Dahua Cinema

Betzee on February 5, 2021 at 1:18 am

Saw the American movie “Love Story” dubbed into Mandarin in the winter of 1987. Having seen it when it was released in the US, I remembered it as a “chick flick” when I went to the cineplex with my mother as a sixth-grader and we both cried at the end.

In China it was a window onto the outside world and that attracted young people of both sexes in droves. Though the movie was dubbed, my Chinese roommate told me her parents would not have been able to follow it. The nickname Preppie had meaning in English but it was simply phoneticized in Mandarin. It was a cross-cultural experience for me as well and a fond memory of studying in China.