About China blogosphere, travel, and entrepreneurship

I’m getting a little embarrassed that so many of my posts here have been prompted by those fine folk over at China Law Blog and, embarassingly, this post won’t be an exception. Dan cited an article from Wednesday’s Shanghai Daily reporting that the number of credit cards in China have nearly doubled, up to 104.73 million in circulation nation-wide. That’s 1/3 of the United States population and just imagine how many credit cards those 300 million debt-ridden over-consuming Americans have…each!

While that news in of itself is squarely in the “hm, that’s interesting” category, it immediately reminded me of my night out at the movies the day before, where I went to watch Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda (功夫熊猫)…for the second time.

Now, watching movies in China on the big screen at a theatre or cinema (as opposed to watching it off a bootleg DVD) is still relatively expensive for most locals. On average, it costs 70-80 RMB per ticket, comparable to American box office ticket prices of 9-10 USD. Given that necessities like a filling meal can be had for under 10 RMB and the average monthly income (in Shanghai) is still 2000-3000 RMB, watching the latest screening is an exorbitant luxury. Therefore, as you can imagine, the cinemas here aren’t exactly packed even on weekends or when big blockbusters debut. Watching a movie here can be a very lonely experience. Compared to the lines, mobs, and subsequent front-row, whiplash seating often associated with watching the latest movie in the States, I often wonder just how the cinemas in China manage to stay in business with so little patronage.

Perhaps one method these cinemas use to stay afloat is by offering half-price tickets on certain weekdays, most commonly Tuesdays. It also brings bourgeois amusements within reach of the proletariat masses. Having lived in China for so long where I can purchase so many things for so little, I’ve become something of a cheapskate and now measure all Western prices by how many meals off the street I could instead buy in China. Just earlier this month, when visiting Los Angeles, I felt like a royal ass for thinking the Chipotle burrito I treated an old friend to was an extravagant sum of money. But hey, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, right? So, whenever I declare a movie to be worth more than a Bit Torrent download, I’ll go to the cinemas here in China and I’ll usually go on half-price Tuesdays because 40 RMB is still 50% better than 80 RMB.

Normally, even half-price Tuesdays rarely brings out the crowds. So imagine my surprise when I walked into massive lines at the box office this past Tuesday. At first, I figured it was all due to the awesome bodacity of pandas and kung-fu. After all, despite utterly ridiculous attempts to prevent the movie from being shown in China on the pretenses of it being from Beijing Olympics traitor Steven Spielberg and the culture-thieving, Sharon Stone spawning Hollywood, the movie has been very well-received in China. The Chinese were probably out in force to support a movie that paid homage to two wildly popular icons of Chinese culture. Great date movie too.

But the teeming crowds weren’t just out because Kung Fu Panda was promising entertainment…no, the teeming crowds were out because so many of them were armed with new-fangled Ping An Bank credit cards. In what can only be described as a fit of ingenious marketing, recent applicants for Ping An Bank credit cards are entitled to use their cards to watch movies at the cinema on any day for only 10 RMB a ticket. It is the perk of the century, single-handedly invigorating the cinema business with a deluge of movie-going masses clamoring for a taste of the high life.

I heard about this awesome deal weeks ago and despite strong entreaties from a friend that I apply for a card, I just haven’t been able to shake the probably unwarranted unease I feel towards applying for credit in China. It irked her to no end that she couldn’t apply because she already ruined her credit by being stupid while I could but simply refused to do so. Vindicated by the lines of people happily waiting to use their cards to purchase 10 RMB tickets, she slammed me with her incredulity yet again. My only solace was that there was only one ridiculously long line for those using Ping An credit cards and four very short non-promotional lines for the rest of us. Suckers.

Even so, we had to wait two hours for the next showing with any decent seats left. It was the closest the Chinese cinema experience has ever gotten to what I took for granted in the States, and the credit goes to pandas and Ping An Bank kung fu.

So, what do you think? Is the 10 RMB movie ticket promotion worth getting another credit card I don’t plan on using? 

UPDATE 07/15/08: Due to the unexpected overwhelming popularity of this promotional deal and the crowds of Chinese hoping to exploit it to the max, many cinemas have begun forbidding the purchase of 10 RMB movie tickets using the Ping An credit card until 5-10 days after new movies are released. The promotion itself was only to last for a year, and it is rumored that new Ping An credit cards in the future will move to a points-based rewards system instead of instant discounts. One card-holder stood in line for over three hours to purchase his 10 RMB tickets for Kung Fu Panda, a 1.5 hour movie. Fail.