maxiewawa

Apparently watching TV is one of the best ways to learn a language, so I’ve started watching some Chinese language tv shows.

I started with 蜗居. One of the best things about it is that it was made in Shanghai. Every time there’s a long shot of some location a thousand memories spring to mind… I feel like elbowing the person next to me and saying “Oh… oh.. see that place, there’s a bar on that street that has an open mic night every Tuesday, for as long as you’re holding an instrument and playing beers are free…”

It’s a little depressing though. The main characters are a couple who have left their hometown to come to the big city and are having trouble buying a house. They’re kinda bone-headed about it too, just talking about how they don’t have enough money to buy one, and how they really want to. Ok, I’m oversimplifying it a bit, but instead of talking about educating themselves better, or perhaps making plans to save money, or even getting a mortgage, they just keep looking for houses and getting frustrated that they can’t buy anything.

I got a little sick of mainland accents and sensibilities so gave up on 蜗居 a few episodes in. I went to 花样少年少女, otherwise known as Hana Kimi. It’s about a girl who dresses up as a boy and goes to a boys’ school to get the love of her life. Sounds a bit weird with that premise, right? Well, it was mildly amusing for a bit, bit got really strange. One of the guys falls in love with the girl, not realising that she’s a girl he thinks he’s turning gay. It starts getting really weird when the school doctor, who is also gay, finds out, and the school playboy, not gay, gets chummy with the girl (not realising she’s a girl of course). I gave up on Hana Kimi at this point so I’m not sure what happens next.

I tried 奋斗 after reading all about it from Ben Ross. It’s about a group of recent university graduates that make their way in the world. I didn’t get very far with it. The subtitles were hard to read, and all the actors were from the north of China. I just can’t stand their accents. And they have a way of speaking, a certain turn of phrase… anyway I find them really hard to understand.

Next I tried the Chinese version of Detective Conan コナン名探偵. It’s a Japanese anime series that I love. It was quite pointless though, it is dubbed into Chinese really badly. Oh well, worth a shot. I always enjoy detective shows, even Conan, which is made for kids. They always follow a set pattern: set up a situation, someone dies, detectives arrive, investigate, and find the murderer. The end.

Anyway, I’m back on 蜗居 now, where I started. The two idiots who want to buy a house are still discussing how difficult it is, they still haven’t thought of a way out of their problem, but there are some other characters whose stories are getting told. Their accents are easier to understand and every now and then I get a glimpse of Shanghai which takes me back to my happy days there.

Does anyone else watch TV like this? Jumping from one thing to another? I don’t want to give everyone the impression that the shows aren’t any good, it’s probably just that too much of either one of them at once makes one get sick of them.

And is it just my imagination about the accents? To my ears, 蜗居 (made in Shanghai) is easiest to understand, Hana Kimi (Taiwan) is a close second, and 奋斗 (Beijing??) might as well have been made on Mars for as much as I understand. (Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit.)