Yet again, I'm doing things in a roundabout way. Or at least, planning to do things. At several points over my life I have gotten the notion that I ought to start learning some Chinese characters so I can at least read the signs if I somehow get shanghai'd (Ha! Get it?) and am stranded in China. Well at least if somehow I ended up in Shanghai, I'd be okay because I can sort of speak the dialect...But anywhere else, it'd be hopeless.)

I do remember that back when I was about 6 or 7 years old, I went to a sort of day care place (it was called Little Genius Learning Center, if I remember correctly. Pretty arrogant-sounding name, if you ask me), and there was a nice lady who would go over a beginner's Chinese book with me. She'd point to a line and I was supposed to recite it to her, and at the end of the day she'd give me an apple as a present. Actually, I didn't really know what the words said, I'd just memorize what she'd said when she read it earlier, and then I'd just repeat what I remembered. But it sure looked like I was learning Chinese. Now that I think of it, I was good at fooling people when I was a kid. My grandma made me take a nap every afternoon, so if I didn't fall asleep I'd just fake it when she came in to check on me. Eventually, when enough time had passed, I would get up and she'd give me some ice cream. So actually I never got anything near as much sleep as my parents thought I had, especially in preschool, when I never slept during naptime. (But then again, they know that I'm an insomniac, because when I was a baby it took a really, really long time for me to fall asleep. It's still pretty bad now.)

Now that I'm interested in learning Japanese now, though, I'm starting to regret the fact that I never went to Chinese school or at least made my parents teach me. In fact, I was just the opposite for most of my life - I was adamant that I'd focus on English. I really believed that if I tried to learn Chinese, I'd forget English, because I actually learned to speak Chinese before I learned to speak English. Soon as I went to school and was forced to learn English, though, I pretty much forgot all the Chinese I'd learned and now I almost always speak English at home. And on another note, I actually look a weird, irrational pride in the fact that I was Chinese but did not learn my own language. I guess that was an early sign that I would later try to go against the tide in most aspects of my life, if only just to be different from "everyone else", whom I would refer to with slight contempt. I used to want to just blend into the background, but now I kind of think that fitting in means being boring. (That's not necessarily true, though; I probably just don't get to know people well enough to make an accurate judgment.)

Well, although I tried to memorize Katakana and Hiragana with the help of Quizlet, I am still a very long way from reading Japanese because I don't know enough kanji. Guess what kanji is? Yup, it's Chinese characters. The one thing I insisted on not learning turns out to be really important. So I have to start from scratch now if I ever hope to learn Japanese. I was actually planning to work on that this summer, but now that I have the homework from my classes to do...Well, I let myself get too stressed again and now I'm really not in the mood for the things I was doing earlier this summer. Looks like it's going to be a wasted summer and I'll probably be cursing myself for the rest of high school because I won't get to relax again.

Still, I probably should talk to my parents about it sometime. I know that they're going to be busy, what with work, remodeling, and health problems on both sides of the family (grandma on mother's side had back issues and had to go the hospital; dad and his mother were both very ill not long ago. And I should not neglect to mention that my mom is still limping around, although her toe is recovering considerably). But I guess if I'm going to learn a new language, starting late's better than never. I've gotta get crackin'.

Labels: china, chinese, dialect, different, english, family, foreign language, health, japanese, kanji, languages, late, mandarin, nap, pretend, problems, quizlet, sleep

Well, of course, it should really be spelled "craze", but I felt like using alliteration. :p

Korean pop, or k-pop as it is often called, seems to have become quite popular in the last few years. It also seems to be a trend (even if it is unintentional) for people who were once obsessed with anime to turn their interests to Korean dramas and bands. It's not a bad thing necessarily, though I must say it made me feel both sad and proud. Sad because I felt like the race of otakus was dying out (though actually that's not really true at all, from what I've seen on the Internet lately), and proud that I wasn't following a trend. The second part's funny, considering that I'm probably missing out on a lot of good things because I try not to do what everyone else is doing. (I guess that was part of the reason I picked Weight Training instead of Dance. I didn't want to add to the stereotype that girls take Dance and boys take Weight Training. But then again, I actually do want to try Weight Training.) After getting disappointed by the Twilight series, I lost faith in what's popular with the general public. Though I'm starting to jump back on the bandwagon again, particularly since I've watched a couple of popular anime (Durarara, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica) and found that they were actually quite good.

Back to k-pop. I haven't really listened to too much of it. I've tried, but I'm not usually all that fond of hip hop and dance music (I have the feeling I've misidentified the genres, but whatever). There are a few groups that I do like, such as DBSK (which has, unfortunately, split up, though a few of the members made a new group called JYJ, I think). Maybe I should listen to more of it. The other day, Shiroi showed me a few songs, such as a DBSK acapella, and also, to my surprise, some Japanese songs sang by K-pop groups. It's pretty cool that they can sing in too languages. But then again...have you heard any of those Vocaloid songs which are supposed to be in English, but the lyrics don't make any sense? I heard this Luka song the other day that was saying something about German alcohol, I think. I guess the composer's knowledge of English was a bit...lacking. Maybe it's just because Asian countries seem to enjoy putting English words in their songs and on their products, even if they aren't exactly sure what it means?

As for actual Korean songs by K-pop groups, thefalse-tto introduced me to Pinocchio Danger and Nu Abo by the group F(x). In particular she pointed out the girl Amber, who has now been added to my growing list of women/girls that I admire. For some reason I really like tomboyish girls and girly-looking guys. But besides that, it turns out Amber is actually Taiwanese-American and from California (I assume from around Los Angeles, since that is apparently where she got picked up by SM Entertainment).

Speaking of Los Angeles, I'd sure like to go there - not because I'm planning to audition to become a k-pop singer (though I actually would like to try if I had a larger vocal range), but because of Miku Hatsune's live concert at Anime Expo... Right now all the tickets are sold out, but I really hope there will be more. I'm thinking about going there if more tickets become available. (True, since Miku is a Vocaloid, she's just going to be a hologram and I could probably watch the concert on Youtube later, but I've started to think that a concert is a totally different experience from listening to music by myself. After all, you're surrounded by tons of people who love the same thing that you do.) This is one of the times that I feel frustrated about living in the suburbs. It's rather far from the action sometimes. (But there was a convention a lot closer to where I live, I guess I couldn't gone to that one...The price and the fact that finals were coming up threw me off, though...Still, would've been nice to look at the merchandise and see people perform at the convention.) Oh well. When there's a will, there's a way. I'll have to see about getting to LA.

Labels: amber, anime, anime expo, california, concert, convention, english, f(x), japan, k-pop, korea, languages, los angeles, miku hatsune, music, otaku, trend, vocaloid, weight training

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