春晚

[randall_flagg]

I'm texting, skyping, talking on the phone, watching CCTV and posting on the forums! Maybe I'll be a "model netizen" next year.

[imron]

I watched the whole thing last night on TV, and it was probably the lamest 春晚 I've seen. In previous years there was always at least one act that impressed me, but this year it was pretty lacklustre all round.

[gougou]

Agree. I don't have much of a comparison with previous years (even though my colleague gave me the great idea of checking out an 80's 春晚) so I don't know whether it's true that it's getting worse and worse, but I can confirm that it wasn't great yesterday.

The Chinese colleague I've watched it told me that she "had no idea what they are talking about" and it seemed pretty lost on her parents, too.

[roddy]

Yeah, this was the first time I've sat down and watched one - hope the others were better . . .

[imron]

It's not so much that the others were better, but that this one was worse

[randall_flagg]

Still haven't watched the whole thing yet, hope I'll get around to watching it during the next couple of days. I wonder what the ratings for the 春节联欢晚会 are compared to what they used to be. I would like to see absolute numbers and percentage figures. PLUS: Are people who've had a TV for many years now still watching this or not.? Would be interesting to find out.

[randall_flagg]

Admittedly I didn't ear this myself at first, but listen to what the 主持人 says when she puts down her microphone during the "Egg Street Magic" act

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjgyMDc1NzY=.html

"要戒指那个?"

I bet the Taiwanese version of the "mindfreak" is mad at her!

[gougou]

It does sound like that, but I don't think that's what she said. She must be professional enough to remember the trick and not to give it away in public. (Also, it'd be a bit too easy with a prepared egg - if that was so, we'd probably have an amendment to the 假唱 law to include 假蛋 soon...)

If you look closely, you will see that just before she breaks the egg, the plate is off-screen (and later, it will be blocked by her hands). But if you stop at the moment just before the egg hits the plate, you will see that there is something (which unfortunately is not quite recognizable) just there were the ring will be picked up a few seconds later.

[randall_flagg]

She must be professional enough to remember the trick and not to give it away in public. (Also, it'd be a bit too easy with a prepared egg

I disagree. She obviously said something that no one was supposed to hear to the magician. He doesn't reply directly but nods his head and tells her to choose and egg. So I'm trusting the Chinese bloggers got it right.

Yeah, those tricks are sometimes surprisingly easy and very 贱！

[gougou]

These guys have a different take.

[randall_flagg]

Thanks! This was an interesting read, might well be the answer. But still: Why are his hands so oily/wet? Why is the 主持人 asking him secret questions?

[Hong XQ]

This comes a bit late, but a big thank you to you guys, I nearly choked for minutes on end as I was reading your commentary and eating, then drinking simultaneously - I haven't laughed this hard in months.

As the otherwise dull fellow I am, I was looking for a way to grab the news in streaming mandarin, from some web site or app, for free. So far I found the 06/20 news bulletin on this wcetv site, and put myself through one ep of kuaile zhongguo on the cctv site ... I'll keep perusing but if one of you savvy types knows either the location of an easy link for my daily fix of news reports, or otherwise knows there is no such thing, cheerio for letting me know.

And thanks again for the near fatal laughter.