Category: Chinese

  • I’m Muzzy, Big Muzzy~

    When I was little — maybe between the ages of 4 and 6 — I used to watch a really worn out tape (maybe transferred from a Betamax tape to a VHS one) about a huge furry green alien whose name was Muzzy- Big Muzzy. Many years later, many courses of English after and once the internet became a reliable search tool, I came to learn that the movie… a BBC educational video, was called Muzzy in Gondoland, though I knew it as “The Big Muzzy Story.”

    As a Spanish speaker, I don’t recall ever understanding English growing up. Though I had some games and watched some animated shorts and movies in English, I don’t think the language ever registered as a language. I recall I was dreadful at it in school until I turned 10 or so and began attending classes after school. I’ve been speaking English more than half my life already, and it’s the language I primarily work in. I read, write, listen to… and consume most of my media in English. I don’t think I dream 100% in the language, but I’m known for having dreams I don’t understand — I don’t think I’ve dreamed in Mandarin, but I’ve had chunks of them in Japanese and most notable in Korean, even though my Korean abilities reach the levels of greetings, the random “I miss you,” or “this is my friend,” as well as the very helpful “I’m hungry” or “my tummy hurts.” I can also request things with the very useful three-year-old Korean level phrase of “item- chuseyo” LOL

    The preferable term would be “cookie” though I’m sure Muzzy would prefer clocks or parking meters.

    Anyway, I found two copies of Muzzy in Gondoland. The one that’s split in 8 segments has the original audio I remember as a child. While this version that lasts 2.30hr seems to have different voices for Sylvia, Bob The Gardener and Covax. I’m 50/50 on the voice of the Queen.

    Apparently there are updates in different languages like French, Mandarin and Spanish redone in basic 3D with segments in Flash. Have been watching the French one, and they’ve omitted the fact that the Queen is fat. Obviously because it’s not politically correct to call someone fat nowadays, and the Queen does so in the adjective section. Plus, the King flatly calls her fat with the exclamation “You are fat!” which obviously is kind of ridiculous. LOL

    Also, the AEIOU song doesn’t translate well.

    I also found the original animation in Esperanto.

  • Top Flicks About Chicks

    I really can’t remember exactly when I started out the Top Flicks About Chicks list on MUBI, but it must have been around the same time I wrote how Chick Flicks was a doomed genre in regards of critics. So it might be almost 4 years… and I’ve finally reached 300 titles in the list!!!

    A Chick Flick should center on little girls, girls, young women and women… as students, as neighbors, as friends, as daughters, as granddaughters, as sisters, as mothers, as lovers. They are simply women. With that alone, we can tell all sort of other stories that have little to do with romantic comedies.

    The purpose of the list, of course, was to encompass an array of female character — not only in the binary sense, since the list also includes men/boys who identify as women/girls… and viceversa — of various cultural, ethnic, social backgrounds. Not favoring one genre over the other, not valuing dramas over comedies… just simple stories about different women.

    Though I’m sure the list could be longer, that’s 300 feature length films out of the 2896 (counting shorts) currently rated on the site- that’s roughly 10% so I suppose the list could expand to up to 500 or maybe 1000 once I reach 5000 or 10000 rated films on the site.

    top-flicks-about-chicks
    1. Treeless Mountain 2. Welcome to the Dollhouse 3. Juliana 4. Labyrinth 5. Fuckin’ Amal 6. Mirrormask 7. Gun Hill Road 8. Pariah 9. Bend it like Beckham 10. Swing Girls 11. The Land of the Deaf 12. Sunny 13. Whip It 14. Stoker 15. Maria Full of Grace 16. Breaking the Waves 17. My Marlon and Brando 18. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 19. Dil Bole Hadippa! 20. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 21. Kotoko 22. Violeta Went to Heaven 23. Skin 24. Raise the Red Lantern 25. Incendies

    I picked 25 of the 300 films to illustrate some of the variety (I hope it’s AS varied as I intend the list to be), though I ran out of picks and couldn’t include any of the ‘older’ female characters. If I could pick 5 more, they’d be: Lemon Tree, Frozen River, Late Bloomers, Mother, For 80 Days.

  • Current Flavors and Getting Your Type

    Has people ever ask you what’s your type? In terms of the people that you like, and you really have no idea because you’ve never really talked about.  I wondered if I could see a pattern in the people I like on-screen, so I made a list of women and men — 25 picks each — and placed generally okay photos of them to see if I could see any characteristics they shared.

    A few rules- it has to be people that you follow — not randoms that you just find hot. Sofia Vergara is hot but I haven’t seen her outside Modern Family or Chasing Papi. And it also isn’t about talent… completely. It’s people that you would somehow, if given the chance, do / be with / however you want to call it or do is.

    Also, photos should generally be color and looking to the front-ish. Natural looks favored, but since it’s a type thing, I suppose you can use any photos you find your subject attractive in.

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  • Zhao Wei Gives Me the Ai Feels

    zhao-wei-mark-chao-love-ai-scene-still

    I think I’ve seen Ai Love at least three times, and I really like more when we get to focus on Zhao Wei’s storyline, even though most of the stories are pretty good. But with the re-watches, Zhao Wei’s character gets extra good. EXTRA. The camera sizzles when Mark Chao is in proximity of her, then smacks one on her and she slaps him.

    And, of course, Zhao Wei does her ‘sexy’ funny dance with a cast hidden behind the door frame. And she aches, and she’s embarrassed, worried, nonchalant, pissy and a total ditz.

  • The East Asian Heat Wave and the Perfect Mango Shaved Ice

    I ran into this article in Japanese that talked about the heat wave in Japan and how the shaved iced business has increased (to like $40B USD worth or 4000億円) with a brief mention of Yu-chan. Because Yu-chan LOVESSSSSSSS shaved ice. Even has her own machine at home, and writes monthly articles and whatnot, and apparently that’s a thing with other young women who eat their shaved ice while walking back and forth.

    Yu has also talked about the perfection that is the shaved ice parlor in Taiwan. Dude, she’s serious. Taiwanese shaved ice is serious business. My Mandarin teacher told me he missed them because the raspadillas [1] here are so wishy-washy. Then I saw Taiwanese shaved ice.

    mango-shaved-ice

    The mango shaved ice that I saw in one of the brochures is still in my to-eat list. but I’m still scared of going over there in the summer season, because I’m a total city wuss that can’t take extreme weathers. I’m one of those lucky ones that can only take temperatures between 14-27 Celsius without complaining. LOL

  • The Voice of China 2

    Oh, man~ Liu Huan is gone from The Voice of China, and I thought he was the one elevating the show to a more professional level. Have no idea why he’s not there, but I hope he’s back later on.

    And my prediction of Wang Feng being on the show [1] kinda became a reality, except not replacing who I thought he should be replacing. LOL

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE3Tkvg2-8A

    Happy to see A-Mei, though I would prefer her releasing new music instead.

    I have nothing to say about Harlem Yu xD We are just not compatible. LOL

  • Your President Speaks Mandarin, but my Ex is Funny~

    Okay, I gotta admit South Korea- I’m jealous.

    Some of you may complain about the political implications of choosing Park Geun-hye’s party, but you’re getting the cake. This is coming from someone less privileged than you in terms of political options. I don’t want to talk about my current president, but since President Park Geun-hye just made a splash on my TV speaking Mandarin at a speech she delivered just this week at Tsinghua University during her visit to Beijing [1], which apparently is self-taught [1][2] (that’s even way more accomplished!), I want to give a good mention to my Ex-Pres.

    A couple of years back, when (now Ex-) President Hu Jintao was visiting the country when Alan Garcia was still president — and he gave us THIS SUPER AWKWARD photo of himself trying to hug/kiss Hu — Alan had the BRILLIANT idea of giving HIS own speech in Mandarin, even though he knows a lick of any Asian language (I doubt he knows anything about Asian culture outside what to eat at a Chifa [1], explaining why he tried to hug/kiss Hu, LOL).

    The end result is, of course, madly hilarious if you speak Spanish.

    Besides trying to sound out Mandarin, which you know it’s nearly impossible, he sounded out some “words” that sounded similar to other words in Spanish, included the now political-satire-classic “Soy chanchin,” which is a cute modification to the word “chancho,” meaning “pig.” So basically it sounded like he said “I’m a little fat.” Hilarious history in the making right there.

    Surprisingly, Hu had the biggest poker face EVER. He didn’t blink, snorted, NOTHING. He’s either the best politician in the whole wide world, or his team warned him about this Garcia Mandarin stunt and he turned off any of his hearing aid, if he used any.

  • Xiami Just Rolled Its Subscription-based Service

    xiami-subscription

    If you’ve (for some reason) been following this blog a while, you’d know that I’m a big fan of Xiami, the Mainland China-based music site that has never flashed me with a “this content is not available in your region” message. I’ve actually bought some tracks off of them, started way before iTunes became available in my country, and have continued with tracks that aren’t available in my iTunes store, or with overpriced albums/singles.

    It’s particularly useful for Chinese-based artists.

    In general, all tracks are priced at 0.8米 (Mi) and 1 Mi is 1 Yuan, which is about 0.16USD, which is like 1/10 of what iTunes charges. They accept Paypal as one of their paying options, which seems way simpler than paying with your credit card (I tried). And since Xiami is a community-based site, they give you points for activities. Every time you log in, you get points and once you log in for a whole uninterrupted week, they give you a red envelope which also serves to download tracks. If you log in every day for a month or a whole year, you’ll get even more for free downloads.

    Downloading tracks, adding albums, adding information (photos, lyrics, etc), participating in community discussions, and joining groups also gives you points to raise your Xiami level. Though, I still don’t know what’s that for, other than showing off and user respectability.

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  • BiBi’s Unlock Concert Rehearsal

    BiBi’s doing a concert in Beijing (if she hasn’t done it by now, it’s one of these days), and my pal is attending. And even though I doesn’t feel like I’ve been an ardent BiBi fan for a bit, this rehearsal has made me giddy (and slightly jealous) to be there.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3JgZQoytc0

    Guess I’m gonna miss the party. xD

    In other news, I had NO idea that one of the songs on Time was written by Mavis Fan. The more you know.

    Also how cut does BiBi look?

  • Joseph Chang, Why So Sexy?

    joseph-chang-hsiao-chuan

    You know, I can’t really remember him from Au Revoir Taipei, but after seeing Gf*Bf and having just checked out Eternal Summer, I have a mad mad crush on him. Funny thing is… I had a hard time searching for a goooooood photo to use, but find that he looks good on film.

    Having said that- the 2013 LGBT Blogathon starts on Monday over at YAM Magazine!

    Don’t miss it!