Adventures in Asia

对不起，我中文不好。什么意思？ Duìbùqǐ , w ǒ z hōngwén b ù hǎo . Sh é nme y ì si? Sorry, my Chinese is bad. What do you mean? I’ve been living in China for over 3.5 years and my husband is Chinese. It’s only natural that curious friends and strangers ask: “Do you speak Chinese?” 中国梦 The Chinese Dream This really isn’t a fair question, as grammatically I should answer yes or no, though the complex process of learning a language is not so clear-cut. What people usually mean is, “Can you speak Chinese fluently?” so I usually answer with, “No.” Many people believe immersion is the best method for learning a language, and I do agree that living in China provides motivation for me to acquire simple sentences. From buying food and clothes to traveling and getting around on public transportation, I need and am able to use some basic Chinese. However, I can easily maintain my career and social life completely in English, so immersion motivation is limited in my context. (Side...

I did it. I finally watched a TV show from the country I actually live in, instead of one from South Korea. On viki.com, I stumbled upon “One and a Half Summer,” which proved to be light, fluffy, and rather boring. But, I did learn about Chinese language and culture! So it wasn’t a waste. “One and a Half Summer” is a Chinese show, but it has ties to Korea via kpop. One of the lead actors is Nichkhun, a member of kpop boy group 2PM, and a side character is played by Jia of Miss A. At first I was like “Wow! So many Koreans in this show!” until I realized that neither Nichkhun nor Jia are ethnically Korean. Jia is Chinese, and Nicky is… uh… Thai? Chinese? American? According to Wikipedia , he’s lived all over the world, but didn’t make it to Korea until the kpop machine found him and shipped him over. I’m pretty sure he didn’t even speak Mandarin when filming this drama, but more on that later. As for the plot, not a lot happened. Mostly the drama centers on a group of friend...