Category: Fun

  • 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.

  • The Sword of Omens is Real Yo!

    I still haven’t been able to locate a photo of me as a child in my family’s house garden waving the yellow and lime green plastic Sword of Omens I had as a child. However, these guys are designing weapons or designing pretty awesome real props, and have made my dorky childhood dreams come true.

    Its amazingness is beyond words.

    And YES. Even though Thundercats aired in the mid-80s, I saw them in the early 90s in their dub version, and it was still pretty goddamn awesome.

  • Yu Aoi Films Ranked *Fancy Edition*

    A long long LONG time ago (actually, about three years ago), I made a rough list of Yu Aoi films I had watched and ranked them on MUBI (then TheAuteurs). Since I’m way too lazy to bother adding films to their database, unless I really REALLY wanted the films to be on their database, I’m just gonna work on the ranking here, like I started with my Russian fandom love Chulpan Khamatova.

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  • Yu Aoi is Acting for Galileo

    You know, since Yu’s Itoh website re-vamp, the site sucks. They haven’t updated since forever, and they took out the section where Yu sometimes did short postings. However, the biggest drawback has been the lack of updates, and this is why I found out that Yu was on one of the episodes of Galileo 2 through tweets mentioning it (on June 3rd). So… nobody knew, I suppose?

    So I had to catch up with Galileo 2 episodes, since I wasn’t watching the show due to the lack of much Shibasaki Kou, and was conveniently waiting for the subtitles (and a blank space in my schedule) to actually watch Episode 8.

    I had missed Yu-chan so much.

    yu-aoi-galileo2-ep08-048
    Busted!

    As you know, or maybe don’t, Yu’s been improving her cold-heart crime-committing girl persona. She did pretty great in her guest in Unubore Deka, and was great in Shokuzai. She’s actually been doing her bad girl characters a lot more interesting that her good girls (Double Face, Mottomo Toi Ginga). In Galileo 2 she’s playing an actress who’s obsessed with- hmm… let’s call it ” hardcore method acting,” so she’s obsessed with recording every bit of conversation she has in every day life, as well as her experiences, including how it feels to get away with 1st degree murder.

    Though the episode seems to play straight-forward with a locked-room case and Yu’s character having the motive and access to commit the crime, there’s a twist- which is pretty obvious when you re-watch the show haha (the framing shots give it away), but with Yu’s acting going from calm to elated (for getting away with it), from elated to poker-face, to poker-face to complete hysterical satisfaction and landing in cruel reality… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yu go through so much in one single sequence.

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  • Mike Wazowski is Precious in Japanese Dub

    I wasn’t too enamored by Pixar’s Monsters University even though Monsters Inc. is one of my favorites (or maybe BECAUSE I liked that one so much?), but this clip of the Japanese-dubbed version popped up in my YouTube feed, and it’s just tenfold the cuteness that the original audio track was because- well, because Japan is so damn hardcore about their dubbing [2].

    Plus, Disney (and as an extension, Pixar) are the kings of international dubs [1][2].

    And they also do worldwide releases pretty okay. Except when Japan has to wait AGES to get some stuff — but serves them right, when they make us wait for everything they do for ages as well.

  • Khamatova’s Films Ranked

    Well, I think it’s time, no? This has been my Chulpan Khamatova’s journey so far. Surprisingly, most of the films that remain hard to find (and hence are not subtitled in other language) have been my least favorite. It could be a case of lost in not-translation, but I’m confident in my non-subtitled watch experience to trust my instinct.

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  • Los Premios Tony son más Grandes con Neil!

    When I translate things, I usually go from Spanish into English, so when I listened to (and obsessed a little) over Neil Patrick Harris at the Tonys, I thought that it’d be good practice for a quick English to Spanish translation exercise.

    Lyrics in English taken from Playbill.com

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  • Neil Patrick Harris is Bigger for Tony

    Is this the resurrection of Broadway?

    Neil Patrick Harris just pulled off a massive introduction for last night’s show, not only including fellow show nominees, but they also included some snarky blow at Shia LaBeouf, whose theater scuffle made it outside Broadway circles. I have no idea about Broadway news and the who is who, but I knew about it. Go figure.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danBaPWT09A

    I know tickets have been down for Broadway shows- all shows across all media, I believe. So I hope last night’s award show boosts the popularity, because if the numbers keep going down, there’d be no place for…

    There’s a kid in the middle of nowhere who’s sitting there living for Tony performances. Singing and flipping along with the Pippins and Wickeds and Kinkies, Matildas, and Mormonses. So I might reassure that kid, and do something to spur that kid. Cause I promise you all of us up here tonight. We were that kid.

  • The Russian Cherry-popping!

    learning-russian

    Guess who took her first dive into Russian? That deserves its inclusion on the language category, as well as a “russia” tag, no? ‘Coz I’m suspecting there will be a lot more Chulpan Khamatova postings around.

    First impressions on the language? I thought it was easier and less scary than Hebrew (which I once tried to learn, I don’t know if I ever confessed to that). The new alphabet seems to be quite straight forward (though a bit weird to write). Anyone wants to tell me the proper direction and how I should be writing the following letters: ц, г, ш, щ, з (is this like a 3?), ъ, ф (can I write it like an “o” with a line across it?), п, л, д, ж (especially this one), э, я and и (when I write this, I feel like a 5-year-old that can’t write, though I read the inverted “N” should look like a script “U” when handwritten), ч, б, and ю.

    Pronunciation-wise, you guys have soooooo many diphthongs. It might be unsettling to my Spanish brain. I also noticed that because of the inflections of voice and the use of so many “y” sounds, my voice sounds different when I repeat Russian. It’s weird.

    I also can’t tell the difference between  ш and щ. And I also can’t figure out how to pronounce ы properly. And the Russian keyboard is freaking me out. I might need to put stickers on my keyboard now. But then I would have to consider adding a Korean one as well. Sighs.

    Numbers are already scaring me.

  • Guess Who’s Back- Hyori’s Back~

    Well, Hyori has earned her “Comeback” title alright- she’s been absent for… like, what? Four or three years maybe? Since her 4th bad luck album was such a bust, she’s been sort of hovering on our lives as Kpop seemed to rise and leak into the worldwide pop culture subconscious.

    Since those days, LOADS of rookie groups have debuted — all trained vocally and in dance ability, which puts them ahead of Hyori. But you know what? Who cares. Hyori is what I wanted Britney to be at some point. I wanted Brit to be well adjusted and charismatic, even if she had gradually lost her voice and, ultimately, her dance ability. One thing I never wanted her to lose was her ability to engage.

    Hyori engages with her audience. At the end of her celebratory comeback presentation, she brings back 10 Minutes, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and then she performs U-Go-Girl, with no post at ALL O_O You can hear her laugh while singing through the almost-bare and casual arrangements of the song, while she’s been squirted with water guns. And she tells them (and us) that she’s missed us. Or that’s how I’ve interpreted her bogoshippoyo.

    The water gun squirts borders on a wet t-shirt contest, but Hyori is wearing silver leggins throughout the whole show, which really surprises me — I mean, she could’ve been wearing black hot pants like her over-exposed back-up dancers, but she isn’t. She’s actually quite casual through the whole segment until the water squirting gets ridiculous and she laughs. I love that.

    Apparently the show lasted nearly 50min?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ySkD-05HpU