From Media Schizophrenia in China by David Moser:

In an article in the online version of the People's Daily (January 17, 2004), Qin Mingxin, deputy director of the international department of CCTV's Entertainment Program Center expressed his misgivings about the proposed broadcast. "I had thought the play focused on friendship, but after a careful preview I found each episode had something to do with sex. Also, the attitudes of the six close-knit young friends in the play cannot be generally accepted by Chinese audiences yet," he said. Furthermore, Qin explained why merely cutting the references to sex wouldn't work: "Most youth on the Chinese mainland have watched the play and feel passionate about it. If we make too much trimming, I'm afraid they will not agree. But it is also impossible to accept it uncritically. First, a large number of slang and jokes are hard to convey…Second, much content of Friends, considered healthy in the United States, still seems unacceptable to the Chinese."

Here the CCTV official is exhibiting a rather confused mental state typical of living and functioning amidst these conflicting parallel domains. This article is framed by the implicit knowledge on the part of the reader that Friends has already been available and popular in China for years. Yet he informs us that the attitudes of the characters "cannot be generally accepted by Chinese audiences." In the next breath he acknowledges that "most youths on the Chinese mainland have watched the play and feel passionate about it." Then he then loops back to his original evaluation, telling us that, though the sexual content is accepted in the US, it "still seems unacceptable to the Chinese." Well, which is it? Is the youthful audience "passionate" about the show or made uneasy by it?

Cf. Chinese Tech Buffs Slake Thirst for U.S. TV Shows By HOWARD W. FRENCH

Mr. Ding, 23, an Internet technology expert for a large Chinese bank, chuckled at the thought. He has kept himself in virtual seclusion during his off hours, consumed with American television programs like "Lost," "C.S.I." and "Close to Home."

He is no ordinary fan, though; none of the shows he watches can be seen on Chinese television. Instead, he spends night after night creating Chinese subtitles for American sitcoms and dramas for a mushrooming audience of Chinese viewers who download them from the Internet free through services like BitTorrent...

...the adapters say they are willing to devote long hours to this effort out of a love for American popular culture. Many, including Mr. Ding, say they learned English by obsessively watching American movies and television programs.

Others say they pick up useful knowledge about everything from changing fashion and mores to medical science.

"It provides cultural background relating to every aspect of our lives: politics, history and human culture," Mr. Ding said. "These are the things that make American TV special. When I first started watching 'Friends,' I found the show was full of information about American history and showed how America had rapidly developed. It's more interesting than textbooks or other ways of learning."

On an Internet forum about the downloaded television shows, a poster who used the name Plum Blossom put it another way.

"After watching these shows for some time, I felt the attitudes of some of the characters were beginning to influence me," the poster wrote. "It's hard to describe, but I think I learned a way of life from some of them. They are good at simplifying complex problems, which I think has something to do with American culture."..

China combines a fast-growing population of more than 123 million Internet users, most with access to broadband service, with a stultifying television culture. The state-owned national network, CCTV, has 16 broadcast channels, but they vary little in their mixture of endless historical dramas, tepid soap operas and copycat game shows.

In an e-mail interview, a fan of American television shows who goes by the name of Happyidea and who asked not to be further identified gave this assessment of the Chinese programming: "Our own actors are not bad. Those responsible for making Chinese TV shows pathetic are the directors, screenwriters, editors and the people doing the lighting, music, special effects and makeup. There are bits of poor quality in every aspect, and it adds up to total trash."..

"CCTV-8 aired 'Desperate Housewives' and we made a point of watching it," said Jin Bo, 25, an English teacher and member of YDY, a leading rival to Fengruan. "I thought, Oh my God, the dubbing, the translation, why is it all so bad? It lost what made the original show wonderful, and the ratings were extremely low."