January 20, 2012

Tudou is the largest online video site in China and, seemingly unfettered by the pesky IPR laws that keep full-length pirated material from lasting on Youtube for more than a few minutes, it’s loaded with TV shows and movies.

As a student of Chinese, this is a great boon. Chinese TV shows are available at any time, and can be stopped, rewound, and watched again (and again, and again…) if you missed something the first time. Since most shows in China air with accurate, burned on Chinese subtitles, you’ll have a transcript of what’s being said sitting in front of you as well. Even better, Tudou users have grouped popular shows into playlists so you don’t have to hunt around for the next episode.There are many, many more shows (and movies, and pretty much anything else you can imagine) available in Tudou’s archives.

Post: Is self-preservation a firing offense?, by Joel Martinsen. Danwei, 1 June 2008.

If running out of a classroom at the beginning of an earthquake and leaving your students behind is OK, asks Fan, then why is writing about it not? Maybe because saying things like “I’d save my daughter before I saved my mother, and I wouldn’t sacrifice myself for anyone else” makes you look like like a morally reprehensible bastard? There are probably quite a lot of us who would, in the situation Fan faced, do the same thing (it’s hard to predict how you’d react in an emergency until you’re in one) — but I hope we’d at least be able to eek out an apology.