3rd Gen My Pokemon Emerald Game

So... I recently got a copy of Pokemon Emerald from China and was soooo excited to try it out for the first time! I went up to Route 102 and everything's going quite smoothly until... a Wild Bulbasaur pops out from the tall grass. My initial reaction was "Yay! I love Bulbasaur!!" but then I thought "I didn't know I could catch starters in the Wild?" I shrugged it off and tried to catch it so I reduced its HP to red, and used a Pokeball. Unfortunately it didn't even wobble or anything and the Bulbasaur just popped back out! I threw like 5 more Pokeballs until I eventually gave up and finished it off.
Then a while later I came across a wild Hoothoot, but the results are the same: I couldn't catch it no matter how many times I try. I checked Bulbapedia for Hoothoot's catch rate but I scrolled down a bit and it said Hoothoot is only available in the Pal Park and is "rare"!!
I have a feeling my game was hacked... but I'm not really experienced in these things so can someone confirm if it's actually hacked or not? Thanks~

A lot of bootleg pokemon games come out of China. So that emerald is likely a fake pokemon game. It's unfortunate but you probably got ripped off. It's safest to buy games from vendors who are closer to where you live rather than ordering from china. And of you're gonna order foreign, Japan is usually the safest. It really bugs me that people out there would exploit good natured pokemon fans like that, but that's just the world we live in.