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?

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!

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?

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!

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!