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I often take the bus between Xi’an and Yongji, the city closest to Guan Ai School. It’s a two and a half hour ride. The scenery can be pretty but more often than not, I find myself distracted, disturbed, or downright traumatized by what is going on inside the bus…on the TV. My ears and eyes have repeatedly been assaulted by extremely bloody gangster and assassin movies. Every passenger on the bus is exposed, thanks to a booming sound system above each seat. The few times the movie wasn’t gratuitously violent, I was treated to gaudy variety shows that included beer chugging competitions and making fun of dwarfs. Other times, it’s an hour straight of half-naked women pole-dancing (no other content). From my experience taking buses all over China (especially to and from rural areas), I know this isn’t limited to the Xi’an-Yongji route. Every day, millions of men, women, and children take long-distance buses and are subjected for hours to this kind of programming.

I asked the driver of my bus today where he gets the content to show. He said that the companies that manage bus stations choose the content and install it on the hard drives of each bus that uses their station. Individual bus owners can’t refuse. They are not paid for playing it, but they do anyways and the driver seemed to think it was no big deal. He and a station ticket collector denied that the programming was exceptionally violent. “Most of these movies are popular ones for mass audiences. They have already been playing for a long time before they get here,” the ticket collector said. “They must have been approved by the broadcast unit,” said the driver. Another passenger chimed in that if I didn’t like what was playing, I could ask the bus driver to change to another selection. There are usually dozens of movies loaded on to the hard drive. However, since no information is available about the content of the choices (besides a name) and passengers are given no indication they can give input in choosing, I’m not surprised the driver said that no one has ever asked him to change the selection before.

Given that I have seen countless movies on buses that are definitely NOT mainstream, I question the motives and oversight of the bus media industry. China doesn’t have a movie ratings system and often, there are children on these buses. The hours spent on a bus passively watching TV can expose them to all sorts of things. It could be a great opportunity for educational and enriching programming but the norm seems to be corruption, exploitation, murder and mayhem.

I would like to find out more about the following issues:

– How do other passengers feel about bus TV programming?
– How does the bus station company negotiate the content it distributes? What standards and policies does it use?
– Are there avenues passengers can take to really influence what is shown?

Do you have any insights into this or stories from your own experiences? How could the bus media distribution system be used for positive educational purposes instead? It’s a medium that reaches millions of rural migrant workers and their families. Perhaps there are creative ways we can go from being passive (and cringing) victims to make some good use of the next time spent on our butts rolling to somewhere in China.