Chinese Movies — in China!
While many (including a good friend) are in full-swing Oscar buzz mode, I’m eyeing a different set of movies: Chinese ones!
Now of course, I’m always up for a decent Chinese movie because movies are such great practice for learning languages, but generally I find myself left unsatisfied from most Chinese movies. Oh, there are some excellent ones, and I don’t mean Zhang Yimou martial arts epics (think Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — which is, unsurprisingly, an entire genre in China, and a large and popular one at that. There’s Kekexili,
But now that I’ll be going to China, I don’t have to wait until some American DVD company decides to have a U.S. release of a movie, or more importantly for my current financial situation, for Netflix to decide it’s worthwhile adding to their collection. Now I’ll get to go out and see Chinese movies, no subtitles, in real Chinese theaters as they release! This may seem like small cookies to others, but I love going out to the movies in most ways except for the price — and even that problem is solved! (I’ll be making the income of mid- to upper-middle class living by Chinese standards.)
Here are just a few of the movies coming out soon that Chinese audiences are looking forward to (the website is in English, with movie posters and trailers, some of which have English subtitles).
A quick update about me going to China: since I’m still waiting for my work permit and thus can’t yet order plane tickets and apply for a work visa yet, I’m not sure exactly when I’ll be leaving for China, but chances are pretty good that in two months I’ll have left the U.S. Crazy!
Jacob said,
December 11, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Great post! To be honest, I haven’t seen many Chinese movies, but I did catch Ying xiong (Hero) a while ago (that’s probably in the same genre as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). I have also enjoyed performances by Li Gong and Ziyi Zhang and I know they are hugely popular in China.
I wish more people would watch foreign cinema because some of my favorite films have been abroad. Sigh.
Little Swallow said,
December 11, 2008 at 7:08 pm
Oo, 英雄/Hero is a good one! There’s also some real gems in Li Gong’s filmography (she does some less-mainstream films with Zhang Yimo). But be forewarned, like just about every Chinese narrative, they’re quite depressing. No warm & fuzzy endings in Chinese films and literature — happy endings are censored. (Kidding.)
Driftingfocus said,
December 15, 2008 at 2:30 am
For you:
http://iktu.blogspot.com/2008/02/konglish-is-future-of-korea.html
Little Swallow said,
December 15, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Yeah, I’m not so much a fan of target-language-only programs. The whole point of learning languages is about communication. Sure, we should push students to try to express themselves primarily in the target language, but we should also train students to be able to communicate meaning first and foremost, including “improper” versions of English like Konglish, hand gestures, facial expressions, and yes (gasp) their native language. As for myself, while I want to be highly proficient in Chinese, I’d take good common sense and some ingrained communication strategies any day. While considered inferior, they are all too often more useful than oh, say, how many characters you know.
Driftingfocus said,
December 15, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I have tried to explain this theory to my co-teachers, and it seems to go right over their head. I try to explain that fluency is different than accuracy, and they don’t seem to understand the difference. Korean language education focuses strongly on accuracy, and they introduce some pretty complex grammatical concepts quite early. The result is that the kids end up not being very good at *anything*, because since it feels too hard for them, they just shut down. This is why most of my students, who have had 3-4 years of English study before they get to me, still very commonly say things like “I like watch TV.” and “I’d live in Jindo/I live Jindo.” and “This weekend I see movie.”. Rather than move on so quickly to more difficult concepts, they really need to be making sure that these kids have a solid grounding in the basics!
Little Swallow said,
December 16, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Sadly, it’s not too much different than college foreign language education! Sure, they *expect* students will not make these mistakes, but most students do, some due to lack of caring but the larger issue is the focus on “covering” rather than any actual mastery of the basics. Teachers expect that covering=mastery, which is doesn’t, and then we get third year foreign language students who can’t hold a basic conversation.
My theory: the real reason study abroad is so effective and necessary for foreign language learning is because classes don’t put emphasis on practice/use/mastery. While serious language learners need immersion experience, most students should be able to hold some simple conversations, understand much dialogue in a movie, etc after a few years of courses without having studied abroad.