Chinese comedy group... maybe

[ouyangjun]

This is more of a question to check the feasibility.  a while back I talked about starting a Chinese comedy group where we'd look at different comedy and discuss... At the time the challenges were finding suitable pieces that had subtitles, were easily accessible and in short enough bits that it didn't take a lot of dedication to listening for long periods of time.

 

I've found a comedy show on Youku that I think is pretty funny and should fit well if we want to do something like this.  My question:  For those of you outside of China, what is the access like to Youku?  Is it accessible, would this be an okay source to find the comedy skits and link?  

 

The below is the show that I was thinking we can do this with.  I think it's funny, most of the topics are based on current events, the skits are short... each episode is around 15 minutes, and Youku already breaks each episode up into 2 minute intervals, so it'd be easy for us to take a 2 minute piece from an episode and discuss.  Below is the link... for those interested, what is your ability to access this page?

http://www.youku.com/show_page/id_z3e6bf7f2407311e3b8b7.html

 

The only other hurdle we'd have to overcome is my sporadic activity on this site.  I'm quite busy with work, and if a group is going to be a good one, then the people in the group need to be active.  I'm a bit concerned with my ability to keep up with it, so if this is started, hopefully others join in and also lead discussions and move the group along.  

 

Let me know what everyone thinks.  Unfortunately I'm off for a business trip tomorrow afternoon, then on Friday I'm off to the USA for a week of vacation, followed by another business trip in the New York area, and I'll be back in China May 11.  Not sure how active I will be during my vacation and business trips, but I'll try to make it a point to check back in to see the comments.

[simpleasy]

Youku is blocked where I live (Belgium), and I assume it's blocked almost everywhere outside China. However I have added a plugin on Google chrome which allows me to get around the blockade.

Buffering is still terrible though, every video takes forever to load. 

I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but I think it's safe to assume that this is the case for everyone living in Europe.

[Meng Lelan]

I'm in Texas and access it fine. Good thing it has subtitles, that guy with the big mask, I can't speechread him. 

[li3wei1]

I can get it in the UK. Some of the words have been censored, though.

[simpleasy]

I have disabled the plugin to check again. It seems to work fine too now, so forget what I said earlier. 

I installed the plugin roughly 2 years ago, so I guess policy has changed, or maybe some videos are blocked and others are not.

Videos are still terribly slow to load though, but maybe that's also just me.

[deathtrap]

@simpleasy What plugin do you use? 

 

@ouyangjun I can access the videos just fine here in Jordan without any plugins or VPN's but it takes a while to load, most likely due to the Great Firewall. 

[simpleasy]

The plugin is called 'unblock youku', quite straightforward actually. I use it on Google Chrome but I think it exists for Firefox too.