Kapchanga told the Global Times that the show gives a true reflection in an evermore capitalistic Kenya that wealth is not everything in life. "More importantly, it depicts the real and universal challenges marriages undergo here in Kenya and Africa in general, where relatives (not just the nuclear family members) tend to act as intruders."

In traditional African families, men are still the core of the family with wives clinging to them. But today, more and more women in Africa have begun to pursue independence and freedom, and they want to play a more important role in the family. This generational difference tends to initiate confrontations between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

"The situation is more complicated for Muslim families where a man can have several wives," said Liu Dong, the cultural secretary at the Chinese embassy in Tanzania who helped introduce the drama.

Besides the sympathy about family life, many locals also find practical significance in the drama. As reported, some Kenyan audiences find it helpful when communicating with Chinese. According to Kapchanga, people in Kenya generally watch Chinese dramas because they want to be informed, get to know more about China and the culture of its people.

'Enter' the market

Liu said Doudou succeeds in Africa mainly because the theme is right. "Family ethics are the eternal subject that all can understand easily and find resonant." But it wouldn't be so popular if the drama had used subtitles instead of Swahili dubbing.

It is the first Chinese TV drama to be dubbed into Swahili, which shows great respect to the local audience, Liu said. Swahili is the official language in Tanzania and about one tenth of all the population in Africa use Swahili, which accounts for about 100 million people. The wide coverage of Swahili motivated Liu to suggest dubbing the drama.

According to Liu, 10 years ago, Journey to the West (1986) was introduced but the drama was a failure as it only had English subtitles.

"TV sets just got widespread in Tanzania and the screens in most families are rather small. The Chinese lines would be very long translated into Swahili subtitles," Liu said.

Besides, even if English is used in Tanzania, the local audience has more passion for programs in Swahili. So Liu insisted on dubbing Doudou in Swahili while communicating with relevant parties from both countries.

Drawing experience from Doudou, China Radio International, who dubbed Doudou, established a "dubbing center for TV dramas" to dub Chinese TV dramas into rare foreign languages. Next, it will dub in Swahili Jin Tailang's Happy Life, another TV drama about a Chinese family.

The statistics from SARFT show that the output of TV dramas reached about 15,000 episodes every year, making China arguably a big producer, but their success abroad is rare.

Yu Qianxin with TVB in Hong Kong said it's more urgent for Chinese programs to "enter" the market. "More and more (programs) are going global, which is actually very easy. 'Entering' the market means allowing foreign audiences to accept and like (you)," he once told Dongfang Daily.

Liu agreed: while the success of Doudou lets the industry see more hope and arouses a wave of dubbing TV dramas, he suggested, to really get in, the project should proceed based on local customs and acceptability. "We should listen to their opinion and show sufficient respect to the local audience," he said.

Editor: Shi Liwei