the grass is always greener in some other country’s soaps

I have been wanting to watch television in Mandarin for a while so that I could improve my vocabulary, but the news isn’t suitable (the words are too hard; I can’t imagine translating ‘bilateral trade negotiations’ on my iTouch and feeling very much accomplished) and the Chinese soaps I find on TV are too silly for me (no way those three ladies all gave birth on the riverbank at once) or too specific (I doubt I will get much practical conversational Chinese from a Revolutionary War soap).

If you are thinking of watching dramas in Asia, it seems that Korea has the monopoly right now with the most sophisticated industry and products. In college I would visit some friends and find them avidly downloading and watching Korean dramas. A few months ago I saw a report in an Asian newspaper about unsuccessful government attempts to ban Meteor Garden, one of the older and more famous Korean dramas, in China because of its “encouragement of materialistic pursuits and desires” or something like that. And even in the latest Chinese novel I read (Brothers by Yu Hua, it was okay) there is a character who talks big about making fortunes but is too busy watching Korean soaps to successfully begin his enterprises. I wouldn’t mind trying them myself (after taking the MCAT last summer I ended up watching a particularly silly Taiwanese drama, rationalizing to myself that I would do it to learn Chinese). Again the rationale is that I would learn Chinese from the practice, but it doesn’t seem like the Korean soaps would help much with this.

It turns out, however, that my aunt and uncle are fans of Korean soaps too, and actually as I’m writing this they are sitting beside me watching one. “It’s in Chinese too,” my uncle showed me. I hadn’t realized that they were all dubbed and subbed in Mandarin and Simplified Chinese – of course they would be if the market for them here was so huge, I belatedly realized. I was used to seeing the English fansubs that my friends furtively downloaded and hadn’t thought that I could get any such useful translations.

So here is a dangerous precipice that I am standing over. Before I fall in, does anybody have any recommendations so that I know at least which cliff is the best one to jump off of?

Daily Summary Update: I spent the weekend here in Hong Kong again with my family. At this point, my parents have left and are home in Olympia already, but my grandmother is still visiting Hong Kong and my aunt/uncle as well as my cousin’s family all live here. Aidan was particularly rambunctious today – he’s learning a lot of new words.

Nanowrimo Update: If I’m going to finish, I need to write about 2000 words a day at this point. I don’t know if I can make the deadline anymore.