Trends and Buzz

Screencaps of offensive Taiwan talk shows

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"On the mainland, a person who wears pajamas is a rich person."

Along with the babes and the trolling for anti-Japanese hysteria, one favorite pastime on China's online forums is complaining about the ignorance and prejudice shown toward the mainland by the entertainment industry in Taiwan.

This image comes from a quiz show called "Guess"; bbs commentors mock the contestants for their ignorance of important facts in Chinese history ("How many lions are there on Marco Polo Bridge?" "Marco Polo Bridge has lions?"), as well as their idiotic ideas about the mainland (see the caption to the photo above). One contestant concluded, "You shouldn't ever go to the mainland. You don't know how vulgar the people are there."

Also circulating lately is a set of stills from the talk show "Horny," in which guests spout off about the state of love and relationships on the mainland. Speaking to the topic "How to prevent men from going after mistresses," one woman makes the claim that all mainland girls are interested in is money. Another guest on the show says that the PRC is a "lawless country," that "rape isn't a crime," and that "this follows what Mao Zedong preached back then, communal property and communal wives."

All of this discussion is made possible by the widespread practice of subtitling television shows - even without the audio track, Internet users can follow the dialogue from a series of screen captures.

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