Who Said TV Doesn’t Teach Us Anything?
The Dukes of Hazzard was a show I never missed. I was even a fan during the very strange and often forgotten Coy and Vance year when Schneider and Wopat believed they were bigger than the product, and proved they kinda were. I remember learning a lot of things from that show…
Well, I’m not sure if it is true or not, but after making an illegal right hand turn on a red right in front of a police officer today, this lesson of Hazzard County came to fruition. Actually after seeing him out of the corner of my eye I just kept going forward, not looking into my mirrors or anywhere but forward. The truth is even if he did pull me over, he would have just told me to go since 98% of all cops in Taipei don’t speak any English, but it was raining and I wanted to get home before I got any wetter.
I think he honked his horn at me a few times, but with my iPod on (kinda illegal as well) I wasn’t sure. I’m pretty sure he got right up beside me as well, but I could only see him out of the corner of my eye since I refused to turn to look at him. I also think he was about to pull me over when traffic was stopped and I ducked beside a stopped bus, skidded through the middle of the two lanes of stopped traffic only clipping one taxi’s side mirror and turning down a one way (the other way) alley by McDonald’s. I emerged one block up (one again making an illegal right… just for fun this time) and crossing the bridge into Taipei County… new jurisdiction and no cops Roscoe and Flash waiting for me.
I actually didn’t even think about the whole city to county thing until I was on the bridge and saw the sign, ‘Welcome to Taipei County’ and the first thing that ran through my mind was Roscoe P. Coletrain slamming on the breaks and not being able to chase the Dukes across county lines. I felt very much like a long lost Duke cousin lost in Asia. too bad I didn’t have the plaid shirt and tight jeans on to make it authentic. But at least I know, I’m still just a good ol’ boy, never meaning no harm…
Oh, and I made three more illegal turns in the county as well. If the cops in Taipei City are like Roscoe, they are even more like Enos and Cletus in Taipei County!
Just another October 12th???
It was a good day…
Me and the boys and my birthday cakes…
I was just checking out trailers on the Apple website and I saw that they are releasing Red Cliff in North America. Of course they are pumping it up as a John Woo film instead of the stellar cast and the fact that it is based on one of the most popular stories in all of Chinese history, but there is something else I am wondering. When Red Cliff came out here, it was released in two parts, both over two and a half hours long. When they came out they were titled part one and two so you knew that you were getting just part of the story. It looks like the North American version is just one film… but will it be five hours long? I doubt it.
I haven’t watched it all yet. I have both parts here on DVD (it’s actually super cheap to get both parts from the video stores now since they got in so many copies when they first came out), but I know the first half is very slow, leading up to the epic battle of the Red Cliff, which happens in the second part of the series. So, did they dumb it down for North American audiences, keeping only the more exciting parts? The preview makes it look like an amazing movie… but not the same one I saw here. The previews here were much more subtle and story based, the new version looks like an historical kung fu action movie, which it is not!
I guess I just wonder if North American audiences are being treated to something they may have never seen in the first place, or are they being given something that is incomplete, made for foreign audiences to bank on John Woo and the action he brings to the screen instead of the true epic tale of Red Cliff with some of the best actors around. I’m happy to see it being released in a much wider format than just in small, foreign film, art house theatres, but at what cost?
I can get copies here for cheaper than the ticket price you would pay to see it in North America. Interested? I may just start my own little Asian Film export company since there are a lot of movies here much cheaper than anywhere else. I already have one customer and she’s more than satisfied with the 30+ movies she has received from Taiwan (even though she hasn’t yet received Red Cliff Part Two).
I say go see it, but look for the true five hour version when you can so you see the true story and the way it was presented to audiences over here… which had theatres sold out weeks in advance for showings. That has to say something when most Asian films are here and gone in less than two weeks most times.
We’ve been back and forth on where to go for the Chinese New Year vacation time. The airlines over here know exactly when the vacation times are and they add some seriously large extra charges fro flying on those days. Some prices more than double for the times during Chinese New Year. Luckily there are a few cheaper airlines now flying out of Taiwan that we can use.
The original plan was to fly to Sri Lanka. The prices were really good, but in the course of one week the charges went way up. A round trip through Kula Lumpur would have been about 11,000nt, but it’s now 17,000nt for the same flights. We looked into Bali as well, and it looked good, and was a little less than Sri Lanka was, but the prices just went up for it as well. Jakarta is still nice and cheap, but the recent devastation near there, it’s not a very safe place to travel to. Singapore is a nice, cheap option, but we have almost ten days and Singapore really is a long weekend trip, not much more. We could fly into Singapore, then after a few days go to either Bangkok or Kula Lumpur, then home, but after our last trip where we did four countries in one month, we want to just do one and relax. So… we are going back to Thailand. The price is one of the best and we don’t have to travel far, or on too many flights.
This time we will fly into Bangkok (an airport we have been in way too many times in the last few months) and then either spend a few more days in Bangkok, or go directly to either Chaing Mai in the North or Phuket (and no, it does not rhyme with ‘bucket’ with an ‘f’ at the beginning) in the South. It’s either beaches, diving and sun or tigers, temples and treks. Right now it looks like we are both more interested in a different spot. Neither of us want to do any temples for a while (Cambodia and India were an overload of temples this summer), but I like the idea of the North and the different trips out we can do instead of the more crowded areas in Phucket during Chinese New Year.
We are booked and ready to go for Thailand, we just have to still book the internal flight to either one or the other places soon. I just started studying up on Sri Lanka (I bought the Lonely Planet while I was in Vietnam) and now have to go and find the one for Thailand. I need a bookshelf just for my travel guides (we picked up a few bootlegs in Vietnam for Sri Lanka, Bangkok, Singapore and Nepal… yes, they even have bootleg Lonely Planet guides here).
I still really want Sri Lanka and Nepal (which we skipped last trip) and will plan the next big trip around both of them. According to an interactive map I found through Facebook (travbuddy.com) I have now traveled to 6% of the countries of the world. Gotta definitely get that number into double digits soon. I’ve got a lot of Southeast Asia done, but the rest of the world is still wide open…
I hung out with some friends last night who didn’t know that I don’t drink. They were kind of shocked that when I said ‘I don’t drink’ that I meant I don’t, not one. I know it’s a normal thing to do, but I just don’t do it. I can count on one hand the amount of times I have had any alcohol in the last five year, and it has been almost three years since I have had anything to drink in Taiwan.
My reason? Many, but the main one is it’s my choice and I made it. I know more about beer than most people out there from studying it for my job back in Canada, and I tried almost every brand and kind there was at our store (over 200 brands) and can probably narrow it down to five or six that I would drink again for something nice and different to drink, but never to get drunk. Don’t need it.
Most of them smoked. I don’t. A few wanted to smoke some recreational stuff. I don’t. They even offered me a glass of Coke (drink… not powder) to drink while they were mixing. Had to explain that I don’t drink that either. My friend’s girlfriend was amazed and asked if there was anything else on the list. I told her Fast Food and Coffee. I thought they were going to fall off the couch. No one could imagine being able to abstain from all those things at the same time. It’s not hard, you just need things to keep you from them. Other vices I guess.
A guy from Denmark (who spent a year in Udaipur, India a few years back) asked me what my vices were. What are the bad habits I have. I had to think hard to come up with something, but nothing that is really unhealthy like the others. I am a complete sugar addict and if I can eat candy or chocolate I will. And I don’t mean buying M&Ms every once in a while, I mean if I could, I would stuff my face all the time, but I can control it like I control any other craving.
I was thinking about it today and I came up with the two things that I guess you could say I am addicted to, even though they are strange vices or addictions to have…
Addiction #1 – Buying Movies
Addiction #2 – Professional Wrestling
You can have a beer and I won’t lecture you about it in any way… sometimes I just wish that courtesy was extended back to me when I mention being a wrestling fan.
I have so many books here to read right now, but I am going through a lot of short stories, just for something different. So far I’m jumping back and forth between Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ernest Hemingway. If you want something really good to read, definitely read these…
Hemingway…
I also picked up a book of Chinese Myths and Fairytales. Finally after three years of being here I now know the proper story of Chang E and the Moon Festival, as well as her husband Yi and the Ten Suns (which was actually the cause of the events that lead up to the Moon Festival events). Very cool stories which I am going to use as extra reading with my Grade Four class since they are already a little ahead on their reading textbooks.
I’ve also got collections of short stories by Philip K Dick, Kurt Vonnegut and Murakami, so it looks like I’m not going to run out anytime soon.
I received my $1000nt gift certificate from the school today for the up-coming Moon Festival (we get them for three festivals a year; Moon, Dragon Boat and Chinese New Year) and went to Carrefour to spend some or all of it. I got there with the intent to get certain things that I was on the verge of buying anyway. The only problem is, although Carrefour is known to have good prices (it’s like WalMart back home), there are cheaper places. I knew what I wanted, but the prices were a little higher than at RT-Mart and Géant. So the dilemma…
I got Mouthy her good cat food and left the rest there, then went to RT Mart to see the prices and how big of a difference it is. The prices aren’t that much different, but I still feel like I’m wasting money getting the more expensive ones for free instead of buying them at the cheaper price in the other store. Neither place had any movies I wanted or I would have just got those and killed off the certificate really fast.
I’m shopping tomorrow. I’m just not sure which place I am going to…
How I Met Your 向左走·向右走…
Okay, I have to get this off my chest. Maybe someone else has noticed this, but it has been bugging for most of Season 4 of How I Met Your Mother, but the episode I just watched nailed it home… it is a COMPLETE RIP-OFF OF A CHINESE BOOK/MOVIE!!!
Not sure if anyone else here (other than Jeri) knows the story of Turn Left, Turn Right (向左走·向右走), but the writers and creators of HIMYM sure do. The first few seasons were great, but this season they are sending out more hints as to who the mother is, probably since people are getting a little tired of Ted and his annoying love life. If it wasn’t for Barney the show would be boring as hell anyway, but that aside, the hints are like looking at the pages of the Jimmy Liao book.
Ted lives in a building where every day he goes to a bar downstairs which is to the right of his steps. ALWAYS. There is an episode where the woman that is going to be the mother is at the same party as him, but they never bump into each other… but he does end up with her yellow umbrella which plays a big part in the story later on. And in the episode I just watched, the entire basis of the story is that instead of turning right like he does every day, he turns left and it is that decision that leads him down the path to finding the woman he truly loves. He is even standing on a street corner with the yellow umbrella in his hand when it begins to rain, and suddenly beside him is a bright blue umbrella. Sure, they do a little twist on the story here, but it’s the same as Turn Left, Turn Right.
In the original a man and a woman live in the same city and are meant for each other, but they never meet because when they leave their apartments, one turns left an the other right. One day they meet in the rain, and exchange numbers under their red and green umbrellas. The numbers get wet and they don’t know how to contact each other. They both search for each other, one left, the other right, never knowing that they live directly beside each other… only a wall separating them as they sleep. Everything they do, they just miss each other by one slight turn until they both give up and decide they don’t want to live there anymore if they can’t find the other. And, as they both leave, having given up on love, they come to a circular path where neither one has to turn left or right… and with everything packed up and their lives ready to change forever, they fall in love again (if I got it a little wrong, I’m sorry, but I have only read the book in Chinese).
The writers of How I Met Your Mother must be big fans of this story which I am sure 99% of the people who watch the show have no idea about. I actually can’t find any references to Turn Left Turn Right and How I Met Your Mother anywhere on the internet, but there is no way this is a coincidence. So, if I’m correct about this (and not just a raving lunatic), the woman who will become Ted’s wife and the mother to his children has probably been seen many times in the show walking down the same steps as Ted, or just outside the building going the opposite direction. I’d almost bet that in the first episode of the first season we see the mother turn left while he turns right.
Why am I obsessing about this? Maybe it’s the medication… maybe it’s the total lack of sleep… or maybe, just maybe after four seasons of a show that I think is brilliant, I just found out it was ripped off from a story that I absolutely love from right here in Taiwan. And now that I have finished the latest season I am going to be so obsessed with this that I am going to have to go back to the first season and watch it again to look for that girl, the one who goes the other way. The one we are not supposed to notice at all… the girl we don’t notice until we look the right way and then it’s obvious that she’s been there the whole time.
Well played How I Met your Mother writers and creators… I hope you do Jimmy Liao right by the end of this tale since you were obviously inspired by his brilliant story and artwork.
There is a movie made of the book, but the book is so brilliant. I have read it many times, always the Chinese version. Jimmy Liao’s art is so perfect that you don’t even need a translation to know exactly what it is about. I don’t think the movie is available in North America at all, and if it is it’s probably expensive as an import, but it’s cheap here. I’ve already sent a copy of it to one Xangan from here, and I think I made a copy for my family when I was at home (even though I think all the Chinese movies I brought home last year have been ignored by everyone)… I found a short clip of their meeting online with English subtitles as well as the trailer on YouTube…
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