I absolutely can't stand being on
Chinese TV I'm gonna tell you guys why
in a minute so this feels like deja vu
I've been spending the morning walking
up and down bridges being followed
around by a crew from the CCTV which is
China China Central Television it
doesn't mean closed-circuit TV and
basically what's been happening is
they've been doing this documentary
about China opening up with a 40 year
anniversary of China's reforms which of
course Shenzhen is a huge part of that
but the thing is they've already spent
an entire day with me and we went all
over the place this was about a month
ago
and we went to an urban village and I
showed them around spent the morning
sweating my ass off because it's so hot
here and I'm always wearing my suit and
I'm pretty sure you can tell I'm
sweating because I've been walking
around all morning
and then we went into hodjam Bay and
went to go and see some of the vendors
and I spoke to some people I know there
showed them around and so it was
actually uh it's pretty complete but you
know they need stuff to finish things
off so now they want me walking around
in a park and they also want me to show
them how I do editing on my laptop and
things like that so I'm just wrapping
this up the problem is I've got to fly
off to Taiwan this evening and so it's
it's all very short notice and it's it's
demanding and I just wanted to go over
the way things work here and explain to
you why it's it's so ridiculous because
I've got a thing against the the team
that's with me the crew that's with me
they're very nice they're just doing
their job the cameramen are actually pro
and that's something something I'm very
surprised by in China is that you know
they do pretty much everything on on
Canon 5d Mark 3 is here for TV
strangely enough like all the TV
stations just use 5d threes but they've
got all the proper lenses and they've
got the know-how and they know how to
use them and you know you actually get a
really good result a very professional
looking result at the end and remember
Chinese
production standards aren't really very
high so they don't need to worry about
doing 4k or anything over 1080 let me
get to the problems of all of this first
of all I've been contacted by CCTV for
them to make Wow it is hard for them to
make videos about me for years now and
they always contact me and they say hey
we found out about you on the internet
so we want to come do a story about you
which is they've got this show called
allow wide sides on wall which is um
kind of like a feature show of
foreigners living in China but they
demand that they come and follow me for
seven days they demand oh yeah we want
to interview your wife or your
girlfriend and your friends we want to
go to your work with you we want to go
into your house and watch you cook we
want to do all these things which is
incredibly invasive and on top of that
they don't pay anything so they expect
you to take a week out of your life show
them around accomodate them and let them
into all your privacy and expose
yourself to a lot of potential
harassment or daxing or whatever you
want to call it for nothing but because
China's media industry is still quite
young and developing people are are
willing to do this kind of thing because
they just want to be on TV you know they
want that little you know 15 minutes of
fame but someone like myself I don't
need those 15 minutes and I've had mine
so you know it's not a very good
proposal and so I've always refused
okay well missions are to to lima okay
so this is the crew behind me it
consists of try and get them in there
they're sick the producer the the woman
over there is a producer we've got two
cameramen there's a second guy and the
other guys are kind of assistants who
carry the lenses and carry the stuff
around
anyway back to what I was saying so I've
always kind of refused this especially a
person in my position I can't allow
people to know too much about me because
another part of you know Cece being CCTV
in the government is they ask you a lot
of very uncomfortable
and they also put a lot of stipulations
like you may not mention this you may
not mention that you know what these are
you on and they start to dig into all
this stuff which you know I've got
nothing to hide but at the same time I
feel very uncomfortable letting
everybody know all these very personal
details about me especially the you know
the the government TV station so yeah
I've always refused now the reason I've
decided to take this particular project
on is simply because it's about Jen Jen
and Jen Jen is my city and I love
Schengen and there's no doubt about it I
think Schengen is the best city in China
so I thought this would be a good idea
to help promote Jen Jen a little bit and
also maybe give a bit of a positive
image you know to what I do because you
know there's a fairly negative image of
me out there and the Chinese internet
although it's changed lately strangely
enough I think it's because people
pirated our conquering northern China
and conquering southern China and very
famous wave war like Internet star and
the reason he's an Internet stars
because he pirates documentaries and
movies and puts them online
it's interesting you can become a star
for being an open pirate anyway so this
guy pirated our two documentaries and he
wrote a glowing review and he kind of
analyzed it and took little chunks out
of it and said showed like how how
cooler was that we were showing the
culture and that we were really like
trying to show the rest of the world
you know what China's culture is all
about so it was a was positive so a lot
of the hate kind of died down but at the
same time it doesn't hurt to have a
little bit more positive PR and that's
why I'm going through this process of
ridiculousness and now I'm going to
complain a little bit because this is
serpens a day and you not going to get
away without a complaint and my
complaint is just what they expect from
you you know they did expect the whole
thing they so I just think it's kind of
interesting I'll keep the dancers in the
background
I think it was some one of those things
where they did ask to speak to my wife
and come to my work and come to my house
and stuff and I just I just pretty much
point-blank refused and I said no sorry
you know that's not how it goes
you're more than welcome to come with me
in as I film and we go outside and you
know talk about gin gin and stuff but
that's about as far as it goes but then
they started to demand a whole bunch of
other stuff so we spent an entire day
and I wanted to do some other things
right I had to cut it off but I did make
sure that they got all they wanted and
when I say a full day I mean I met them
at 7 a.m. and I only left at about 11
p.m. so we did a lot of filming that day
and yeah see I'm it's it's cool though
I'm busy being filmed again and then
basically what happened next is I got
you know a message to say that they
needed to film some more stuff today
well not today they wanted to film I
told them I'm going to Taiwan to do all
this a TV China stuff and so they had to
try and find a time which happens to be
today but again they put a whole list of
things that they would like to do and
it's just not possible for us to cover
so many things in a day including they
wanted me to have a party where I meet
with other foreigners and other foreign
friends here in Tianjin which I'm not
very good at throwing parties in the
first place but to to do that on a days
notice is actually really quite
difficult so you know I I just couldn't
do that and then they said ok how about
when you get back from Taiwan when are
you coming back so tell them the date
and they're like no that's too far away
how about you make your trip shorter how
about you come back earlier and I was
like no that's taking a lot of time and
planning and getting visas and stuff I'm
not gonna cancel that that quickly so
anyway I just wanted to point out that
the the list of demands are high but the
rewards are nothing I'm not getting paid
the exposure is not gonna help me in any
financial way the only thing is going to
help is perhaps a slightly more positive
image on the Chinese internet and of
course I'm kind of doing it for my my
Chinese parents in law as well if they
see me on TV
think that they'll be they'll be happy
to see that so you know that's that's
actually my main sort of motivating
factor here anyway guys I've got to get
back to filming I've got a whole day of
this stuff ahead of me and then I got a
rush off to Taiwan tonight so I'll be
catching you guys in the ATV China
videos which are going to be fantastic
cannot wait for you to see them and
until next time you know the drill as
always stay awesome
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