Chen Diqiao, a former factory worker with a keen interest in literature. “I really, really wanted to see it,” says the 26-year-old from Shiyan, a city in China’s central Hubei province. So when “The Verse of Us”, didn’t come to a single theater near him, Chen decided to take matters into his own hands. 

Soon after hearing about the film, Chen decided to organize a crowdfunded screening at a local cinema. “I recruited an audience of over 80 people and negotiated a screening time with the cinema. It wasn’t the easiest way to see a film, but it was a good alternative,” he reflects. 

All over the world, films outside the mainstream face difficulty reaching their audiences, as cinemas are often dominated by big-budget blockbusters whose ticket sales are hard to compete with. But in China’s booming movie market, which is projected to overtake Hollywood in 2017, the challenges are especially daunting.

Government support in China for the production and distribution of independent film is very limited, and dedicated arthouse cinemas do not exist. Just how dire the situation became clear last month when a well-known producer knelt down on camera to beg for more screenings for a movie on traditional Chinese culture.

Unable to secure screenings for their award-winning documentary, the makers of “The Verse of Us” have tried something new. Through social media, they searched for interested individuals like Chen to bring the film to local theaters. Volunteers were responsible for bringing in an audience, while the film’s staff took care of technical details.

After the Shiyan screening, Chen wrote an online essay thanking the filmmakers for making a rare film that reflects the reality of many in his Hubei hometown. He saw “his father, uncles and neighbors” in the older poets’ stories, while he, “a ‘new-generation’ worker,” spent several lonely years at the same Foxconn location where talented migrant-worker poet Xu Lizhi worked before he committed suicide in September 2014. “Did we brush shoulders?” he muses.

So far, over 350 screenings of “The Verse of Us” have been held in locations across China, ranging from China’s coastal metropolises to inland locations as far as Urumqi, the capital of northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is the widest distribution of a social documentary through crowdfunding so far, according to director Qin Xiaoyu.

Raising funding in such a way can be a way forward for arthouse movies, says Liu Jun, a scholar at the Beijing Film Academy and a film industry expert. “In the current market, cinemas lose money if they allocate screenings to low-budget movies,” he told Sixth Tone. “But if you bring your customers with you, it’s a different story.”

In the long run, however, Liu sees a more active role for government policy in creating a more diverse film environment in China. “The authorities are aware of the imbalance,” he says, citing interest from China’s leading media regulatory body in setting up arthouse cinemas. 

Duan Wanfu, who was in the audience of a crowdfunded screening in Beijing last month, was touched by the film’s portrayal of the living conditions of China’s migrant workers — the rural population that flocks to the country’s manufacturing centers for work.

“These individual tales of survival and human dignity are more important than flashy stories about China’s development,” says Duan, who works at a language training institute in the capital. “But they often go untold and neglected,” he says, before citing a line from the film: “The sun doesn’t shine equally on each of us.”

Duan, 27, believes a growing percentage of Chinese youth are interested in more honest, in-depth coverage of the societal problems around them. However, he isn’t optimistic that popular culture will absorb such dense subject matter any time soon, as openly discussing the position of China’s underprivileged can touch on politically sensitive issues. According to Duan, “The government doesn’t necessarily want marginalized voices to be heard.”

It is this kind of reflection on societal inequality that “The Verse of Us” wants to encourage, says director Qin. After compiling an anthology of worker poetry, the 41-year-old, who is also a literary critic, wanted to call wider attention to the work of working-class poets through film. “The Verse of Us,” he hopes, will encourage communication between China’s social classes. “Right now, social segregation in this country is getting more and more entrenched,” he says. “It is something to think about.”

The fact that it isn’t a film for everyone doesn’t mean it is not worthy of attention, Qin says. “If only a minority care about something, does that mean they should just be silenced by the mainstream? Of course not.” In a country with a population of 1.4 billion, he adds, even minority tastes account for significant numbers.

The “Verse of Us” has been criticized for causing middle-class audiences across the country to tear up without offering any answers or exploring the systemic reasons for the inequality it portrays. Was this not simply a way of commodifying the experiences of China’s working classes for the silver screen? Duan wondered about this as well as he watched the movie from his plush red theater chair. “I think that for many people, it’s just another movie,” he says. “It won’t change their behavior.” Still, he adds, “Change always starts with awareness.”

(Header image: A still from ‘The Verse of Us’ shows poet worker Jike Ayou writing a poem aboard a train. Courtesy of MeDoc.)

When actress Huang Yi — better known by her stage name, Hai Qing — was preparing to play fictional journalist Zheng Yuqing for a new television series, she spent a month undertaking her own investigative research by interning at Hefei Evening News in eastern China’s Anhui province.

Journalism drama “Nu Bu Qiangda Tian Bu Rong,” which translates approximately to “Heaven Cannot Abide Women Without Might,” premiered two weeks ago on satellite TV channels and a handful of online video platforms. The episodes on streaming website iQIYI had been viewed 142 million times as of Sunday.

The series centers around a female reporter, Zheng, and spans the 15 years from the heyday of China’s metropolitan newspapers at the turn of the millennium to the present day, when print media faces growing competition from digital media. The late 1990s to the early 2000s is considered the golden age of reporting in China, when state-approved — but not state-run — metropolitan newspapers began to proliferate, with a stronger focus on investigative reporting than party papers.

The show’s writer Liu Liu — “Six Six,” the pen name of feminist writer Zhang Xin —  told Sixth Tone that she arrived at the setting because she wanted to write about change. “I chose this time period so I could give the public a clear view of an industry, from its birth, through its peak, and then to its recession, and show the mindset of its workers,” she said.

The story begins in the present day with the surprise announcement that the director of the fictional Jiangzhou Metropolis Daily is being investigated for a disciplinary offence, and that Zheng has been appointed his successor. The action then rewinds to 15 years prior, when she was a young intern at the paper, on assignment with her boss covering a catastrophic flood.

Among the most vocal commentators on the series are media professionals, who are weighing in on the show’s portrayal of their industry. Some have found Zheng’s career trajectory theatrical and implausible. Journalist Station, a public account on messaging app WeChat covering industry news, pointed out that while the hard-working character sails smoothly up the ranks to become the newspaper’s director at the relatively young age of 36, in reality the director is appointed by the Party Publicity Department based on political expertise rather than reporting skills.

Others identified with the character’s determination to expose important issues, regardless of personal risk. In one episode, Zheng undertakes a perilous investigation into an illegal “gutter oil” business, in which used cooking oil was resold to unscrupulous vendors. Similar food safety crises punctuate China’s public debate on a regular basis.

Liu’s work is known for being politically engaged: According to Beijing Youth Daily, Liu’s previous work, “Snail Home,” which addressed the impact of official corruption in the real estate market, underwent emergency editing and was later banned. But “Nu Bu Qiangda Tian Bu Rong” glosses over the topic of censorship and state oversight, leading to indignant comments online saying Liu approaches this aspect of journalism uncritically.

When the scheduled series premiere in March was pushed back, many speculated that the delay was because the show had hit a snag with censors. Liu admitted in an interview with Sina Entertainment that some of the show’s original content had been cut but declined to specify what had been removed or for what reason.

Yan Wei, editor of the magazine “China Television,” posted on his Weibo microblog that the show provided a “courageous and informative” reflection on real social issues, saying, “Mainly through dissecting journalism, it examines all the growing pains that attended economic development.” However, he added that in attempting to give a broad view of China’s social transformation, the plot construction sometimes lacked depth.

Liu’s work is known for probing social issues. As well as exploring the media industry in transition, her latest work examines the obstacles that working women encounter.

Zheng is a gutsy, driven, and deeply ethical young woman whose pursuit of big stories often impacts her personal life. The series follows her and Lu Fangcheng, her boyfriend and eventual husband, as both are forced to compromise in their careers in order to maintain their family. Early episodes also show Zheng’s father disapproving of their relationship because Lu’s career is less prestigious than hers, highlighting changing expectations of gender roles across different generations.

An article by the Guangzhou Daily newspaper mentioned its female journalists were touched by a familiar scene in the first episode showing the protagonist’s husband taking care of their daughter at home, while Zheng worked late into the night.

The show’s focus on gender equality and work-life balance echoes Hai’s own values. When the 38-year-old actress was appointed China’s national ambassador for U.N. Women in October 2015, she spoke of her belief that “women and men should equally contribute and strike a balance between family and work, instead of making one partner shoulder most of the family responsibilities.” 

Women in media face industry-specific barriers. For many years, women have outnumbered men as journalism graduates in China, yet only 47 percent of press card-carrying working journalists are women, and men make up the overwhelming majority in managerial positions.

Wang Yaqiu, a female journalist, reported in April that many women in the industry felt they were rarely given the opportunity to cover the biggest breaking stories, such as natural disasters or political and economic news, and that often they experienced dismissive remarks where male journalists would attribute their success to sex appeal.

In such a context, Zheng’s high-risk assignments and triumphant career trajectory may seem like an idealistic dramatization. 

Liu agreed that few women have reached the status of her protagonist. “But the position of women’s careers is at an unprecedented high,” she told Sixth Tone. “I stitched together a lot of stories from the industry —  after all, this is a drama, not a documentary. You need to see it as a journey toward destiny.”

With contributions from Li You.

(Header image: A still frame from ‘Nu Bu Qiangda Tian Bu Rong’ shows Zheng Yuqing holding her camera on a reporting assignment.)

Will American singer Taylor Swift’s latest reported fling with British actor Tom Hiddleston last more than a month? Three months? Ten years? Now Chinese fans who think they’re in the know can bet on the love lives of their favorite celebrities by buying “break-up insurance.”

On Taobao, China’s largest e-commerce marketplace, some online vendors have promised double pay-outs should certain celebrity-related events come true within bet-upon time frames. “Insurance packages” range from a few cents to 50 yuan ($7.60).

Besides betting on the duration of the queen of breakup ballads’ relationships, net users can also gamble on whether Katy Perry will win a Grammy Award in 2017, whether the new season of the BBC detective drama “Sherlock” will air next year as promised, and whether Professor Charles Xavier will be bald in the next X-Men movie.

On microblogging platform Weibo, many net users reacted with amusement to the Taylor Swift insurance on offer. “This is the only gamble in the world on which I definitely won’t lose my money,” commented one Weibo user. “Wow! If she wrote a song about breaking up with Tom, I bet we could win even more money,” said another.

Alternatively, netizens can also take out insurance on their own love lives. If their love story comes to a sad end, a small insurance payout could help cheer them right up. A similar product is also available for single people: If they meet Mr. or Mrs. Right within a month of their wager, the seller will give them 13.14 yuan, a number which in Chinese is a homophone for the word “lifetime.”

Taobao has become known for offering extraordinary — and sometimes fraudulent — products and services. However, deals like this, whether categorized as a form of insurance or new approach to online gambling, are almost certainly illegal, and it is unconfirmed whether “investors” have received any payouts at all. According to Chinese law, private citizens cannot be insurers, and betting or lottery services can only be provided by China’s state-sponsored welfare and sports lotteries.

A representative from Taobao’s PR department, Liu Xiaojie, told Sixth Tone: “Taobao has done some investigation and found that most shop owners only sell the insurance for promotion of their own shops and haven’t harmed customers’ rights. We will soon introduce a system which will automatically remove insurance products containing relevant keywords.”

(Header image: Taylor Swift and Tom Hiddleston are spotted canoodling on rocks near a beach in Westerly, Rhode Island, June 13, 2016. TheImageDirectcom/IC)

The name might seem more absurd than contentious. But Chinese media commentators are in a spin over how to refer to the actor who calls herself “Angelababy” — not because the 27-year-old’s moniker is faintly comical, but because the issue has reignited an ongoing debate about Western influence in China.

The Shanghai-born celebrity, who has Chinese and German ancestry, has been known as Angelababy since she adopted the name when she began modeling as a teenager in Hong Kong. Now some people are saying that press in China should use her Chinese name Yang Ying in Chinese characters out of respect for readers who don’t understand English.

Earlier this week, a reader of Zhejiang’s City Express wrote into the newspaper about their coverage of the actor’s latest film, “Independence Day: Resurgence,” asking: “Since we are Chinese people, and you’re a Chinese newspaper, why don’t you include her Chinese name after her English name?”

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The debate stretches back years. Foreign names, from Obama to Tchaikovsky, are usually transliterated into characters in Chinese-language publications, and state authorities issued guidelines in 2010 saying that foreign words, abbreviations, and letters should be kept to a minimum. Where foreign words are necessary, an annotation in Chinese should also be included.

It’s important that the press makes its coverage intelligible to a diverse audience by explaining abbreviations like the NBA — the basketball association — with Chinese-language notes. While the lives of young, wealthy, and urban Chinese are increasingly cosmopolitan, there are still plenty of people who would find foreign words intimidating, opaque, and forgettable.

Ensuring that the Chinese language keeps up with the times instead of relying on imported words might also help to make new technology and the many professions that rely on it available to more people, considering that a large percentage of the population doesn’t have a strong command of English.

But trying to fortify linguistic boundaries in a globalizing world might be a losing battle. Societies are constantly changing and languages need to naturally evolve with them. Style guides do best when they reflect the dynamism of popular usage rather than prescribing rules that try to preserve a myth of linguistic purity.

The furor over what Chinese press should call Angelababy touches on broader issues of national identity and resentment about Western influence. The reader who sparked renewed debate on the issue predicted this dynamic, cautioning: “I don’t think she’s pandering to Western influence by using an English name, just that it would be appropriate for Chinese media to note her Chinese name when reporting.”

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The denial is itself indicative of how often an undercurrent of defensiveness pervades public discourse in China — a fear of foreign influence eroding native culture. The specter of European colonialism in China still haunts the conversation.

But ironically, focusing the debate on foreign influences actually serves to obscure the ethnic and linguistic diversity within China. Angelababy’s so-called “Chinese name” is pronounced “Yang Ying” in Mandarin and “Yeung Wing” in Cantonese, just two of the many mutually unintelligible languages in a country whose official script uses Chinese hanzi characters, while regional groups use alphabets ranging from Arabic to Mongolian.

In some ways, the Chinese national language doesn’t play well with others. Non-Han Chinese names have to be altered to fit Mandarin phonic patterns and then transliterated into characters. “Obama” —Aobama — works well; “Clinton” and “Trump,” with their consonant clusters and terminal consonants that don’t exist in Mandarin, have to be rendered into names pronounced “Kelindun” and “Telangpu.”

It’s not just famous foreigners being renamed, either — over 100 million Chinese citizens who are members of non-Han ethnic minorities must have their native-language names translated for official ID cards.

Of course, Chinese who migrate overseas also experience social and economic pressures to change their names into English. As a 7-year-old primary school student in Australia, sick of kids laughing at my name or pronouncing it a little too much like “qingwa” — Mandarin for “frog” — I chose an English name about as girlish as Angelababy.

It took me 20 years, some wincing hindsight, and a slew of discarded interim nicknames before I reverted to my Chinese name. Ironically, now it seems everyone my age in Shanghai has an English name except me. Some of my friends’ chosen names, like “Steak” and “Encore,” seem uniquely and charmingly Chinese.

Regardless of what a few panicked nationalists might think, the world is becoming increasingly, inevitably, irreversibly interconnected. The most zealous efforts of anti-migrant campaigners can’t turn back the cultural flows that define life in most of the world’s biggest cities. Access to international mobility remains uneven, and cultural influence is sometimes one-sided. But media in China and elsewhere need to make more space for linguistic and cultural diversity, while also keeping in mind accessibility for the broadest possible audience.

(Header image: Angelababy attends the ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ premiere at the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival, France, May 16, 2014. Dave J Hogan/Getty Images/VCG)

A 26-year-old mobile game developer is preparing to pit himself against the ultimate boss: China’s media censorship body, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT).

In protest against new regulations that require all developers to receive official approval for games before they enter the market, Shanghai-based Chen Yu intends to launch a legal case against SAPPRFT with money he has raised through a social media crowdfunding campaign. 

“Our demands will be for the court to investigate SAPPRFT’s new regulations with respect to their legality,” Chen’s lawyer Li Fangping told Sixth Tone. “Before, these small and mid-sized enterprises could do business freely on both Apple and Android app stores. After the new regulations, they will have to go through the censorship of SAPPRFT, which will effectively mean such enterprises won’t be able to go on.”

“With these new regulations, all independent game developers and small enterprises will be driven out of the market, with no glimmer of hope for survival,” Chen told Sixth Tone. On the day before SAPPRFT implemented its new regulations, Chen, a founding member of Shanghai-based mobile gaming studio Jufu Internet Technology Co. Ltd., wrote on his Weibo microblog: “Starting tomorrow, mobile gaming in China will face the bloodiest showdown and shootout in history.”

Part of the problem, Chen believes, is that the new regulations require developers to obtain new paperwork, at not-insignificant costs. The licenses, including software copyright and business licenses, will be impossible for independent developers and small businesses to obtain, Chen said.

These licenses have always existed, said Wei Jun, a project manager at one of China’s largest gaming companies. “It’s just that previously you could work around them,” she said. Yet with enough funds, said Wei, large companies like hers will not suffer destructive consequences simply because a project is delayed or halted by the new regulations. 

As Chen has argued, however, it is now a different story for those at the bottom.

One game developer, who gave only his surname Zhou out of concern for his professional prospects, told Sixth Tone that his small gaming studio had gone out of business following the implementation of the new regulations. “If you’re lucky a game will make you 1,500 yuan (around $220),” the Shanghai-based 35-year-old said.

“With the new censorship process costing 15,000 yuan, who is going to keep making games?”

Another issue, Chen said, is the amount of time that the thickening bureaucracy will add to the game development process.

Twenty days before a game was to go online, the regulations stated, its developer would now be required to file an application with a provincial censor, who could take up to five days to process the submission. Following approval, the application would be forwarded to SAPPRFT’s central offices for a 10-day screening process, before being passed back to the provincial censor, who would inform the developer of the result within three days.

Games that were already on the market would be required to retroactively apply for approval before October 1, the new laws stated.

On the day before SAPPRFT’s new regulations came into effect on July 1, Apple announced to app developers operating within the Chinese market that releases would now have to indicate to Apple that they had express approval from SAPPRFT. Developers will now, the announcement stated, be required to provide Apple with case numbers and dates of approval for all new releases.

Apple’s announcement seems to have been the final straw for Chen, who is known in game developing circles as “Krisirk.” In a post on Quora-like knowledge-sharing website Zhihu, he said, “The road for China’s independent developers is becoming increasingly hard to walk now.”

According to Chen, that post has since been deleted by Zhihu, who cited reasons of “political sensitivity,” and Chen’s posting rights have been suspended by the site for seven days. A cached version viewed on July 6 shows that Chen’s post garnered 1,284 responses before it was deleted. 

To cover his legal expenses, Chen turned to social media, setting himself a target of 30,000 yuan. After launching his crowdfunding campaign on the morning of July 5, the target was met in under five hours, according to a log of donations that Chen has been periodically updating on his Weibo account.

Chen’s lawyer Li told Sixth Tone that if all goes to plan, then legal proceedings will begin as early as Friday at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court. China’s intermediate people’s courts generally hear local cases or appeals from lower courts. Li said that if the court does not accept their case, they intend to take their campaign to higher courts.

Li does not believe that the outcome of the case is the most important thing: “What is important is the process — that we can give these problems a judicial platform and incite discussion.”

Chen shares his lawyer’s pragmatism and has admitted that his chances of legal success are next to nothing. “This is SAPPRFT,” he said. “Everyone is perfectly clear about what we are up against.” 

“But everyone needs someone to be that bird that sticks its head out above the parapet,” Chen said. “If no one steps forward now, no one will step forward ever again.”

Additional reporting by Yin Yijun.

(Header image: A man playing a game on his mobile phone, Huizhou, Guangdong province, May 24, 2014. Zhou Nan/VCG)

“Roast Convention,” a Chinese version of the American comedy series “Comedy Central Roasts,” broadcast its first episode on Thursday, leaving its viewers sniggering in slight discomfort at the audacity of the jokes.

Like its U.S. counterpart, the show put a controversial figure on stage to be subjected to mockery by a panel of comedians and celebrities.

On the first episode, TV and film actor Zhou Jie was picked as the “roastee.” A host — “roast master” — and a group of six “roasters” took the stage to mock him and each other.

None of the guests were A-list celebrities, leaving comedian Li Dan, one of the roasters, slightly disappointed that the producers couldn’t find bigger names to deride. “We know that guests on American roast shows are all big stars,” he said. “Initially I felt excited about ‘Roast Convention,’ but as soon as I arrived here today, I realized that, well, this is China.”

Comedian and roaster Zhang Quandan made fun of the fact that Zhou had failed to land any major acting roles after he punched a security guard in 2008, saying Zhou was now more likely to appear on crime channels than on entertainment channels.

“There is a huge demand for comedy in the Chinese market,” He Xiaoxi, the CEO of Shanghai Xiao Guo Culture Co. Ltd., the production company behind “Roast Convention,” told Sixth Tone. The show has also garnered attention because it was promoted by Wang Sicong, an investor in Xiao Guo Culture and the son of China’s richest man, real estate mogul Wang Jianlin.

Five more episodes — broadcast weekly on Thursdays — will be filmed to complete the show’s first season.

Xiao Guo’s He said he is a fan of Western stand-up comedy shows. These programs have their own subculture of fans in China, with amateur translators subtitling programs like “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and putting them online.

The challenge in bringing foreign formats to a wider Chinese public, He said, is to come up with jokes that are funny but still palatable to more conservative tastes.

Stand-up comedy is still a niche pastime in China, whose humor is usually low on irony or mockery — the latter especially running counter to the traditional notion of saving face.

“Roast Convention” also green-lighted other taboo subjects for derision, including sex. The punchline of one of Zhang’s jokes, for example, was that his girlfriend was really his right hand. Another masturbation-related joke by actress Wang Lin had netizens feeling she had gone too far. “Wang Lin’s erotic joke embarrassed me,” read one comment.

It is not the first time Xiao Guo Culture, established in 2014, has brought a foreign comedy format to Chinese screens. “Tonight 80’s Talk Show,” started in 2012 by now-employees of Xiao Guo Culture, was the first American-style stand-up comedy program to air on Chinese TV.

“Roast Convention” is online-only programming. Xiao Guo CEO He said that the company choose to launch the show online to tap into a younger audience and to have freedom to cover a broader range of topics.

Televised roasting in China comes at a time when Chinese online talk shows are gaining popularity, taking advantage of a less strict censorship regime compared to traditional media — though guidelines leaked earlier this year suggest that might change.

According to He, the show avoids making political jokes and mocking someone’s ethnic background. For other topics, he said, there are cultural sensitivities to keep in mind. He mentioned that jokes about sex by a female comedian could only be implicit, while some jokes about appearances risked “hurting the feelings of guests” and had to be edited out.

“We are exploring the limits of challenging taboos,” He said. As his team tests the tolerance of Chinese audiences, they hope not to cross any lines that would limit the show’s wider appeal.

Most net users enjoyed the show’s first episode, though some were left a little disappointed that the end product bared fewer teeth than the Western original. “I felt like they hadn’t even started roasting, and then the show was over,” said one net user. Another complained that the jokes were too long and the laughs too few.

He compared the more subdued sense of humor that Chinese audiences find acceptable to different styles of martial arts. “Some people do tai chi, while others do Muay Thai kickboxing,” He said. “It’s just two different cultures — you can’t expect them to be the same.”

Additional reporting by Wang Lianzhang.

(Header image: Studio audience members clap during the filming of online comedy show ‘Roast Convention,’ Shanghai, June 9, 2016. Courtesy of ‘Roast Convention’)