We don’t want zombies on our Chinese student choral group.
PopCap’s Plants vs. Zombies has grown popular not only here in the West, but all across the world – particularly in the People’s Republic of China. Back in 2010, a Chinese sitcom parodied the horticultural tower defense game. Now, we have a university music group arranging its tunes into a choral medley.
Some of the singing is a bit off-key enough to be occasionally notable, but the arrangement is faithful and they’re all so enthusiastic about the song that it can’t help but be endearing. The best, though, is at the very end, when they break into their arrangement of the official Plants vs. Zombie theme song, singing it with far more seriousness and gravitas than you might expect from a tune first sung by a dancing sunflower.
I spent about nine months teaching English in a small city in Hunan province, and it really was striking how big Plants vs. Zombies is over there. My students had bootleg Plants vs. Zombies school supplies, the stores in town sold bootleg PvZ game systems (think old-school Tiger handhelds), and there were even bootleg Plants vs. Zombies arcade machines that really just ended up being a waste of RMB.
This, however, is just fun and cute. We approve heartily.
