Posts Tagged ‘amazing race’

Amazing Race: final thoughts

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Ok, I can’t help it.  I don’t like to post two things in a row that are too similar, but I just finished watching Amazing Race and there are so many thoughts going through my head!  Like I remembered that yesterday I forgot to mention the language barriers that you deal with when you are in a foreign country.  Also, some of the later episodes in China made me look at my own Chinese language skills as compared to Tammy and Victor Jih’s.  And then of course, I’ve been imagining in my head who I could do it with and how we would approach it.  I can’t even sort out all the random thoughts I’ve had while watching this latest season!  I wonder what the other seasons are like and how many more they’re going to have…

Excuse me? What did you say?

Excuse me? What did you say?

To start off with, let me revisit my own experiences in traveling around Europe and the language barriers it presented.  At the very beginning, when I showed up at my new flat in England excited for a year studying abroad, I ran into some trouble.  NEVER did I think I wouldn’t be able to understand the British!  Yet, amazingly, I found myself seated with my flatmates around the kitchen table that night, bewildered at how I could hardly identify what they were speaking as English.  Only Llama had what you would consider a “proper” British accent (aka BBC newsworthy).  Everyone else’s accents ranged from the Yorkshire boys’ to the London girl’s.  Now that’s one thing you don’t really hear about – that they have huge differences in regional accents!  They’re nearly their own dialects.  Thankfully, a few hours of listening to them and I started to understand the patterns and process what they were saying.

But then came the true test during that 5-week spring break (or Easter vacation, as they consider it) when I went traipsing around the rest of Europe.  Though many countries spoke English to some degree, there was a lot of gesturing, pointing on maps, writing out names, and general confusion.  Luckily, I could usually get a map in each place, so at least I didn’t have to try to butcher the pronunciations of the places I was trying to get to.  It was also useful to have my basic knowledge of French, which helped a bit with Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian as well.  However, visuals and physical interaction are usually your best friends in this case.  I always thought it’s funny how people still talk out loud in their own language, even when the other party is not understanding a word of it.  It’s useful though – sometimes the intonation can clue you in or a word will pop out at you.  I find interacting with those who don’t understand you a most interesting challenge.

The complete opposite also happened to me on a train ride from Italy to Hungary, going through countries like Croatia and Slovenia.  I was in a room with three other people and they each spoke three, four, and five languages.  The only common one we had was English, so they tried to stick to that, but at points they’d slip into some Italian or German before remembering me and coming back to English.  Sigh.  I wish I was multilingual like that!  One of my neverending goals it to retain my Chinese, but also to regain my French skills that have been lost over the years in college.  I’d like to see the day when I can claim I’m trilingual at least.  Oh, and I want to learn Cantonese as well, which Panda can start teaching me.  I’m scared of the pronunciations though.  We’ll have to see when I make the time for these ambitions!

Hey, I've been there too!

Hey, I've been there too!

As for the language skills I do have, they’re patchy.  Though my Mandarin accent is near perfect and very standard (aka China newsworthy), my reading skills are quite lacking.  I don’t know if I would have been able to read all the characters in the calligraphy that they did, though the dish names would have been easy for me to pronounce, whether or not I was able to figure out what they translated to.  I think speech-wise, Tammy and Victor’s diction was a bit stiff and sounded foreign.  This happens a lot with people who learn the language by the book – they never really pick up on slang terms or colloquialisms.  Oh, and those translations for what they were saying… who did them?!  Sometimes it was completely off, though it didn’t really affect the main idea of what was going on.  However, their reading skills seemed a little better than mine (though I don’t know if they were told the words first or just read them themselves, since the calligraphers they were talking to seemed to have said what they were writing).  All in all I think I’d do similarly to the Jihs in our motherland.

Forget just seeing the Bird's Nest - how about being in it?

Forget just seeing the Bird's Nest - how about being in it?

Finally, I kept imagining myself with Panda and how we’d deal with it, but I don’t know how plausible that would actually be.  I’m considering applying just to see if we can get through, but I have a media angle on us that I want to wait on.  Plus, he’d need to get out of school first and have the flexibility to be able to go on the show.  I can’t imagine him taking a quarter off to do something like this and you certainly can’t take three/four weeks off in a quarter system and catch up in a class!  Let’s hope the show lasts quite a long time!  Yes, I’m actually seriously considering this.  No harm in trying, right?  And though I was worried about opportunities to enjoy the cities during the race, I figure if you can win it you can always go back!  I know I’m dreaming big here, but it’s something I can fantasize about and look forward to, whether or not we actually do try someday.  However, in thinking of this and how we would face challenges involving our fears or dislikes, I worry about our ability to overcome and try.  It looks a lot easier when someone else does it, but I guess being in the right mentality during the game kind of gets you to do whatever you need to fight to the finish.  Does Panda have that competitive spirit?  I’m not sure this is his sort of adventure.

Grr I am strong too!

Grr I am strong too!

So, then I started to think, who else could I do it with?  And you know what, I began to entertain the thought of trying out with my best friend, Katana.  She’s athletic, well-traveled, and super competitive.  Whereas I would definitely lead a lot with Panda, partly because I am more aggressive and partly because I am in more familiar territory than he, with Katana I’m not sure how things would play out.  Though I’m generally a peacekeeper, that would more of show in the way I’d interact with other teams.  However, in the way that I’d approach the game, Katana and I might have some serious headbutts to contend with when I chose to assert myself.  Otherwise, she’s the more aggressive and assertive out of the two of us, hands down.  We’d have an advantage because of our experiences abroad and our comfort in traveling.  Plus, if I do commit to trying out, I’d be sure to start preparing my body for it, getting back in the pool regularly and returning to my track and field days as well.  Gosh, I’m really starting to dream with this one.  So what say you, Katana?  Season 16?  (They’ve already held interviews and such for the upcoming 15th season.)  We’ve still got a shot at being the first female duo to take it away!

Amazing Race: some observations

laelene Posted in general blog,Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
0
photo credit: gearlive.com

photo credit: gearlive.com

When I went online today to try to find new episodes of the shows I started to follow recently, I found that apparently the seasons have ended.  I guess that makes sense in retrospect, seeing how dramatic the finale for House was, but I guess I didn’t quite see it for Lie to Me.  Well, once I found out, I tried to figure out when the next seasons start, but I guess they don’t tell you that.  Perhaps people who watch TV just know this, just like any schoolchild can tell you what month they start school.  Unfortunately, that is not knowledge I have had since sometime in middle school, so I’m quite out of the loop.  Thus, in an effort to do an activity that doesn’t require much out of me but is still relatively engaging, I thought I’d check out the latest season of the Amazing Race, which I have read about when Tammy and Victor won as the first Asian-American team.

What struck me was the relationships, the unpredictability, and the rush and intensity of it all.  First and most importantly, any sort of show like this that challenges people to work together under high stress situations tells you a lot about their personalities and relationship.  You watch as they get frustrated with what is going on and some people blame themselves, some people blame others, while some people will blame the situation itself.  And in terms of dealing with that stress, there are those who lash out at their partner, those who get upset with themselves, and those who are impatient or even rude to the locals.  It’s interesting to see the different coping mechanisms that come into play when these people are under stress.  Certainly anyone would start to crack and show their faults and again and again I would see power struggles within the teams, with one partner trying to be more dominant.  Usually this was because of their personal relationship as family or significant others.  It seemed to happen less so with the teams that were coworkers and friends.

photo credit: abovethelaw.com

photo credit: abovethelaw.com

Observing all of that made me evaluate myself and how I would behave under those circumstances.  I think I’d want to be the dominant one and would in turn be the one dishing out more criticism.  Of course, all of imagination towards how I could compete is in the scenario in which I would go with Panda.  So I’m thinking of the dynamics of our relationship, where I assert myself far more and tend to be more expressive when it comes to sharing my feelings and gripes.  So for me, the hardest thing would be to let go and not always control, but step back and let him do his thing.  The good thing with us is that whenever we get into a disagreement, at the bottom of it we both just want things to go well.  And though we’ll misunderstand each other, we’re both working hard to make things better, in our own ways.  As for how I’d treat the people along the way, I know I’d thank them a lot for their help, but I don’t know if I’d get exasperated when the communication barriers get in the way and delay things.  I can be impatient and demanding, and I may not always be able to be the gracious person I’d like to be.  I’m still working on that.  Don’t shows like this make you reevaluate yourself and your life too?

Secondly, there was the unpredictability of the situation.  Until the moment you step on that mat and hear you’ve been eliminated, there’s nearly always hope.  Time and again teams have yo-yoed from leading to lagging and back again and oftentimes they get back on an even playing field due to travel restrictions.  Plus, you never know exactly what’s going on with all the other teams, so even though you may have a good idea, something unexpected could have gotten in the way.  It’s a huge lesson in hope that I think people need to grasp better.  It’s too often that I see expressions of defeat and despair that end up in glee and joy when they discover that things weren’t as bad as they thought.  At the same time, there are great examples of people who don’t give up and fight to the last bit, no matter how badly off course they get.  That’s the beauty of it – this fighting courage that they get when it comes down to the wire.

Sometimes you just gotta go for it.

Sometimes you just gotta go for it.

Similarly, in life, so many people say negative things about what they think can’t happen only to be proven wrong.  I know I hold myself back a lot because I’m afraid of venturing out to be wrong.  However, everywhere you read, the most common thing that self-made successful people share is a certain level of bravery in taking risks and trying.  This is a topic addressed often in entrepreneurship.  If you want to do something and make something of yourself, you need to go out and attempt all kinds of crazy ideas.  Sure, lots of things will fall flat and you’ll probably get shot down more than you’d ever care for, but then you just have to pick yourselves up and keep going, taking what you’ve learned from each lesson to build on to your repertoire of knowledge.  I want to be like that since I want to be an entrepreneur and I hope shows like this are encouraging more people to act like that as well.

Finally, the intensity of the race and the pace that it goes at (which I’m sure is highly misrepresented in the show) is astonishing sometimes.  The one thing I don’t like about this premise is that people rush through these countries so quickly that they only get a glimpse of what things are like there.  It’s not true travel and tourism in the way that I value it.  So it makes me wonder how much down time they get and if they even have time to go check out some things they may have wanted to.  I think the worst thing would be to finally go to a place you’ve been dreaming of only to run around like maniacs trying to track down the right clues.  For their sake, I hope they get to do some of their own traveling, though it doesn’t really look like it.  I’m sure everyone is so focused on conserving their energy for the race and preparing themselves to take on challenges that they probably aren’t even in the right mindset to truly enjoy the cities they pass through.  It’s the one big downside I see to this great big game.

Me and my bags, dragged all around Europe.

Me and my bags, dragged all around Europe.

Though granted, I started to get nostalgic for my travels through Europe, like the 5 weeks I spent gallavanting around from Portugal to Hungary, Greece to Sweden, spanning 21 cities.  It was a similar mad rush, with me averaging 1.5 days per city, including travel time.  I had a basic plan that changed a few times depending on when I could catch trains, if I could book hostels, and where I felt like going next.  There’s a beauty and freedom in that kind of travel, where you only really know where you’re going to be in the next two days, but no more.  I had similar frustrations with missing trains, running with a rucksack on my back while dragging a suitcase behind me, and getting lost or stranded.  Additionally, I had to deal with extra fees when my luggage got too heavy for the small, cheap airlines that fly around locally.  The moment I arrived into a city, I’d get a map, go online, and find all the historical landmarks, museums, and other tourist attractions I was interested in visiting.  From there I’d map out my plan of action and go from there.  It was 5 full weeks of banking it from one place to another, trying out all kinds of cuisine I could find, and still managing to enjoy some hotspots and take a breather.  It was quite fun to travel like that and I miss it, though I do plan on going back to see things more in depth in the future and spend some time getting more immersed in the cultural feel.

So all in all, it was a very reflective experience that allowed me to think about my own life.  Which I think we should always be doing.  🙂

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...