DVD Tourism: How to Harvest a Collection 

Any Westerner living in China will find they have entered a galaxy of carefree whimsy-- at least when it comes to buying and owning DVDs.

In the U.S., the cost of DVDs (approximately $16 USD) is the limiting factor on most collections. For instance, before I moved to China my DVD library consisted of The Office, seasons 1 and 2, Easy Rider, White Men Can't Jump, and all twelve seasons of Married with Children (David Faustino fetish). What's more, I looked after these discs properly. If a friend or family member asked to borrow any of them I would certainly agree to the loan, but reluctantly so, ever wary that another's carelessness would harm my property irreparably and force me to re-buy DVDs I already owned.

If nothing else, my time spent in China has taught me that there is no inherent value in a DVD. When the price of the average DVD plummets from $16.00 to $.50 not only do you stop caring if your DVDs are watchable, you start buying ones that you don't care to watch: Nuns on the Run, Wayne's World 2 and absolutely anything starring Steven Seagal.

Perhaps more significant, Chinese DVD prices have taught me that the monetary value of an item is inversely related to the number of ways in which it functions. On some level, I suppose I always knew this. For example, when my grandfather attends a bar mitzvah with very loud music, he plugs his ears with the inside of a roll from the breadbasket. Presumably, he would not make earplugs from Beluga caviar. When it comes to DVDs, many people here have stopped considering them for viewing purposes only because they are so inexpensive. One friend owns so many he uses them "as coasters." This same individual has noted that he owns duplicates (and triplicates) of the shows he enjoys most. Why? Well, at these prices DVDs can be pretty easy to misplace.

Depending on how many movies you buy, rent and download during a given year you may want to consider the following course of action: Suffer through the next few months without viewing a single movie. Take some of the money you've saved and buy a plane ticket to China. Once you get here, you can use the rest of your savings to purchase every single movie you missed, pay for lodging and meals and probably still have some change left over for tooling around Asia.

But don't wait forever to try out this little experiment. Just this April the U.S. filed a complaint with the WTO accusing China of failing to protect copyright, patents and intellectual property rights. (So that's how they do it.) On April 27 China Daily reported, "'China and India are taking the problem...more seriously,' a senior WTO official said."