Hunan TV

I am unfortunately addicted to this Chinese TV channel which, I have just learned, is called Hunan TV and is one of the biggest TV channels here. And of course I only watch soap operas on it. Thus far my two favorite are called Summer's Desire (pictured above) which is a Taiwanese soap and Meteor Shower which is a Hunan TV original series. Here are summaries of these shows, or at least what I understand of them through my limited Mandarin.

Summer's Desire is basically a love triangle between Long Haired White Skinned Pretty Girl, Dark Skinned Angry Looking Man, and Nice But Boring Boy. (They are all three in the picture above. DSALM is the one on the left looking angry, and NBBB is the one LHWSPG is clinging to desperately.) LHWSPG is ]a movie star I think, and is in the tabloids all the time, especially when paparazzi take photos of her potentially cheating on NBBB. This is prompted by Evil Looking Pretty Girl (not in the photo) who also has some sort of press conference denouncing her? Also I think LHWSPG was previously in a relationship with DSALM due to the intense amount of flashbacks on them looking lovey dovey. After reading Wikipedia I have discovered that they were, in fact, in a relationship but broke up because DSALM kept pressuring LHWSPG to not hang out with this other guy. Then DSALM lost his memory, and now can't remember that they dated (which is why all the flashbacks make LHWSPG look so confused/scared). Anyway it's, as you can tell, a fascinating yet dizzying show. Later I may post about Meteor Shower, which I know less about and so my summary will be even more entertaining.

I consider watching these shows studying. Should I? Probably not. But I do understand quite a bit of the chinese, because phrases like "Dui bu qi" (I'm sorry) set to dramatic music are pretty prevalent. So I don't feel too bad about my new obsessions.