What to get from China?

[OneEye]

One of my friends (and tutor occasionally) is going to Beijing this summer to volunteer at the Olympics. I'm planning on sending a good chunk of cash with her to get me some books, movies, music, TV shows, etc. for practice. I know I'll probably pick out a few specific textbooks, and some TV shows, but I'm thinking about just telling her to grab a bunch of movies in different genres, since I've heard bootleg DVDs are so cheap there. Anyway, I'm just looking for recommendations on what else to get. Thanks.

[roddy]

Chances are they'll shut down all the pirate dvd stores for the Olympics, I'm afraid.

To be honest I'm not sure there's much need to trouble your friend - an order with studychineseculture.com or amazon.cn will get you much the same stuff quicker.

Other stuff? Clothes are often cheap, but you need to keep an eye on quality. Tea and maybe some foodstuffs?

[tooironic]

Would the state have that many resources to close down all the pirate stores? Interesting. I really wish I could be in Beijing for the Olympics. Not to actually see the events, of course (hate sports), but just to be there during such a time (once in a life-time I imagine) would be a really unique experience.

[roddy]

They do it every year for the 两会. Either the pirate movies are off the shelves, or the store is just shut for the duration. Sometimes they have them in a different room if you ask. But I suspect they'll be pretty serious about it around the Olympics.

[cdn_in_bj]

Also, depending on where OneEye is from, his friend could face repercussions from importing counterfeit goods if she is caught.

Perhaps you could ask her to bring back some cheap ties from the Silk Street Market.

[BrandeX]

That's what www.asiandvdclub.org is for. No need to pester anyone else.

[Scoobyqueen]

You should get authentic Sichuan pepper!

I would not ask a friend to bring more than a kilo though. A kilo of books that is.

[monto]

Chinese dictionaries if you are learning Chinese language.

In such case, I recommend

1)《新时代汉英大词典》商务印书馆

New Age Chinese-English Dictionary published by the Commercial Press

This one is quite big, there are 120,000 words included, also big in volume and weight.

27cm x 20 cm x 7.5 cm. Mine was bought a few years ago, it priced 185 RMB.

2) 《汉英逆引词典》商务印书馆

A Reverse Chinese-English Dictionary published also by the Commercial Press

I am not sure if it is still available in the book stores. It is featured with the "reverse" way,

you look up for a word with the last character of the word as the entry. For example, under entry of "生" (sheng), you see 男生，女生，出生，初生 together.

This book is smaller, 19cm x 13.5cm x 5.5 cm, was priced 8.95RMB (not sure now)

[82riceballs]

I don't know about your preferences, but if you want tv shows, you can ask your friend to buy anime with Chinese subs or dubs.

[foodtarget]

I'm studying in China right now, and one show that is really popular among students of Chinese is 家有儿女。 It's a very light-hearted family sitcom, filled with good examples of daily conversation and vocabulary and not so difficult as to discourage fledgling learners. I would advise against buying shows and movies from Taiwan, especially if you have only been educated in the very standard northern Mandarin. Maybe you already knew this, but Taiwan Chinese has a different accent (not as pronounced among actors and TV show hosts, but still there) and they use different slang phrases and, occasionally, will say things in 闽南话 (a regional dialect, called 台语 in Taiwan). If all this wasn't hard enough, they of course also use traditional characters in the subtitles, and the subs on pirated DVDs from the mainland are likely to still be in traditional. I am by no means fluent, but I usually get the gist of 家有儿女. But when I tried to watch the Taiwan drama 恶作之吻, I had no idea what the hell was going on, it was like a totally different language to me.

Also, I would have to advise against buying dubbed/subbed anime. If it is subbed, this won't help your listening comprehension. The dubbed might help some, but from my experience a lot of animes use such weird vocabulary because of their science fiction nature that it can be hard to understand and not very useful. But I guess your ability to understand would depend on your level. Also, you can't really learn anything about Chinese culture from Japanese cartoons...

[roddy]

I'm not sure you'd learn a huge amount about Chinese culture from 家有儿女 either It's watchable enough though and generally easy to understand. And somehow, nowhere near as annoying as you might expect. It plays constantly on the TVs on buses here in Dalian.

First episode (I think) can be viewed here.

[yonglin]

Sometimes I doubt that the reason why Chinese TV series are so much more comprehensible (to us non-proficient) than proper movies actually has very much to do with the language level. Instead, I think that this difference can be attributed almost exclusively to the fact that Chinese TV series (like those of most other countries) are amazingly and wonderfully predictable about 97% of the time.

For instance, I used to watch a whole lot of 天外飞仙 (urgh.. Immortals Flying Outside of Heaven...?) some time ago, and a good deal of the vocabulary is really quite obscure (as in most costume dramas). However, since the story is so extremely predictable, it's still not very difficult to understand.

For 家有儿女, it really makes me think about those Full House episodes I used to watch as a kid....

[imron]

Have you seen 中国式离婚？It was much less predictable than I expected it to be.