oh how my life bores me.
my parents are BACK! after one full week of absolute liberty, late night soccer [or as my brother insists on calling it, FOOTBALL] matches, and absolutely no money, my parents are back! i know it doesn't sound like something to be rejoicing about, but frankly, after a week of living like a pauper, having my parents back to give me allowance is a GREAT THING!
ha, i love being such a spoilt brat.
anyway, they brought back many many MANY dvds from china, including season one and two of GREY'S ANATOMY, which i am NOT going to watch until i come back from tour. i am NOT going to stay up and watch it and exhaust myself. absolutely NOT. [yes, continue saying that to yourself, jo, and it may eventually be true!]
in any case, they also brought back the da vinci code, which my younger brother and sister have been longing to watch. [even though, IMHO, the movie was pretty bad.] so my siblings make a beeline for my parents' dvd player. we sit on the bed, take out our stocked-up packets of potato chips, and settle down to watch the show just to pacify them. so the movie starts, and we see the old man running through the museum with a look of desperation on his face that in no way matches the stately speed at which is he moving. and then.. he starts speaking.
in chinese.
not just.. mandarin, but CHINESE mandarin. which includes, of course, all the inflections, drawls and run-on lines that form the chinese accent. [if you still are missing my point, basically the voiceover speaks like someone from the PRC] after we erupt into laughter [a completely unprejudiced and unoffensive laughter borne only of our surprise, i would like to add, just in case anyone incorrectly takes offence], my younger brother fumbles with the remote control, trying desperately to get to the english track.
but guess what?
THERE IS NO ENGLISH TRACK!
of course, anyone else would just watch the show in mandarin, but one has to understand that my younger siblings have a combined chinese language score of about what.. seventy percent? so yes, my siblings whine and complain and eventually give up and switch off the tv and slunk off to do whatever is it that they do when they're not attached to the couch.
okay that story's not as funny in print as it is when you're there. oh well. -shrugs-
i've gotten into the strange, and unsettling, habit of watching taiwanese tv shows. not just ANY taiwanese tv shows, but the really insipid, badly scripted ones that star young taiwanese singers/actors/hosts that can either do all three, or more often than not, can do neither. this is only strange and unsettling because.. i really like them! no, not the actors, the SERIALS. bad, cheesy scripts and actors notwithstanding, i just like the way they don't make the effort to speak in perfect, clipped chinese, but just drawl on in their badly pronounced, slang-tinged mandarin. it's interesting! kind of like.. a reflection of the taiwanese society. it's fairly intriguing to note the differences in culture. :p and of course, the prevalence of happy endings always helps, romantic that i am. :)
tour's coming up soon.
ciao.
ha, i love being such a spoilt brat.
anyway, they brought back many many MANY dvds from china, including season one and two of GREY'S ANATOMY, which i am NOT going to watch until i come back from tour. i am NOT going to stay up and watch it and exhaust myself. absolutely NOT. [yes, continue saying that to yourself, jo, and it may eventually be true!]
in any case, they also brought back the da vinci code, which my younger brother and sister have been longing to watch. [even though, IMHO, the movie was pretty bad.] so my siblings make a beeline for my parents' dvd player. we sit on the bed, take out our stocked-up packets of potato chips, and settle down to watch the show just to pacify them. so the movie starts, and we see the old man running through the museum with a look of desperation on his face that in no way matches the stately speed at which is he moving. and then.. he starts speaking.
in chinese.
not just.. mandarin, but CHINESE mandarin. which includes, of course, all the inflections, drawls and run-on lines that form the chinese accent. [if you still are missing my point, basically the voiceover speaks like someone from the PRC] after we erupt into laughter [a completely unprejudiced and unoffensive laughter borne only of our surprise, i would like to add, just in case anyone incorrectly takes offence], my younger brother fumbles with the remote control, trying desperately to get to the english track.
but guess what?
THERE IS NO ENGLISH TRACK!
of course, anyone else would just watch the show in mandarin, but one has to understand that my younger siblings have a combined chinese language score of about what.. seventy percent? so yes, my siblings whine and complain and eventually give up and switch off the tv and slunk off to do whatever is it that they do when they're not attached to the couch.
okay that story's not as funny in print as it is when you're there. oh well. -shrugs-
i've gotten into the strange, and unsettling, habit of watching taiwanese tv shows. not just ANY taiwanese tv shows, but the really insipid, badly scripted ones that star young taiwanese singers/actors/hosts that can either do all three, or more often than not, can do neither. this is only strange and unsettling because.. i really like them! no, not the actors, the SERIALS. bad, cheesy scripts and actors notwithstanding, i just like the way they don't make the effort to speak in perfect, clipped chinese, but just drawl on in their badly pronounced, slang-tinged mandarin. it's interesting! kind of like.. a reflection of the taiwanese society. it's fairly intriguing to note the differences in culture. :p and of course, the prevalence of happy endings always helps, romantic that i am. :)
tour's coming up soon.
ciao.
posted by jo at 01:20
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