I Love China

Some of you may not have heard about Mad Men, an American tv drama now in its second season on cable TV channel AMC.  It’s main theme is the advertising industry in the early 1960s on New York City’s Madison Avenue, where many of the top agencies are still located.  But what makes it so good is the way it captures that special era in recent American history with stunning attention to detail, down to the classic suits and the cigarette brands that people smoked.  It also provides an insight into male / female relationships at the time and the chauvinistic attitudes in both the workplace and at home that are rare these days.

It won six Emmys in its first season including outstanding drama series and has been slowly gaining in popularity among discerning viewers.  So much so in fact that fashion designer Michael Kors’ Autumn 2008 collection was inspired by Mad Men and many New York girls dressed up as one of the main female characters, Joan Holloway this Halloween.  The Simpsons did a parody of the opening credits of Mad Men for its Halloween special this year (you know you’ve made it when The Simpsons start taking notice), and a DVD of the first season was even spotted next to Barack Obama on his campaign plane recently.

What has all this got to do with China?  Well, the season two finale aired in the US on October 26th 2008, which according to my calendar, was last Sunday.  The season 2 DVD of course has not yet been released.  (In England, the second season hasn’t even started and it will be shown next year on BBC4.)  But less than a week after the final episode aired on TV in the US, I found the boxed set of the complete season two in a DVD store in Shanghai.

I love China!

PS If you still haven’t seen Mad Men, go stand in the corner and don’t come back to this blog until you’ve finished at least season one.  I’ll be asking questions to make sure you’ve seen it so don’t bother pretending either!

One of the things I miss about living in China is TV. Whenever I leave China, I binge on hours of TV. I was in Hong Kong last week briefly but spent most of my spare time in my hotel room glued to the TV. They’ve got all sorts of programmes that they never had before. Miami Ink is a TV show on TLC Discovery and it’s all about what goes on in a tattoo parlour in Miami Beach, Florida. I don’t know if it’s a case of “I never get to watch TV so anything will do” but I found it fascinating.

Apart from anything else, it opened my eyes to the wide variety of reasons for getting tattoos, including trying to cover up some scars and even to cover up an older tattoo that was done badly. Some reasons I found surprising and quite touching, like the teenage girl who came in with her mother to get a tattoo to honour her father who died in Afghanistan just months before he was going to retire.

Then there were the various tattoo artists who had very individual personalities but were all dedicated professionals who clearly knew their trade well, often talking difficult customers out of making horrific mistakes based on their vast experience and proposing far better ideas and designs.

And best of all was the reaction on camera when the customers finally got their first look at their new tattoos.

While I’m on the subject of TV, today marks the beginning of the 15th and final season of medical drama ER, which started back in 1994 when I was still living in England. For younger readers, it’s the show that launched the career of George Clooney, and I was disappointed to read that he’s not keen to accept the invitation to come back and make an appearance in the final season, despite the fact that many of the original stars have already agreed, including Anthony Edwards – whose character actually died in season 8 – and Noah Wyle, who played Dr John Carter for 11 seasons (everyone must remember him and George playing two doctors in Friends who go on a date with Rachel and Monica pretending to be each other). Oh well, there’s still Grey’s Anatomy!