Different cultural values see award-winning U.S. melodrama run aground in China 　　
　　It had audiences on the edge of their seats in 202 countries and regions around the world, but in China the show was a deleterious bridge too far. The award-winning American soap opera Desperate Housewives, came, was seen, but failed to conquer Chinese TV audiences, exposing the enormous cultural gap over family values in different parts of the world.
　　The introduction of the global hit made history for national broadcaster Chinese Central Television (CCTV) in introducing a foreign TV drama in record time. While CCTV decided to buy the broadcasting right in July 2005, the censoring and post-production took another five months. A Chinese-dubbed version of the show premiered at 10 p.m. December 19. The entire first season was screened over the course of a week, with three episodes back to back per day.
　　While the producer and distributors of the ABC hit had high hopes for the series’ debut in front of the world’s largest national TV audience, the viewership rating was no doubt a disappointment. The average viewing rate of 0.4 percent was poor for this time slot of 10 p.m. through 1 a.m., which is designated for imported TV soaps.
　　“Setting rating records was not our priority when deciding to introduce Desperate Housewives,” said Chief Media Analyst of CCTV Yuan Fang in an interview with a Beijing-based newspaper. “We want to balance the strong ‘Korean crazy’ dominating the foreign fare slot by introducing excellent TV series from other countries.”
　　
　　Why poor ratings?
　　
　　But with all the hype worldwide, why did this “must see” show bomb so badly on the mainland. Several reasons have been given. The practice of airing three back-to-back episodes is blamed for destroying the joy of suspense and leaving little time for digestion. The inconvenient time slot forced early risers among the fans to leave the TV before the daily lineup finished. The next night they found themselves unable to catch up with the plot as they had missed out on some episodes. Some audiences who have watched the original version also singled out the poor dubbing as a major drawback. For one thing, the flavor of humor gets lost in translation due to mistakes or cultural differences, while voice artists failed to translate the unique characters of the four leading actresses and used monotonous and often exaggerated voice tones.
　　Censorship used to tone down racy lines and trim steamy scenes is believed to also have played a hand in pushing down ratings. On the contrary, the main reason for surveyed TV audiences who dislike the soap is that it contains too much sex and violence.
　　Ultimately, it is the cultural discrepancy between two sets of family values that explains the internationally acclaimed hit’s running aground in China. This also explains why similarly scheduled South Korean soaps yielded ratings several times of Housewives’.
　　Not long before the airing of Desperate Housewives, CCTV played a top-rated South Korean soap at the same schedule, the fourth time due to its high popularity. The 170-episode TV series concentrating on love stories of three children of an ordinary family became one of the most viewed TV dramas of 2004 and 2005 in China. Contrary to Housewives, the Korean show is a truthful portrayal of day-to-day life of ordinary Korean extended families, with no plunging necklines or sharp punchlines and no hooks of adultery or murder to entice audiences. Despite the notoriously slow pace, the replay of the show delivered an average viewership rating much higher than that of Housewives.
　　In South Korean TV dramas, when it comes to family life, individual diligence, self-sacrifice, obedience of younger generations to older generations and absolute devotion of parents to children are perpetual themes and core values. These values that could be traced back to the influence of Confucianism easily resonates with Chinese people. By contrast, the life on Wisteria Lane, the fictional California community in Housewives, is too far away from the life of ordinary Chinese.
　　In addition, there are a whole basket of issues that have driven a wedge between the show and Chinese audiences. Above all, the concept of professional housewives is not widely practiced in China since double-income families are the norm for city residents. However premature a 15-year-old teenage girl becomes, it is unthinkable for her to urge her mother to date a new neighbor. Looking at alternative lifestyles, it was only several years ago that Chinese law deleted gay from the list of mental diseases. Therefore, the majority of the public still deems gay men as mentally disturbed. And Lynette’s pains as a super mom to four unruly kids are not understandable in a country, which has adopted family planning policies encouraging one child for over 25 years. As far as Gabrielle is concerned, her disrespect for her mother-in-law has gone beyond the point considered outrageous by Chinese standards.
　　“It is normal that ratings of TV dramas from Europe and the United States rank lower than those from South Korea,” said Yuan Fang. He pointed out the essential reason is not the gap in quality but the huge cultural background differences between East and West, in terms of both customs and moral standards.
　　
　　Adaptability
　　
　　Xie Hanshuang, a 23-year-old secretary from a Beijing-based company, is well versed in Western arts and literature since she majored in English literature back in university. She watched Desperate Housewives by downloading it from the Internet immediately after its premiere in the United States. She said she was a big fan and could easily relate sufferings of the actresses with her life. But in the last two months, she has been mesmerized with a 16-episode South Korean soap about the romance of a 29-year-old spinster baker so that her plan to watch the second season of Housewives was put off.
　　“I like the South Korean show even better,” said Xie. “I think although I can understand the language and humor, I don’t have the same satire as Americans. Compared with the darkly comic serial riddled with arson, suicide, murder and extramarital affairs, my friends and I tend to enjoy more positive works.”
　　Values die hard, but they do change over time. It might not be long for Chinese urbanites to embrace and adopt values from the West with the westernization of their own lifestyles.
　　While Desperate Housewives beamed across local airwaves, China was busy shooting its own version of the American series, titled Beautiful Housewives, which would soften the controversies in the original show to cater for a more mild Chinese taste. This followed the example of Keen to Fall in Love, a 32-episode Chinese reproduction of TV hit Sex and the City. Although the melodrama was accused of promoting feminism after its debut at a Guangdong-based television network in November 2004, it has achieved considerable rating successes while playing on the national TV network and provincial TV networks across China.
　　

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