Government controlled media.

I’m not to sure if this one is positive or negative. 

 Everyone who knows me knows I’m a huge film fan. I love to go to the cinema and watch DVDs, you name it, if it’s a movie, I’m in! We tried to go to the cinema once here to see Disney’s Bolt but unfortunately it was only in Chinese and it was bloody expensive. The equivalent of £8! I’m used to my old £2.50 on Crazy Tuesday down Dublin Road, thank you very much or at least half price on Orange Wednesday.

 Therefore, we haven’t seen a film in a film theatre in months. A conversation about movie screenings in China was sparked with our friend Thom where he informed us that film in China often have sections edited out before screening if it contains material that the Chinese government do not want their citizens seeing. Things like nudity, sex, drugs or anything political. Violence however, you can have all the violence you want and with no certificate. I could take my niece and nephew to see the newest, darkest, most violent cinema releasing in China. (I wouldn’t though, I felt bad when I let Harry watch The Mask once, too many Tommy Guns.)

 Just the other day Nicola and I were discussing the safety of the streets in Nanjing with Dumpling, a 20 year old girl who we work with who has lived in Nanjing all her life. Spawned from her not needing Nicola and Alex to escort her home the previous night because it’s totally safe here. In the UK I don’t feel safe walking to the end of my street never mind walking through the busy streets of a sleepless city. Can it really be safe for a girl to walk through these streets at night unaccompanied? They never hear anything bad happening to people in the newspaper, so it must be OK. But the newspapers don’t report crimes like these in the papers, or that’s what we’ve been told (obviously we can’t ead the papers here). Perhaps there’s a lot of crime in China but people are sheltered from it. Or perhaps there’s not a lot of crime because it’s not constantly pushed in people’s faces all the time like in the UK.

 On a lighter note, I’ve heard of news articles reporting how Avril Lavigne was banned from performing in an Asian country (which one it was escapes me) because her stage moves were considered to sexy for their audiences. I love Avril but really? Come on. She’s no Britney Spears or Alicia Moore! Sexy moves. HA!

 And I do believe Oasis were due to play in Shanghai in April this year but they were banned because…….

 "According to the show's promoters, officials within the Chinese Ministry of Culture only recently discovered that Noel Gallagher appeared at a Free Tibet Benefit Concert on Randall's Island in New York in 1997, and have now deemed that the band are consequently unsuitable to perform to their fans in the Chinese Republic on 3rd and 5th of April, during its 60th anniversary year."

Crazy.