It took a while, but
Happy 1000th fan!
If you aren’t following the list yet, you might discover a gem or two!
Archives For Chinese
My only Letterboxd anticipated message came in the other day, but I took a little bit longer to post because the better side of my OCD got to me.
But here it is!
I went on a Stephen Chow binge, and got to watch a bunch of Hrishikesh Mukherjee films for MUBI. Not to be the Debbie Downer of the terrible 2020, but I hope 2021 picks up. This is the first time in my movie-watching history that I only have one single 4-star rating in my Year Films Ranked list. Two titles if you consider Marona’s Fantastic Tale.
This 2021, I have decided to shut off social media and restart blogging once again. It doesn’t matter if it’s into a blackhole of information. I’ve started with this Spanish translation of a review for Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do, since the film is in rotation at the Indian entertainment channel ZeeMundo. We also have a proper Spanish title for Haider (!).
Greetings, my fellow lurkers, if you are lurking still. Knowing that I haven’t updated anywhere and I’m hardly active on social media, I just wanted to say that I haven’t died and haven’t been swallowed by the Earth. I hope 2020 didn’t wreck you, and that 2021 finds you in a more… calm path.
As I sit here making plans of wanting to do a lot of things, and then getting nowhere, I reminisce the days of internet freedom when roaming through websites was like the wild west. And that’s when I discovered Xiami— according to WP word search find, the earliest mention of the music site on the blog dates back to 2010… with an even older mention of forgotten HaoTing. lol Since then, over a decade ago and many an indie Chinese music discovery, Xiami had been part of my daily life for thousands and thousands of days.
So it is with great sadness, but hardly any surprise, that I report that Xiami will be no more… on February 5th this year, to mark my 35ths birthday, nonetheless. End of an era for my music streaming, end of the era… of my youth, I suppose. With my only consolation prize that a lot of Chinese music is already available on not only iTunes and Spotify, but also on YouTube. I just need to re-find them and subscribe to whatever their channels are. It will be, of course, a lot more difficult to discover brand new Chinese music.
It’s unbelievable how quickly the year has come to an end. And though there’s still so many hours of un-watched films, we must all begin sharing our End of the Year lists.
As per tradition, here’s my 2018 music highlights. As Jocelle pointed out, might change drastically midway through 2019. LOL Remember when Su Yunying released an album on December 31st? Chinese people got no chills.
I’m a Ni Ni stan now, have I mentioned it before? No? I really REALLY enjoyed watching Mo Zhang’s Suddenly Seventeen (28岁未成年). The ending is a bit straight rom-com, but Ni Ni— Woah. She was amazing.
Cfensi has always loved Ni Ni, so she’s also gushing about this new photoshoot for The New York Times Travel Magazine by photographer Yin Chao (尹超), centered on Nanjing Girls and also featuring actresses Hai Qing, Yang Zishan and Mei Ting, as well as model Bonnie Chen.
The favorite shot, tho, the watermelon one~ xD
You can also follow Yin Chao’s activities on his studio’s Weibo— SUPERSTUDIO.
Also, I haven’t even gone through 5 episodes of Lost in 1949 (脱身), but I’m looking forward to Rise of the Phoenixes (天盛长歌) :)
