In the television series "Firefly," it seems like every person on every planet speaks Chinese. Conversations often transition randomly between English and Chinese, and even the computer alerts are in both languages.
Why? Is there an in-universe explanation for this? What about out-of-universe (The director's girlfriend is Chinese? The writer is a huge fan of classic Bruce Lee films)?
From Firefly Timeline:
The United States and China, the two great superpowers of the Earth, gradually grow together and form the Anglo-Sino Alliance (though their empires remain separate), rather than killing each other as originally predicted. In a somewhat ironic reversal, the American Empire annexes England.
[Firefly website and "A Brief History of the Universe, circa 2507 A.D." In an interview on the site, series creator Joss Whedon first described some of this background to account for the mix of cultures in the Alliance, and the pre-production memo gives further details. This history is implicit in the design of the Alliance flags seen in "The Train Job" and "Bushwhacked," a combination of the present-day flags of the two countries in question.]
Basically the culture of Firefly is a fusion of Chinese and American culture because those are the superpowers that "won".
My answer comes in several parts:
China and the US are the only two countries with the right mixture of high population, high capital and high education to take over half the world. If Earth unified, it makes sense that it would be under their influence.
Given the in-universe importance of China politically and culturally, the lack of notable Chinese actors and background extras is illogical, but I'm going to try to defend it anyway. There are several histories that would result in widespread Chinese influence without many Chinese people. Take, for example, the strong French influence in North and Central Africa and the Caribbean. The colonial system spread their culture without spreading their race. This is less likely in the case of a massive country such as China, but imagine the world leading up to the Anglo-Sino alliance. China would have linguistic influence on Europe, Africa, Asia and Micronesia because of their financial and military resources, and eventually everyone would want to learn Chinese like everyone wants to learn English today. Maybe there was a plague in China. Maybe the Chinese decided they wanted to keep Earth when people went to the stars, and they were the ones who eventually ran it into the ground. There are more possible solutions than "Joss Whedon is racist".
Creative reasons The two countries that really own the Western genre are China and the US, with slight concession to Korea. American Westerns and Chinese wuxia both feature lone, highly skilled, highly principled but disillusioned warriors that often live outside the law protecting a small coterie of trusted friends. Sound familiar?
And to get around FOX's language restrictions, a lot of the Chinese is actually cursing. But because the show was geared towards Americans they let it slide, as no one would know what they were saying.
I like the reasoning that compares prevalence of Chinese language and lack of Chinese (speaking) characters to European colonialism. Many new Canadians speak English(or French) as a second language because of the colonial past of their native countries. I work with Francophone Congoliennes, Haitiennes, and Moroccans as well as Anglophones from India, Kenya and Indonesia (yes, she also speaks Dutch). Learning a second language in school because it is useful in the work world is normal pretty well anywhere outside of the UK and the USA.
Of course, it doesn't explain why a lot of the Chinese is actually swearing. (Yes, I do know about the Fox censors.)
The main reason is... The show seems to have a Chinese sponsor for the show. Just like one of the Iron man movies was almost fully sponsored by them!
