A sitcom dubbed as the Chinese version of "Friends" hit TV on September 15. It's the first comedy TV series to explore the generation of Chinese youths born after the 1980's. Our reporter Tu Yun takes you for a closer look.

Titled "My Siblings" in English, the show is the first TV series made by a foreign director in China. Born in China in the 1960's, American director Andy Friend has worked in the film industry in Hollywood and Europe. But he seemed to be destined to make this show.

"It's even crazy than that because I was born in the Friendship Hospital. I lived in the Friendship Hotel. My name is Friend. I'm making a story, actually, the Chinese is not called Friends but Zhao Peng You, somehow, it's all connected with Friends. And people ask me are you really friendly people? Yes, sure."

'My Siblings' tells the story of what's going on in Chinese society among young white collar workers living in big cities. The 80's generation in China received thorough educations and fell under the influence of new trends. After graduation they often chose to stay in large cities and strive for ideal lives.

"It's the first generation in China that hasn't experienced war or famine or anything bad like that. So it's a very happy generation. It's tough to live in the big cities, daily life is difficult but in general, there is this confidence. It's interesting because now these young people they don't have brothers and sisters. They are the 80's generation with no siblings. They really take their friends seriously. Their friends become their siblings."

The play has a strong production team. Most screen writers have studied and lived abroad.

"These writers, they actually went to live in the West and so what they learn is an international language, television, media; and that's what the Chinese young people are beginning to speak and to watch. The youth culture of China is changing very fast."

Producer Zhou Heng and Creative Director Bai Hua both graduated from Harvard University. For the sitcom, they brought together a workforce of people from different generations with shared experiences.

"Half of our writers were from that generation and half of them were from this generation's parents, people who have kids born in the post 80 era. So during the writing process, we already found that there was this very interesting experience for both of these groups to really understand what the other group was thinking about."

The show talks about seven young people living in a modern apartment complex in Beijing. They spend their lives together, looking for jobs, falling in love and hanging out in a bar.

"So Zheng Bei is the one who is very cute and he has great success with girls. He is a photographer and he eats like a pig; And the other guy who is married, he just wants to satisfy his young wife and he has great aspiration to become like a television or radio host; The married girl is kind of very materialistic and she has a 9-5 job; And Zheng Nan, the twin sister of Zheng Bei, she is similar to Zheng Bei in that the two of them had their lives very well taken care of. They have the parents who are quite well-off. So this is their first step into the adult life. So they are making a lot of mistakes because they are still almost like children. In a way, we are just trying to make a cross-section of different types of people in the society and we put them together to see the sparks."

"My Siblings" is unique because it's a sitcom without canned laughter. The appearance of guest stars like pop icon Chen Kun and veteran comic Guo Da will also increase the chemistry among the characters. But the evolving love affairs among the seven friends should be most appealing to the young audience.

The 42-episode sitcom was aired on Beijing TV channel 4 every night starting Monday on September 15.