Over the May Holiday, I took some time to do some really important things. I finished watching 3 entire seasons of Prison Break.

Not that I ever watched Prison Break in America, or even T.V. for that matter. It’s just in China, after weeks of teaching hours of English lessons, I decided to rest out the holiday at home. And what else are you going to do at home, but get caught up in some story line, and waste your time on a tremendous and unhealthy amount of television?

I would feel ashamed to admit what I did, but the truth is a lot of other expats do the same sort of thing. Many of my friends who are “non-T.V. watchers” in their home countries, find their ways to China, buy the whole season of a T.V. series thinking to watch an episode here and there, only to find themselves absorbed in a Gollum-like state, lurking from their apartments when a disk ends to get some sort of street food, only to return to their caves to see what happens next. And before they know it, Friday night is now Sunday morning.

Anyway, why not? Western DVDs are so readily available here, and are so, sooo cheap. Although, as well all know, not legal.

For instance, just last summer, I think Batman was officially released in theatres July 8.I bought it on July 10, in China. In a dim little shop that also sells books, and rents a T.V. that kids can play video games on. I found a copy of The Dark Knight hanging in the doorway next to a few other new releases. Hulk, Wanted, and something with Pierce Brosnan.

We paid 10 kuai to the lady with the lap dog, picked up some ice cream on the way home and watched it. A couple weeks before that I saw Hancock. I paid 6 yuan for it, on a DVD that had 15 other superhero movies. It's a new thing they do here; sell DVDs with a dozen movies on one disc. Sometimes they try to keep a running theme, like “Chick flicks” or “Oscar Awards Winners.” Hancock was on the "Superhero" one. And I don’t care what the critics say; Will Smith is funny in that movie.

Illegal DVDs are just like a lot of other illegal things in China. Illegal, and yet everywhere. DVD shops are almost as conspicuous as those “massage parlors” that are notorious for their strings of pink Christmas lights.

That's not to say the government isn't doing something about it. (The DVDs anyway. No government has been able to doanything about the parlors.) To find out about what the police might be doing, I just started asking shopkeepers questions. I'd ask if they sold illegal DVDs. I'd ask if the cops ever bothered them. And the response was usually the same, people quickly shut up or else demanded to know if I was a cop myself. Past that I got only a few responses, like:

"White lady, you're weird to ask these questions. Get out of here!"

But I was able to learn some things. Like, the cops do come around and at least scare them, if they don't shut them down. Also, the supply chain is elaborate and careful. Suppliers lay low. For inventory, shopkeepers do not call up and order what they want. They wait for a person to come around, and give them new movies, whatever those happen to be at the time. One woman I spoke to said she wasn't sure who they were, but they just come every once in a while, and sell what they have. She doesn't really get a choice in what to buy.

 

But as a consumer, there are some things you may presume. For instance, it's easy to see how many little shops use the same supplier. On the same day each shop might all of a sudden have the exact same new movies on their shelves after a few weeks of everyone having a bad selection, at least in my city.

 

Another place to buy illegal inventory is actually online. One web site offers bulk orders of any movie you can think of, at prices much lower than Warner Bros would be happy with! The web site also offers movies in 10 different languages. English is the first option. All you have to do is dial the 9 digit number.

Another funny thing about illegal movies is that to buy an actual DVD is the expensive option. The cheapest way to watch something is just to download it.

Which raises another question, that even if they did clean up all the brick and mortar shops, could they ever control the online world of illegal downloading?

For instance, one student I interviewed said she never bought illegal DVDs.I was so excited for her to tell me she actually went to the trouble to buy genuine copies…yeah right. “No! I watch all movies online for free! 7 yuan is too expensive. I'm a student!”

She then showed me about 5 or 6 websites she knew of to download Chinese or English movies, all for free. (Recently however, some universities have started to decrease the bandwidth available on campuses to prevent students from downloading movies.)

Many people believe that because you can get illegal DVDs in so many different ways, that the government may seem powerless to stop it.

Or maybe it's because the sale of illegal DVDs actually does more good than harm. In my city, selling DVDs creates jobs where there is very high unemployment. I've met many college graduates, proficient in English, who work at DVD shops full time because they couldn't find anything better, and in the end, it wasn't that bad.

That's what one customer explained to me as she was fingering through a stack of Chinese dramas. Her painted nails ran between the same sleek cardstock envelopes all movies come in.

“The Government has one eye open, and one eye closed on illegal discs,” she said. “One the one hand, selling illegal discs is bad for the law. But so many Chinese are doing better because of it.” She was very well dressed, young, and articulate with her English. “It's hard to find jobs for so many people. And Chinese like to buy movies very much." She may be right.

And it's not as if most people who do buy illegal movies, would actually ever pay a more expensive price for real Western movies sold at only a few locations. Because of the higher prices, (20+ yuan) the market for legal DVDs may not ever be that big. Of course, we'll probably never know. Legal prices have never been able to compete with dirt cheap or free.

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