oh no.

oh no. it's happened again. always when im in a busy time of life, particularly school work wise (coming up to the end of semester etc) something silly like this always happens.
i am, once again addicted to a Taiwanese dramas.

it all started so innocently. i remembered i found a new dvd i'd bought at the end of my trip in china, so i decided, 'what the hell. i'll shove it in and see if i can understand any of this drama'. my hopes were not all that high, cos dialogue wise i really cant follow much of tv shows in chinese. im almost definite i really more on the visuals, almost entirely.

but anyway, i put in the disc and got a suprise when the menu came up, because not only did it have the series i was expecting, but there was the end 10 or so episodes of a different drama series too! *shock*

even more suprising, although the drama i bought the disc for is several years old already, the drama that was an added bonus was a 2006 one! and i recognised it!!

i never had a tv in china, and so didnt have much opportunity to watch it, but occasionally fate had it that i would cross paths with one. sometimes this meant crashing jess's room to get the occasional fix of korean dramas, or terrible 'i am your father' mid-day soapie dramas. other times it was at Auntie's house, and usually beijing opera which nainai the grandma liked or weird music shows.

however another occasion was in the cafe (as in an actual cafe, where they sell coffee and cake like things, not the cafeteria where they sell mass produced, yet somehow still good quality meals) in the library at the New Campus with leo. some of you may not be aware, but i lived and went to school at the Old Campus, which was more picturesque, smaller and quaint perhaps, yet Leo was at a different campus, the new campus - which is huge, very modern, cool and ... grey? lol. by car i think it only took about 20-25mins drive, but by bus it would take about 1 hr, and my poor baby leo used to take bus to see me a million times a week! dedication!

one or two memorable evenings however i found myself at the New Campus. (one was accompanying lou to an English Corner meeting, which in itself is a funny story, as she was drunk from a class party at a bowling alley, and English Corner - a meeting of uni students who are all english learning enthusiasts - is basically like feeding a lamb to the wolves when a foreigner is involved. after trying desperately to fade into the back wall of the lecture hall and failing miserably we took to the stage, where to cover up for lou's drunkenness i was extra cheerful and excited, so people would think that this was what we two were always like,...and not that one was actually intoxicated since about 2pm that afternoon!

so lo and behold we gave interesting self-introductions, where we bad-mouthed our room-mates (ourselves), talked good of the caf (which the uni students all hate), proclaimed that cheap is good, and the caf especially good because it is so, and to top it off when asked questions about whether i could sing i led them in a hokey-pokey song and dance exercise. left them a tad confused i do believe, but hey, if they can get up and sing terrible things like 'if u're happy and u know it clap ur hands', and then 'my heart will go on' (when they dont even know the words!), plus inform everyone that 'gay' actually means happy and therefore its ok to say things like 'hi! i'm feeling really gay today!' (oh dear, i lost count how many of the 1st yr students started practising this for real!), then i can make them do the hokey-pokey the same as my 4 year old kinder kids!

lucky for me perhaps shortly after the hokey-pokey leo appeared and whisked me away to saftey, seeing as his late night class had finished and eventually we ended up in the caf. ) and i do believe that is the longest continuous bracket i have ever written. it starts several paragraphs back if you'll notice, and yes there are numerous brackets within brackets along the way. who cares.

anyway. the caf is actually in the library and its really cute and cosy. i loved it. unfortunately i only got to go there 2 or 3 times, cos it had a habit of randomly being closed every time i went to the new campus. i personally think it was a campaign against me. much like the fact that i apparently wasnt allowed in the library on my own campus!! something crazy. evil woman at the desk glaring at me and saying the foreign students arent allowed in, despite having student cards, and then gazing suspiciously at leo and demanding to know if he's foreign too. weird. evil woman.

where is this going do you ask? didnt it start off about a drama or something? it did. now be patient! we're getting there! so anyway in this very cool caf (on whose topic i could keep getting side-tracked, if i introduced you to mention of Frank and his suave hunt for a lady. apparently he's still going to france...as far as i know he's been in the process of going there for at least a year now! ok now we are side-tracked. enough!) so in this very cool caf im sitting with leo having hot chocolate or something and trying to talk obviously, cos other than gaze lovingly into ones boyfriend's eyes often you do actually have a conversation with them.

however said boyfriend was constantly more enthralled by the exciting dramatic scenes of a tv show showing on a big projector size screen at the back of the caf, than listening to his boring foreign girlfriend drabble on. i admit at times of particularly exciting sounding music i too would turn my head and stare at the fight scene of 'im too cool for school' characters looking oh so bad-ass, but overall the dialogue went over my head and i'd lose interest and hence start my conversation attempt again.

only problem was leo could understand it perfectly well, hence it was still interesting for him. knowing me i probably cracked it and told him to look at me instead of the stupid screen and stupid drama, which i think he obediently did, until the next spectacularly exciting music scene arose again.

the memory stayed with me quite clearly, although i'd never heard of the drama before and it looks a bit silly and well, dramatic, so i supposed it to be an old one. but i just discover i was wrong! it was a 2006 one, and it was airing it's first run throughs on nights such as that one in the cafe, where i selfishly wanted to be the center of attention.

i believe its a very odd twist of irony that this is the drama series which i discovered (or at least the end half of the series) on my dvd, most unexpectedly. and it is this very drama which i am now admitting to being addicted to and close to becoming obsessed with. i've even gone so far and to fall in love with it's crappy happy sickening little jingle of a theme song, which i unfortunately discovered i have the cd of! (it must sound odd how i mistakenly end up having ought all these things! i put it down to the fact that at times its hard to know what you're actually getting yourself into in china!)



so yes, the name of my new beloved drama series is 'WeiXiao Pasta' or 'smile pasta'. yes, gay at times, yes, cheesy, yes full of wannabe bad-asses, of stupid/ demented family members, of sweet heroines and of handsome pop stars etc. but oh so good! it has the right amount of twists at the most frustrating of times, which do of course make you express your frustration at the characters out-loud. but one of the greatest things i discovered. i reckon most of it i can understand! as in dialogue wise! and this is entering the viewing mid-way through the season so i dont even have the background/ context from the beginning. it' so great.

...im just wondering how do i tell leo that i've now become addicted to a show i didnt want him to enjoy... ???

perhaps i'll hope he doesnt remember it all that night so clearly ^_^