A few weeks ago, I was treated to my first China Movie experience. I went and saw the Hobbit in 3D with some fellow American friends. It was in English with Chinese subtitles, and I had a blast!
In America, I love going to the movies. So naturally, when my Chinese friend Kate, invited me to the movies to celebrate our friend Doris' birthday, I was excited. Movie time with friends is something I always did in high school and college.
The movie we were going to go see was Jack the Giant Killer! It was a movie that has been on my "to watch list" for quite some time. I had to teach two classes and an English corner today, so movie night with my friends was a great motivation to keep up the cheerful spirit. Our little movie-going party consisted of Kate and Doris (Chinese students) Andrew, Sydney and myself (American teachers.). We were all really excited about getting to go see a movie with friends. We got to the theater and grabbed our tickets.
Cool thing about Chinese theaters: they assign you seats, kind of. When you purchase your tickets, you get to choose what seat number you want. American theaters really should do this! No more jockeying to get the first spot in line for midnight showings or showings of any kind.
Anyways, we got our tickets and sat down. Though, right away Doris, Kate and I scurried off to use the ladies room before the film started. Another cool thing about Chinese movie theaters is that there is no promo film reel. It just starts the movie at the time it says on your ticket! This is slightly bad though, because I am used to America where I can run and use the bathroom during the promo reels and not worry about missing anything.
Us girls actually ran to the restroom and ran back to the theater, much to the amusement of the workers there. We entered the theater, donned our 3D glasses and sat down. We had only missed maybe two minutes of the film. It took me a few seconds, maybe only one and then it hit me. What the people's mouths were saying was not matching up with what I was hearing. The movie Jack the Giant Killer, an American movie, was not in English. It was dubbed over in Chinese!
Sydney, who had not gone to the restroom and had figured this out already, looked at my face and laughed! Kate, the poor dear, looked horrified. She had swore that it was going to be in English because, when she bought the tickets online, it said so. Some seat re-arranging was done so that Kate and Doris were positioned to translate for us.
Now, I had two options in front of me. Get upset that I couldn't understand what was being said, or have fun. We all chose to have fun. At first, Sydney and I made up what they were saying, dubbing it ourselves. But then, Kate and Doris after switching seats, began giving us the basics of what was being said which helped a lot. What also helped a lot was a little known skill that I have.
Some of you may know, I took American Sign Language for two years in high school and four semesters in college. (Mrs. Swank and Professr Donah, thank you so much!) When you sign, a lot of times you lip what you are signing, and I got pretty good at lip reading. So when the shots were showing the actor's mouths, I could 90% of the time correctly surmise or quote what they were saying. This was much to the amusement of Kate and Doris. What also was funny was being able to recognize the handful of Chinese words that I knew. Andrew knows more Chinese than Sydney and I do, so he was able to play the "recognize the Chinese word" game better than us.
The movie was great! I don't ever remember having that much fun at the movies. Was was really nice is that the Chinese people around us did not mind us talking, because a lot of them were talking also.
I really enjoyed the movie. It was funny, clean and left a good feeling in our hearts. I would love to see it again! Though, perhaps next time in English.
I am praising the Father for giving us all a spirit of joy and love and for friendship in these crazy adventures.
Oh China, thank you for these wonderful adventures!
<3 Hilary
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