Lord of the Rings: Return of the King is on. At first I thought they had just pirated the music for another show, and was up in arms. Then I realized it was the actual movie. It’s a little easier to identify the Chinese when you know the movie by heart. I like Sam a little better dubbed into Chinese, but Legolas sounds like he’s fifteen.

And I guess the language doesn’t matter – I still get choked up. Such a mess by the end of that movie.

There’s one English channel on my TV, and it’s news only – like CNN and CSPAN, with the occasional culture hour. I can’t watch it anymore, because they keep running shows on how planes crash all the time (as a response to the Malaysian Flight incident). But all the interesting shows are only in Chinese. I saw this curious show on yesterday, a period piece set around the Victorian era. I know this only because of the Europeans who were mocked in the show. The man was a bit of a fop, and he kept trying to kiss the hands of the women, which created quite the commotion. The protagonists – four brothers in neon pastel hats – also did not understand why the Europeans used knives and forks to saw at their food, and tried to educate them. The Europeans were too silly to understand. And then the woman became the object of attention for the local… mayor? Warlord? Anyway there was a bit with the fop pulling a pistol. The woman really didn’t do much for the entire hour except laugh, cry, and scream. Then she threw up at the end of the show when she realized she was eating…I’m going say intestine? Maybe bull penis?

I had watched the previous hour of this series as well, where another woman threw up on a dynamite fuse which had been set to blow up a prince’s carriage. The music sounded like the Price is Right failure trombone. Apparently this comedy finds throwing up to be gold. I wonder about the actors playing Europeans – are they expats? Natives? I mean, it would be a good gig in China, since you’d be there whenever they needed a Westerner.

There’s also a “China’s Got Talent” – Jet Li is one of the judges. I’ll talk more about TV later.