When you're living in China, sometimes you just want a little homestyle television to keep you company, fill your apartment with the language you're familiar with.

Luckily, thanks to the internet and blatant, widespread copyright violation, you can enjoy the television shows you know and love in China without trekking down to the DVD store and paying out the nose.

Websites like Movieforumz.Com let you stream low-quality (and, therefore, low bandwidth) versions of your favorite television shows, often with Chinese and English subtitles "burnt" into the broadcast. Some offer VOD (Video On-Demand), where users can pick which episodes they want to watch and stream them through a Youtube-like interface, while others offer scheduled broadcast-like streams that users can tune into.

Either way, you'll end up streaming at around 50K/sec, which isn't that bad, even for Chinese internet. The quality of the video isn't fantastic, but in many cases it streams up instantly and plays flawlessly. The Chinese subtitles are nice if you want to watch TV with a Chinese person, or if they want to use English-language television to learn English.

Here's a short list of websites you can use to stream up popular shows like Prison Break, CSI, Lost and others - often before the DVD versions of the shows are available.

• http://www.movieforumz.com
• http://www.vidics.com
• http://www.tudou.com
• http://www.pplive.com/en/index.html
• http://www.nabolister.com/

So stop sitting around in China, bummed out about not being able to get your favorite TV shows - just stream them and you'll be up and running in no time.