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TV dramas need creative touch

A Korean wave is sweeping across China, with many Chinese women

worshipping South Korean actors Kim Soo-hyun and Lee Min-ho as demigods.

Chinese netizens have always been divided over South Korean TV dramas, but

there is no doubt that programs from the neighboring country are now

enjoying a new round of popularity in China. And a big part of the credit for

that goes to You Who Came From The Star, the South Korean TV series which

is on the air now.

Top South Korean actors Jun Ji-hyun and Kim Soo-hyun recently earned a

popularity rating of 24.8 percent in their country, considered strong by

Nielsen Korea. You Who Came From The Star and The Heirs have been

subjects of hot online discussions throughout Asia. Besides, the book, The

Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, read by the hero in You Who Came

From The Star was a hard-to- get item on Amazon for a while.

The two TV programs have several common elements: a tall, handsome, and

rich hero who loves the heroine blindly and always protects her, and an

equally handsome man madly in love with the same woman. Both programs

portray the purity of love, which is expressed through a kiss or a warm hug.

Perhaps that's the secret of their success; perhaps people are still fascinated by

Cinderella-type stories.

The widening wealth gap is a matter of social concern both in South Korea and

China, and the challenges that young people face in their quest for a better life

might have prompted many ordinary girls to dream of marrying rich, caring

men. This is precisely what the popular South Korean TV dramas portray. In

fact, South Korean TV dramas are tailored to meet the market's demands.

In contrast, Chinese TV screens are flooded by knock-off and/or poorly made

soap operas. Most of the Chinese TV dramas either distort the War of

Resistance against Japanese Aggression, which is a distortion of history, or

blindly copy foreign programs. The lack of good stories has of late resulted in

loads of TV series on time travel or fights in the harems of Qing Dynasty

(1644-1911) emperors. These, in short, are the bane of Chinese TV

productions.

In contrast, South Korean TV dramas have re-invented themselves. In fact,

2013 could be said to be the year of rebirth of South Korean TV dramas.

Shortly after the enormous craze generated by Great Jang-Geum in 2003,

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South Korean dramas lost much of their popularity in other Asian countries

thanks partly to better produced works from the United States and the United

Kingdom.

Many netizens even said at the time that South Korean TV dramas had

become pass because of their stereotyped themes: traffic accidents, and cancer

and other incurable diseases. But all that has changed with the success of You

Who Came From The Star and The Heirs, which Chinese directors can use as

examples, as well as inspiration, to improve their productions.

The resurgence of South Korean TV dramas can be attributed to the joint

efforts of the country's government and TV series makers. The South Korean

government implemented a policy to help TV productions back in the late

1990s, when the first wave of popular dramas emerged from the country to

capture the imagination of the people in the rest of Asia. Just before the turn

of the millennium, the South Korean government issued regulations saying at

least 80 percent of the TV programs had to be domestically produced. It also

fixed the minimum number of homemade TV series to be broadcast in the

country. That not only helped South Korean TV productions gain a firm

foothold in the domestic market, but also laid the foundation for their

successful foray into overseas markets.

Recent years have seen great innovations in South Korean TV productions in

terms of themes and narrative patterns. Take You Who Came From The Star

as an example. Although aliens visiting Earth is an oft- used theme, You Who

Came From The Star's script remains logical and fast-paced. It mixes the plot

with romance and murder and keeps the audience guessing about how the

story will unfold. When it comes to love stories, the new South Korean

teleplays no longer use the distress card; instead, they intersperse them with

whimsy and romantic punch lines.

The three TV stations, SBS, KBS and MBC, control the majority of South

Korean TV market, each specializing in a different area and catering to people

of different ages. The productions are sleek and use advanced technologies

such as high-speed photography and computer-generated effects, creating a

real-life visual impact.

Moreover, the shooting for South Korean productions generally starts when

the scripts are just one-third ready. Many popular productions have their own

websites, where scriptwriters post part of the finished scripts, inviting viewers

to leave messages, discuss the plot and come up with suggestions for future

episodes. This not only keeps viewers' interest in the TV dramas alive, but also

helps scriptwriters and directors make changes to the storylines to suit the

audience's demand.

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Hopefully, the innovation- induced success of South Korean TV programs will

prompt Chinese TV drama makers to think up new ideas and abandon their

bad practice of copying foreign productions in order to attract more viewers at

home, and possibly abroad.

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worship

['w

?

:

?

ip]

n.

崇拜；礼拜；尊敬

vt.

崇拜；尊敬；爱慕

vi.

拜神；做礼拜

demigod

['demi

ɡ?d]

n.

受崇拜的人，英雄人物；半神半人；小神

fascinate

['f?

sineit

vt.

使着迷，使神魂颠倒

vi.

入迷

distort

[dis't

?

:t

t.

扭曲；使失真；曲解

vi.

扭曲；变形

harem

['h

ɑ:ri:m

n.

闺房里的妻妾群；

闺房

（伊斯兰教教徒的）

Apple's iPhone loses the New York Times' selfie

smackdown

自拍神器大 赛，苹果

iPhone

垫底

Hollywood),

blown-out, backlit, grainy and worst of all, distorted (I swear, I have a normal

size nose!).

Some may be more terrible than others, however. So Wood, deputy tech editor

for the Times' business section, set out for Times Square to shoot some

pictures of herself with what she describes as

phones in the U.S. market.

have to say I'm not very impressed with the iPhone's front-facing camera.

She's surprised because the 5S has, in her words,

cameras available, and is easily capable of replacing a snapshot camera

entirely.

But the iPhone's selfies were a disappointment:

colors tended to appear washed out, and its lens produced the most distortion

of the bunch (once again: My nose does not look like that in real life).

As for the rest ...

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had rich, true colors, and the camera performed better in low light than the

competition.

?

e Nokia Lumia 1020 was a close second, despite its lower resolution, but

indoor shots were worse than outdoor shots.

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inconsistent, and any bright lights in the background resulted in badly

blown- out images.

But none of the phones were good enough for Wood. She blames the pressure

on manufacturerers to make every new generation of smartphones thinner

than the old -- a design priority she lays at Apple's feet.

But there may be a larger issue issue for Apple.

Selfies, like Facebook and Twitter, are a major social media phenomenon. The

word

year. And

With 184 million selfies on Instagram, how could Apple miss it?

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?

?

快照

grainy

['

ɡreini]

adj.

粒状的；多粒的；有纹理的

distorted

[dis't< /p>

?

:tid]

adj.

歪曲的；受到曲解的

v.

扭曲（

distortasd

的过去式和过

去分词 ）

snapshot

['sn?

p

??

t]

n.

快照，快相；急射，速射；简单印象

vt.

< br>给

…

拍快照

vi.

拍

resolution

?

'lu:

? ?

n, -,lju:-]

n. [

物

]

分辨率；决议；解决；决心

?

?

neologism

[ni:'

?

l

?

d

?

iz

?

m, ni-]

n.

新词；新义；

Dim lighting helps people make better decisions,

scientists claim

Dim lighting is usually associated with relaxation, and winding down after work.

But scientists now claim that by harnessing the subduing effect on emotions

caused by dim lights.

Therefore, by dimming the lights, people become more rational, negotiate

better and are therefore able to make better decisions.

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Alison Jing Xu, assistant professor of management at University of Toronto

Scarborough and Aparna Labroo of Northwestern University, made the

findings by examining the link between lighting and human

emotion,PsychCentral reported.

Participants in the study were asked to rate under different lighting settings

subjects including the spiciness of chicken-wing sauce, how aggressive a

fictional character was being, how attractive someone was and the taste of two

juices.

All of their reactions were intensified in bright light, a phenomena which

Professor Xu attributes to the body perceiving light as heat, which can trigger

emotions.

of stimulus including products and people,

In fact, they found that bright light intensifies feelings so dramatically that

people prone to depression “actually become more depressed” on sunny days,

according to Professor Xu.

Professor Xu said: ‘Marketers may also adjust the lightening levels in the retail

environment, according to the nature of the products on sale.

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are selling emotional expressive products such as flowers or

engagement rings it would make sense to make the store as bright as

possible,

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?

dim [dim] adj.

昏暗的；悲观的，怀疑的

vt.

使暗淡，使失去光泽；

n.

笨蛋，傻子

subdue [s

?

b'dju:]

vt.

征服；抑制；减轻

depression [di'pre

??

n]n.

沮丧；洼地；不景气；忧愁

Samsung's Galaxy S5: Why it matters

Investors are bullish on Samsung after the Korean giant unveiled its latest

flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

this week. Shares for the company were up slightly after a 13% drop over the

last year -- a big deal when the company's market cap hovers around $$182

billion.

The device, which will be available in April, isn't a huge step forward. Its

camera has grown from 13 megapixels to 16; its battery is promised to last

20% longer. It will have a fingerprint sensor like Apple's (AAPL) flagship model,

which went on sale in September. Its 5.1-inch active-matrix organic

light- emitting diode -- AMOLED for short -- display is rated for full high

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definition. It has a leather-like feel, which business customers may enjoy. It

has a built-in heart rate monitor. And, perhaps most notably, it is said to

withstand dust and 30 minutes in shallow water, a welcome improvement for

slippery-fingered humans everywhere.

Water resistance aside, much of these updates are incremental and expected.

This is the nature of the war waged at the premium end of the smartphone

market: It's no longer a single

superior experience. That the Galaxy S5 has a fingerprint sensor, for example,

is a matter of relief to buyers who do not prefer Apple's iPhone; the feature

won't encourage people to switch who are otherwise happy with their device.

The dynamic is a blessing and a curse for Samsung. On one hand, it means

the mature smartphone market in Western markets has evolved to the point

where a single feature won't shift fortunes -- good news in a market in which

competing companies share suppliers. On the other, it means that the

company is burdened to tie those components -- from the plastic shell to the

screen to the software -- together in a way that is distinctive and preferred.

The dynamic in emerging markets is different -- particularly in China, where

Samsung leads the pack and Apple believes it can find growth. There,

Samsung's challengers include Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, and Xiaomi. The

biggest pressure is economic: Low-priced phones have begun to flood the

market, pressuring high- end models to join the race to the bottom. A soft

economic outlook for the country complicates things, reducing the number of

buyers willing to upgrade to a premium device. Indeed, most of Samsung's

growth in China has been with low-end devices -- but the aspirational aura

around Samsung's brand is attributed to some of that success.

Samsung spent considerable sums of money on marketing and advertising on

behalf of its previous flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4. (According to some

estimates, it spent four times more than Apple and two times more than

Microsoft (MSFT) in 2012.) At the time, the company was criticized for

drumming up too much hype. This time, with the Galaxy S5, it may need only

to ride that goodwill and keep the top end of its portfolio stable as it wages a far

more vicious battle below.

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?

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bullish

['buli

?

adj.

看涨的；上扬的；似公牛的

flagship

['fl?

ɡ?ip

n.

旗舰；（作定语）一流；佼佼者

fingerprint

['fi?ɡ?print]

n.

指纹；手印

vt.

采指纹

resistance

[ri'zist

?

ns] n.

阻力；电阻；抵抗；反抗；抵抗力

aspirational

[,?

s p

?

'rei

??

n

?

l] adj.

有雄心壮志 的；

（生活形态等）梦寐以求的

n.

成

功指南；处世自助手册

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