My first post after a few months,and I'm back just to blab about Chinese dialects in American TV shows. I'll blab about dramas during the summer when I have time to catch up on them. But I was recently watching Nikita on CW when I noticed how they would switch between Cantonese and Mandarin. The dude was talking to his men in Mandarin, and then in the next scene he's speaking in Canto. What's worse, all the people who spoke Chinese, in either dialect, had such a strong accent, no one would believe that they were from China. For instance, take the agent who pretended to be a local security guard. He was able to trick a roomful of scientists while using the lousiest Mandarin ever. I think this is a good reason for the entertainment industry in America to hire more Asians. They shouldn't be a minority in the industry anymore, since more and more movies and shows seem to have scenes that take place in the blooming Asia.
I'm not hating on Nikita(I love it too much for that). It has happened on other shows, and it gets to the point that it's annoying like hell. I know that people who don't know Chinese wouldn't be bothered by it, just like how I can never know if the Russian or French or any other language is correctly portrayed, but it still irks me that they don't even bother to differentiate between dialects.
So, tell me what you think about this, and I'll see you guys next time. PENGUIN WAVES BYES~
