Talking about sex on TV in Taiwan and the mainland

Kang Kang's show in Taiwan. Topic: underwear models

Kang Kang (aka Kang Jinrong) is an entertainer from Taiwan who was on the mainland earlier this month promoting his new album, My Family (我的家庭). This album is a reworked (and sanitized) version of one that came out on Taiwan last fall under the slightly more agressive title What's it to you who I marry? (管你妈妈嫁给谁).

Kang Kang is known for his colorful language and crude humor, and did his promotional tour on the mainland under the label "talk show host" rather than "singer," a choice that enabled him to comment on the cross-straits disparity: remuneration (hosts from Taiwan make serious coin on the mainland), attitude (mainland hosts should find their own expression amid their imitation of Taiwan mannerisms), and Super Girls (he wants to create a program that will pay contestants for how long they last on stage before the judges kick them off). The fact that his music has not been judged too highly may have had something to do with it as well.

Speaking to Southern Metropolis Weekly about talk show topics, Kang Kang compared the situation on the mainland to that in Taiwan:

Serving in the army, for example. What does it mean that I was in the army over there? There are some things that are too sensitive; to casually bring them up may or may not raise problems. So there is certainly some hands-tying going on. When I come over to do a program, I have to add in a couple of mainland partners in order to pass certification.

[He gives an example:] I read in the newspaper that cigarette smoking is bad for you, so I stopped smoking. I read in the newspaper that drinking is also bad for you, so I stopped drinking. I read in the newspaper that sex is bad for you, so I stopped reading the newspaper. This is a funny joke, but I can't tell it over here. Telling jokes in Taiwan is closer to American talk shows, but telling jokes on the mainland is more like crosstalk, and you can't talk about this stuff. I'm learning slowly, finding out what I can and can't talk about. I need to be careful.

Sun Guoqing and his little devils

Of course, Kang Kang's is not the only perspective. We turn now to Sun Guoqing, a cellist, singer, and talk-show host who has been in the media recently because of his new program on Travel TV, Ha La Mr. Sun. He also hosts a knockoff of Kids Say the Darndest Things on Star TV; below is a translation of one blogger's summary of a particularly unexpected episode:

Doing a spit-take at "Little Devils"

Those in the know are aware that this is a program on Star TV. Sun Guoqing hosts; it's really just a lot of talk. But compared with its sister show, "Beauty Checkpoint," it actually is quite good, really, many times more interesting and meaningful.

Apart from that, when I watched last night it really had me in stitches. Sun Guoqing said, "Oh no, I've sprained my back from the way I slept last night." Then he asked one of the kids, "Do you know who I was sleeping with? Uncle or Auntie?" One kid said that he had slept with Auntie. Sun Guoqing said, "That's right," and his expression at that point was really a little lecherous, but kids certainly couldn't see that...

After that, he again turned to the question of homosexuality. Sun Guoqing asked the kids, "Why can't an Auntie marry an Auntie, or an Uncle marry an Uncle?" One kid said, "Because the police would catch them."

Then Sun Guoqing asked, "What would happen if an Auntie married an Auntie?" One kid said, "Then there wouldn't be any kids. The world would only have plants left."

Sun Guoqing then asked, "Who can tell me why an Auntie and an Auntie together can't have a kid?" One girl said self-assuredly, "Because when an Auntie and an Uncle are together, there is a sperm in the Aunties body, and in the Uncle's body, too. If an Auntie's sperm gets together with another Auntie's sperm, they can't have a kid." All of the audience was shocked.