2 minutes of fame on Shanghainese television

Culture matters, it matters!

Is the slogan from a televisionshow on ICS, a Shanghainese televisionstation.

Culture matters is a bilingual tv show in english and mandarin, targeted on well educated chinese interested in western culture and foreigners. The show, hosted by Sammy Yang, a macho chinese american who moved back to Shanghai a couple of years ago and who has the attitude that belongs to a 'famous' talkshow host.

On sunday 26th of december the topic of the show was couchsurfing. The recording of the show was on the 20th of November in the studio of ICS. Me and a couple of couchsurfers went there. Partly because some of us were asked to tell about experience, partly because we wanted to experience being in a shanghainese televisionshow. I was a disappointed to see that only 7 people from the community went there, while there are more 40 active members in Shanghai. The rest of the audience were young chinese professionals whose company kindly asked them to show up as tv audience (klapvee).

Me and Nana at the Motion magic studios

When we arrived at the studio, we were placed in the dressingroom. There we met the guests of the show, two couchsurfers and a psychologist. Me and Nana we weren't guests but we had to sit in the audience and tell a bit about our experience when asked. The guests were getting make up and for us it was not necessary, but we insisted (we had to reveal the signs of our age, since the average couchsurfer is about ten years younger then us).

Me in the dressingroom getting make up

After make up we could take a seat in the studio. We were all getting more excited and when we got big red and blue badmintonbats we couldn't resist playing with them. And of course as a result of that, one of them broke.

The audience with red and blue badmintonbats

 We got the bats by the way, so we could say if we agree with the statements that were giving throughout the show.

The recording took about three hours, which was very tiring, especially because it was quiet hot in the studio. During the whole show I'm visible one time in a clip and two times in the audience and I also got to say something (around 28" and 38").

If you want to see the show you can go to this link. It's on Youku, the chinese version of Youtube

Me, talkshowhost Sammy and Bevie