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KATHLEEN MCLAUGHLIN, GlobalPost: From clothes to coffee, to food and movies, Western culture is big and getting bigger in China. KFC is the country's most popular restaurant chain. A Buick is the top-selling car.
At a public square in Beijing, 35-year-old Hou Xiazhou and friends show off moves they learned from watching their American idols on the Internet.
HOU XIAZHOU, skateboarder (through translator): The West influences us a great deal. For example, those of us who skateboard now are all learning from the West, from America. We watch how their professional skateboarders practice, and imitate their methods. The way they dress influences how we dress. We imitate how they skateboard. Watching them inspires us to think about how skateboarding should be.
KATHLEEN MCLAUGHLIN: Western culture swept into China when the country opened to foreign trade 30 years ago. Western brands and ideas have exploded in the past decade, as economic boom expanded the country's middle class.
Now the government is pushing back. President Hu Jintao says China's culture is being infiltrated by hostile Western forces. And the government has set new limits on Chinese mass media. First, they issued edicts that killed some racy and wildly popular TV shows and pushed others out of prime time.
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