<nettime> Best of Taiwan

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

talking about englishes, cultural mutations, asian media cultures and the
perishes of globalism: 

      http://www.latimes.com/business/cotown/20001220/t000121083.html

 December 20, 2000


        Tian-ah! Kenny bei guadiao!

        By HENRY CHU, Times Staff Writer


 TAIPEI, Taiwan--They're just as foulmouthed, politically incorrect and
 crudely drawn here as they are back in the United States.

     And just as in the U.S., that's precisely the appeal of those
 fisheyed cartoon kids from the American TV show "South Park," whose
 off-color jokes and antics--translated into Mandarin Chinese--have become
 a surprise hit here among Taiwan's latte-sipping, cynicism-dripping
 youth.

     Across this tiny island, plastic "South Park" trinkets dangle from
 hipster cell phones. Tie-in products stock the shelves of Hsimenting,
 Taipei's trendy shopping district. Dedicated "South Park" fans, in person
 and on the Internet, knowingly trade lines from the show, ranging from
 the nonsensical taunts made up by the main characters to the show's
 signature lament: "Tian-ah! Kenny bei guadiao!" ("Oh my God! They've
 killed Kenny!")

      The program's success--it easily wins its time slot late Saturdays--
 has been a boost for Hong Kong-based StarTV, the Rupert Murdoch-owned
 cable network that last year bought the rights to air "South Park" in
 Taiwan.

      The show is one of the network's weapons in its fight against rivals
 such as HBO and Cinemax in Taiwan, where virtually every household
 receives cable television, making the local market a tough place to build
 a following.

      "We were looking for a way to add a weekly stunt to our schedule to
 attract a different kind of viewer," said Steve Askew, StarTV's executive
 vice president of programming.

      Already, the network beams other hit American shows like "Ally
 McBeal," "The Simpsons," "Frasier" and "NYPD Blue" to viewers throughout
 Asia.

      But in a departure from regular practice, producers made the crucial
 decision to ditch the English script and dub "South Park" into Chinese,
 which has turned out to be key to the show's popularity.

      Rather than a straight translation, the show's three writers have
 adapted the show to suit the local environment. Inside jokes and American
 slang have been scrapped. Instead, the episodes allude to Taiwanese pop
 culture, make bad--and often vulgar--puns in Chinese, play off current
 events like scandalous crimes and poke fun at Taiwanese politicians.

      "They take an American cartoon and make the dialogue into something
 that Taiwanese people can recognize," said Y.Y. Lee, 30, a radio reporter
 and devotee of the program, which began airing a new season this month.
 "They're geniuses."

      Even the show's title has been changed slightly to lend it local
 flavor. The Taiwanese version has been renamed "Nanfang Sijianke," or
 "South Park's Four Slackers," which in Mandarin also sounds like "The
 Four Musketeers." (The four slackers are the show's main characters:
 Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan.)

      In some episodes, more than half the dialogue--including lyrics to
 the many songs--gets rewritten, said producer Michael D.K. Mak. Comic
 situations are adjusted so that Taiwanese viewers can relate.

      For example, in one holiday episode, the Jewish mother in the
 original who gets upset over a Christmas parade at her son's school
 becomes an outraged Buddhist in the Taiwanese version, who suggests that
 her son, Kyle, recite Buddhist scriptures in the campus pageant.


      Keeping in Touch With Youth Culture

      In another episode, Stan gets teased for having a gay dog. His
 friends scornfully tell him to go attend "a Leslie Cheung concert,"
 referring to the well-known gay actor-singer from Hong Kong. Later, when
 he is reunited with his runaway pet, Stan makes a riff on the Chinese
 affinity for dog meat: "I thought you'd become hot pot fodder."

      Such irreverence shocked Lee at first, then became the show's
 selling point.

      "I remember the first time I watched it, I thought, 'God, little
 kids with such dirty mouths! Change the channel!' " she recalled,
 laughing. "Kids should be naive and cute--the traditional concept of
 kids. But [on "South Park"] they're not. That's why it attracts adults."

      To keep the material fresh and edgy, the show's head writer,
 Michelle Chen, meets regularly with a group of youths between the ages of
 15 and 20 to hear them shoot the breeze, talk about problems with their
 boyfriends and girlfriends, and throw around slang terms she can use on
 the show.

      "I'm over 30 years old. I have no 17-year-old friends. So I turn to
 the younger brothers and sisters of friends or colleagues" for input,
 said Chen, who was used to writing documentaries and dramas before trying
 her hand at "South Park."

      For each episode, Chen watches the American version five or six
 times, then spends about 12 hours rewriting and polishing her own take.

      A copy of each finished episode--which costs about $6,000 to
 produce, said Mak--is sent to the show's American producers. StarTV has a
 contractual obligation to preserve the spirit of the original, Askew
 said. (A spokeswoman for the U.S. version, which airs on Comedy Central,
 said that "South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were "way too
 busy" filming new episodes to comment for this story.)

      The show's launch in Taiwan last December was somewhat rocky.
 Ratings were low, and the writers tried to make each episode a
 collaborative effort, which didn't work well. Now, each episode is
 assigned to a single writer to preserve consistency and flow.

      Buzz about "South Park" only caught on after the first few episodes
 had aired. A publicity blitz on MTV, in karaoke clubs and on StarTV's
 many channels then began paying off.

      StarTV executives say their target audience is the 18-and-older
 crowd. But as has happened in the U.S., many fans are much younger than
 that, prompting questions of appropriateness in light of the profanity
 and adult content that pepper the show. Some of the show's promotional
 material seems aimed at young teens rather than young adults.

      Mak said the late-night time slot should answer critics' complaints.

      "Putting it at 11:30 p.m. already shows our responsibility," he
 said. "Then it's up to the parents to control their kids' viewing
 habits."

      Chen confessed to being shocked when she first overheard 8- and
 9-year-olds repeating lines she had intended for an adult audience. "I
 thought, 'God, what's happened?' I felt bad," she said.

      But she then discovered that some of her young fans were staying up
 late and watching the show in their own rooms. "What can I do?" Chen
 said. "What are they doing with TVs in their rooms?"

      For its part, StarTV is banking on the continued success of "South
 Park" in Taiwan: It has bought the rights to the first seven seasons of
 the show, even though only four have been produced in the U.S. thus far.

      And in true Hollywood fashion, Mak and Chen are trying to capitalize
 on their winning formula. The two are working on another animated show
 for Taiwan called "Mother Nature"--which, they promise, will have a
 "South Park" sensibility.

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