The Champion

It was a rare night. My three boys were sound asleep in bed and I wasn't. Benz had a fever over the weekend and passed it on to his brother and dad. So, all of them needed to tank up on sleep. I settled down to catch my new Wednesday-night-treat: an episode of the made-in-singapore, mandarin drama series, "The Champion". Yes, I couldn't believe it myself. Some cable channel in Japan has obviously deemed it worthy enough to pay for the rights and manpower to subtitle it in Japanese.

While Fiona Xie and the actress that played Jingjing in Holland V (can't remember her name) can get quite trying at times, it's nice to have a slice of home here in Fukuoka. And I'm proud to say that I understand a good 85%-90% of the Mandarin dialogue. While I enjoyed watching these dramas in Singapore, I must confess that I often read the English subtitles out of sheer laziness. But now with no safety net to fall back on, I've learnt to be more diligent in my pursuit of fluency in the Chinese language.