"It is normal that ratings of TV dramas from Europe and the United States rank lower than those from South Korea," said Yuan Fang. He pointed out the essential reason is not the gap in quality but the huge cultural background differences between East and West, in terms of both customs and moral standards.

Adaptability

Xie Hanshuang, a 23-year-old secretary from a Beijing-based company, is well versed in Western arts and literature since she majored in English literature back in university. She watched Desperate Housewives by downloading it from the Internet immediately after its premiere in the United States. She said she was a big fan and could easily relate sufferings of the actresses with her life. But in the last two months, she has been mesmerized with a 16-episode South Korean soap about the romance of a 29-year-old spinster baker so that her plan to watch the second season of Housewives was put off.

"I like the South Korean show even better," said Xie. "I think although I can understand the language and humor, I don't have the same satire as Americans. Compared with the darkly comic serial riddled with arson, suicide, murder and extramarital affairs, my friends and I tend to enjoy more positive works."

Values die hard, but they do change over time. It might not be long for Chinese urbanites to embrace and adopt values from the West with the westernization of their own lifestyles.

While Desperate Housewives beamed across local airwaves, China was busy shooting its own version of the American series, titled Beautiful Housewives, which would soften the controversies in the original show to cater for a more mild Chinese taste. This followed the example of Keen to Fall in Love, a 32-episode Chinese reproduction of TV hit Sex and the City. Although the melodrama was accused of promoting feminism after its debut at a Guangdong-based television network in November 2004, it has achieved considerable rating successes while playing on the national TV network and provincial TV networks across China.