TIME Asia | "Z" is for Zhima Jie

TELEVISION: Sesame Street wends its way to China	ASIA	January 26, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 3
"Z" is for Zhima Jie That's Mandarin for Sesame Street, which is launching its learning-is-fun show in China By JAIME A. FLORCRUZ Shanghai he tune is one of the most familiar of our time, sometimes naggingly so, and the lyric indelibly ingrained: "Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?" But that query was always metaphorical. For millions of children raised on the award-showered U.S. television program--for whom the letter "B" would always be associated with a fuzzy puppet named Bert and "E" with sidekick Ernie--Sesame Street was never any farther away than a flick of the TV knob. Now China's children will have a chance to take that instant voyage. Starting next month, a hybridized version of the show will start airing in Shanghai (potential viewership: 100 million), and by year's end the program is expected to be syndicated throughout the country. "If the initial results of the group tests are accurate, it will be a big hit," says Kathy McClure, a Shanghai-based executive for Children's Television Workshop, which is producing the show with Shanghai Television. General Electric, the program's sole sponsor, put up $3 million to finance the project for three years. There is plenty of reason for optimism. China's is the 17th such effort to make Sesame Street a global boulevard, and virtually all of the other productions--in the Philippines, Norway, Turkey and elsewhere--have been successes. Translating Sesame Street's trademark features and phrases from English to Mandarin, the first of China's dialects to be used for the program, turned out to be relatively easy. The show's name, for example, is Zhima Jie, which translates literally as Sesame Street. (The average Chinese child, by the way, consumes more sesame seeds, cakes and oil than even the most avid American Big Mac aficionado.) Some 60% of the content will be locally filmed. The remainder, much of it the animated learning segments, will come from the Children's Television Workshop film library. "It's American format, Chinese content," says local co-producer Ye Chao of Shanghai Television. Sesame Street's China connection began 15 years ago, when a U.S. team was allowed to film a 90-minute special in which Big Bird--he of the silky, yellow plumes and the basketball player's height--traveled through China in search of a phoenix. That adventure was shown both in the U.S. and, in a dubbed version, in the People's Republic. But it's just as well that the formal tie-up wasn't started then, or the Cookie Monster might have been replaced by the Unsmiling Dragon of Socialist Realism. In today's looser, less-ideological times, the Zhima Jie set is a busy Chinese neighborhood with a noodle shop, public phone booth, bicycle repair stand and an admirable, if atypical, recycling center. Bert and Ernie have been replaced by Puffing Pig and Little Plum, a furry red monster. Big Bird will stay home: the Americans have never allowed him to star in any of their foreign co-productions, though they compromised with the Chinese. "We had thought of creating a new character similar to Big Bird," says Ye, "but we realized we could not come up with one as striking and beautiful." Children's Television Workshop offered a nearly identical Muppet from Jim Henson Productions, although they insisted on a little subterfuge. The show's star is called Da Niao, literally Big Bird, but he's identified as the original star's Chinese cousin. Some of the children in test audiences were slightly less than enamored. "His beak is so big," said a Shanghai child, "it could snap people up."
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That's Mandarin for Sesame Street, which is launching its learning-is-fun show in China

By JAIME A. FLORCRUZ Shanghai

he tune is one of the most familiar of our time, sometimes naggingly so, and the lyric indelibly ingrained: "Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?" But that query was always metaphorical. For millions of children raised on the award-showered U.S. television program--for whom the letter "B" would always be associated with a fuzzy puppet named Bert and "E" with sidekick Ernie--Sesame Street was never any farther away than a flick of the TV knob.

Now China's children will have a chance to take that instant voyage. Starting next month, a hybridized version of the show will start airing in Shanghai (potential viewership: 100 million), and by year's end the program is expected to be syndicated throughout the country. "If the initial results of the group tests are accurate, it will be a big hit," says Kathy McClure, a Shanghai-based executive for Children's Television Workshop, which is producing the show with Shanghai Television. General Electric, the program's sole sponsor, put up $3 million to finance the project for three years.

There is plenty of reason for optimism. China's is the 17th such effort to make Sesame Street a global boulevard, and virtually all of the other productions--in the Philippines, Norway, Turkey and elsewhere--have been successes. Translating Sesame Street's trademark features and phrases from English to Mandarin, the first of China's dialects to be used for the program, turned out to be relatively easy. The show's name, for example, is Zhima Jie, which translates literally as Sesame Street. (The average Chinese child, by the way, consumes more sesame seeds, cakes and oil than even the most avid American Big Mac aficionado.) Some 60% of the content will be locally filmed. The remainder, much of it the animated learning segments, will come from the Children's Television Workshop film library. "It's American format, Chinese content," says local co-producer Ye Chao of Shanghai Television.

Sesame Street's China connection began 15 years ago, when a U.S. team was allowed to film a 90-minute special in which Big Bird--he of the silky, yellow plumes and the basketball player's height--traveled through China in search of a phoenix. That adventure was shown both in the U.S. and, in a dubbed version, in the People's Republic. But it's just as well that the formal tie-up wasn't started then, or the Cookie Monster might have been replaced by the Unsmiling Dragon of Socialist Realism. In today's looser, less-ideological times, the Zhima Jie set is a busy Chinese neighborhood with a noodle shop, public phone booth, bicycle repair stand and an admirable, if atypical, recycling center. Bert and Ernie have been replaced by Puffing Pig and Little Plum, a furry red monster. Big Bird will stay home: the Americans have never allowed him to star in any of their foreign co-productions, though they compromised with the Chinese. "We had thought of creating a new character similar to Big Bird," says Ye, "but we realized we could not come up with one as striking and beautiful." Children's Television Workshop offered a nearly identical Muppet from Jim Henson Productions, although they insisted on a little subterfuge. The show's star is called Da Niao, literally Big Bird, but he's identified as the original star's Chinese cousin. Some of the children in test audiences were slightly less than enamored. "His beak is so big," said a Shanghai child, "it could snap people up."