Seattleis rarely the first US city that comes to Chinese minds. In fact, few people could probably tell Washington state from Washington DC.
一提起美国的城市，很少有中国人会首先想到西雅图。其实，很多中国人可能根本分不清华盛顿州和华盛顿特区的区别。
Two romantic comedy films have irrevocably shaped the image of Xiyatu, as the city is known in
Mandarin1, among the Chinese public, and as a result it would not be a stretch to say Seattle is seen as the American capital of romance, somewhat
akin2 to how the world perceives Paris.
In
Sleepless3 in Seattle, Nora Ephron's 1993
runaway4 hit, Tom Hanks' character, Sam, moves with his young son from Chicago to Seattle for a fresh start after the death of his wife. The movie
portrays5 the largest city in the Pacific Northwest not as a
canyon6 of high-rises, but as a bohemian enclave of artists and designers, which possibly did not impress Chinese at the time.
This image may have been altered recently by the screen adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey, which is largely set in the Seattle area and includes frequent aerial shots and the less-than-tasteful
flaunting7 of wealth and kinky sex.
The
narrative8 setup in Sleepless is almost Chinese to the core: Sam and Annie, played by Meg Ryan, fall in love before actually meeting each other in the flesh. Imagine all those Chinese couples in arranged marriages who were denied the right to face-to-face encounters before their wedding night. This story could have been their silver
lining9 and inspiration.
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