The Latest from the Video World

Recently there have been a few viral videos here in China that have been making the news (and have all my students talking). In case you missed them, I thought I would share them with you.
Let’s get the first one out of the way (like eating something bitter before desert.) This one is the most chilling and, so far, has had some pretty wild ramifications. In Beijing, on May 8th, a drunken British man allegedly followed a scantily dressed girl out of the subway and attempted to (allegedly–sorry I was a reporter for a short while and can’t get out of this habit) rape her on the street. Some local guys came to her rescue and beat the shit out of the guy. Much of it was caught on video.
Reaction has been huge, with this video being watched more than 10 million times in just a few days. On Yoku alone, it has almost 3,000 pages of comments. You can find some of the comments translated into english over at ChinaSmack. I should warn you though, they are tough to read. Some call for the beating of the man, for the outlawing (or beating) of all foreigners and several actually blame the girl for it (or say she liked it, people are sick).
But this has had real-world ramifications as well. The Beijing gov’t can’t let something like this go. It was just announced that in Beijing, the local police will be doing a major crackdown on foreigners working illegally in China. That means spot checks, home questioning and god knows what else. They’ve even got the locals in on it, asking everyone to report where foreigners live so the police can go check them out. (They have a special toll-free number to call and everything.) So even legal foreigners can expect to be hassled, and illegal foreigners, well, I would leave Beijing for awhile if I were them.
Here’s the video, don’t worry, you don’t see much of the beating, but be duly warned; it is a shocking video.

Okay, we got the bitter out of the way, let’s go for something sweeter. This is a video I heard about from Niel at Confused Laowai and I am already a fan. It’s a short (very short, about 3 minutes each) comedy series made in Taiwan. It takes place at a diner place around breakfast (hence the name BreakFAST) and has some funny little vignettes. They only have 4 little episodes, but already I see some story lines coming out (come on ego guy, the girl is talking about you, duh!) Anyway, I cheat and read the english subtitles, but maybe I’ll try watching them with my eyes closed of something to see how much of it I understand.

 
This video has been tossed around renren (Chinese Facebook) and several students e-mailed it to me telling me I have to watch it. This guy us half-chinese/ half-something (sorry I don’t know) and he does 12 different characters in one short film, some of whom are foreigners speaking Chinese, others are chinese from different parts of china speaking with the local accent.
If u don’t speak Chinese it might not be so interesting (though he does speak plenty of English in it) and some of the different characters are slightly racist, but it’s interesting to watch.

And last but not least here is a video called “The Titty Boom Box.” It has nothing to do with China, and I have no idea how I found it in the first place, but it’s quite funny (and totally mesmerizing). And it’s always good to end things with a smile on your face.