"The Amazing Race: China Rush" is now airing in China (with links)

[TIVOSciolist]

For TAR fans who can’t wait for the start of the new season next week, “The Amazing Race: China Rush” is now showing on television in China.

Last year, International Channel Shanghai produced the enjoyable “Shanghai Rush,” in which contestants raced around a different district of Shanghai each week. This year, the producers have licensed “The Amazing Race” format and are having ten international teams race around China.

The host is Allan Wu, who hosted the three previous seasons of “The Amazing Race Asia.” (He made a cameo appearance on TAR Season 16 when he handed out a clue in Singapore.)

So far, they’re up to Episode 6, which will air tonight. Below are links to previous episodes that have been uploaded to Youku.com, a major Chinese video hosting site. For some reason (at least for me), the videos take a long time to load so I just start them, stop them, let them buffer, and then walk away for a while. Because these are not official uploads, the episodes are subject to disappearing at any time (just as almost all of the “Shanghai Rush” episodes were eventually taken down).

Episode 1: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjAwMzQ1NDYw.html

Episode 2: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjAwMjQ0MDk2.html

Episode 3: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjAyMjQ3Mjgw.html

Episode 4: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA0MDk4NTE2.html

Episode 5: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA2MDI3MDI4.html

[robojerk]

Anyone find a better quality download link?

[ewolfr]

Or how to save them from the youku.com site? I tried using streamtransport but only managed to get about 6-7 minutes of each show before the download quits.

[cmgal]

I enjoyed the first 15 minutes of episode 1 before the download slowed to a slow, slow crawl.

[lambertman]

Originally Posted by ewolfr

Or how to save them from the youku.com site? I tried using streamtransport but only managed to get about 6-7 minutes of each show before the download quits.

Same thing with DownloadHelper.

[gossamer88]

Geez would it kill you all to wait for the actual broadcast?!

[ewolfr]

Uh what? This is not the around the world Amazing Race that we all know and love that is shown on CBS. This is a localized version that has the teams traveling around cities in only China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ama...ce:_China_Rush

Heck, Phil isn't even anywhere to be seen as mentioned earlier up the thread its hosted by Allen Wu. And the teams themselves are pulled from about 10 or 11 different countries all over the world.

[ewolfr]

Originally Posted by lambertman

Same thing with DownloadHelper.

I found that I can get all the parts parsed for me by using this site: http://clipnabber.com/

But there is no way to be able to tell what is part 1 or part 9 when they are finished. I may watch online if thats my only option but with my luck the eps will get pulled off and I will have to see the results via wikipedia and that's not nearly as much fun.

[robojerk]

I used http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/ (Lite edition) to download them all. You have to wait until after the ad is done before it knows where to download the files.

The files are only around 13MB each.

[gossamer88]

Originally Posted by ewolfr

Uh what? This is not the around the world Amazing Race that we all know and love that is shown on CBS. This is a localized version that has the teams traveling around cities in only China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ama...ce:_China_Rush

Heck, Phil isn't even anywhere to be seen as mentioned earlier up the thread its hosted by Allen Wu. And the teams themselves are pulled from about 10 or 11 different countries all over the world.

Oh OK...my bad!

[TIVOSciolist]

Originally Posted by cmgal

I enjoyed the first 15 minutes of episode 1 before the download slowed to a slow, slow crawl.

I can't figure out if the speed problem is because of China's infamous firewall or if it is something inherent with Youku.

Youku doesn't seem to let me buffer an entire episode. I can buffer about ten minutes before it stops. If I then start watching it, more of the episode starts buffering again. A couple of times, I've had to put the video on pause and then come back to it later in order to watch more of it. Frustrating, but eventually I was able to see it all.

Maybe Youku does all this to save on bandwidth from people who buffer an entire hour of video but then don't watch it. (Or maybe it's to discourage downloading.)

I've just watched the first two episodes. Interesting to see a couple of immediate differences with the China version of The Amazing Race:

1. The producers allow contestants to carry calculators and counters (i.e., those things that someone clicks to count how many people enter an auditorium). I've never seen these items on the American TAR.

2. When one member of a team is performing a task, the other member is allowed to stand next to him/her and help out verbally. In the American TAR, the partner usually has to stand far away or even be physically absent.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by TIVOSciolist

1. The producers allow contestants to carry calculators and counters (i.e., those things that someone clicks to count how many people enter an auditorium). I've never seen these items on the American TAR.

2. When one member of a team is performing a task, the other member is allowed to stand next to him/her and help out verbally. In the American TAR, the partner usually has to stand far away or even be physically absent.

For number 1:

During the last race (US version), there was a task where one member of the team needed to count the number of links on a large chain, and one of the racers had a counter that he used to complete the challenge. During the previous race, the teams had to weigh out an exact value of gold in a shop (using the constantly changing price of gold), and one team had a calculator with them, which made the task a lot easier for them compared to the teams who were just using a pen and paper.


For number 2:

It depends on the task. Sometimes, the non-participating racer is close to the partner and offers advice (usually unwanted), other times, they're quite far away (and offer usually unwanted advice).

[caslu]

Found several episodes of this (posted in sections) on You Tube. Also, don't forget Amazing Race Asia is back next week (9/23)... according to their website, the first episode is available online but I couldn't get it to work.

[ewolfr]

I hope that Amazing Race Asia get released as torrents again like it has in the past. I wouldn't be be surprised if you needed a localized IP in order to watch via the website you found just like people in Canada, etc. can't see things on Hulu.

[Inundated]

Caught a bit of the first episode on YouTube.

The "International" flavor of the race has teams calling each other by their nationalities a lot ("The Kenyans", "The Australians", etc.).

[mattack]

So these are in English?

[Inundated]

Originally Posted by mattack

So these are in English?

Very much so. They're on an "International" channel based in Shanghai that appears to mostly broadcast shows in English:

http://www.icshanghai.com/

[Inundated]

How much did New Balance pay to get the Travelocity Product Placement deal?

[pdhenry]

Originally Posted by Inundated

The "International" flavor of the race has teams calling each other by their nationalities a lot ("The Kenyans", "The Australians", etc.).

...and we get to hear comments like "Those Kenyans - they'll eat anything."

[Inundated]

Originally Posted by pdhenry

...and we get to hear comments like "Those Kenyans - they'll eat anything."

Saw that last night. Is there some sort of Kenyan predilection towards "eating anything" that I didn't know about?

[marksman]

I wish ping ping was still around for this.

[TIVOSciolist]

Originally Posted by Inundated

Saw that last night. Is there some sort of Kenyan predilection towards "eating anything" that I didn't know about?

There's a famous restaurant named "Carnivore" outside of Nairobi, Kenya, that all of the tourists go to for zebra, hartebeast, crocodile, and ostrich meat (in addition to the standard chicken, pork, lamb, and beef). However, since these Maasai warriors aren't rich tourists, I doubt that they eat a lot of exotic game.

http://www.africanmeccasafaris.com/k.../carnivore.asp

The person who said this was probably just making an assumption that African natives must be used to eating relatively strange things.

[pdhenry]

Originally Posted by TIVOSciolist

There's a famous restaurant named "Carnivore" outside of Nairobi,

Been there.

They weren't serving zebra the night I was there, though. I did have ostrich, croc, etc.

[TIVOSciolist]

Originally Posted by Inundated

Caught a bit of the first episode on YouTube.

Thanks for the tip everyone. All of the episodes are up on YouTube, thanks to an Aussie named Smasher2468:

http://www.youtube.com/user/smasher2468#p/u

We're up to Episode 6 right now.

Even though Youku.com is one of the top two video sites in China, it was just too hard to use for some reason.

[Inundated]

Originally Posted by TIVOSciolist

The person who said this was probably just making an assumption that African natives must be used to eating relatively strange things.

I'd have to agree. I doubt they were referring to the restaurant in that context.