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TAXI!

Channel 35 is SCOLA. It probably stands for something. Scholastic Channel Of Language Aquisition, we'll call it. It shows news or other programs from around the world. They cram an amazing number of countries there so at any time of the day, you could be watching the Azerbaijanian news or a Quebecois variety show.

Alex and I were flipping through the channels on Saturday and there was nothing on the first 33 channels. We got all the way up to SCOLA and they were having some kind of Taiwanese New Year celebration. My favorite part was this big song-and-dance extravaganza. There was the host, then a bunch of people in various costumes. There were brides and grooms, cheerleaders, students, flight attendants, military people, and many more.

From what I could gather, the theme of the song seemed to be "China is reaching out to the world and learning English is a good way to start off the new year." The chorus went something like "China to the World! Okay!" The song was about half Chinese and half English, with the Chinese words subtitled in Chinese and the English words subtitled in English. I assume they were saying things in Chinese and then saying the same thing in English. In which case, the Taiwanese are insane.

It started off normal enough. The brides and grooms would come up to the front of the stage and everyone would say "lweirojcfs (something in Chinese) I love you." The students would come up and everyone would say "lweirojcfs Stay in school." The flight attendants said "lweirojcfs Can I help you?"

But then the second time around, things started getting weird. The brides and grooms said, with big smiles on their faces, "lweirojcfs I'm sorry" and the military people said "lweirojcfs TAXI!" and so on and so on. Maybe if I understood Chinese, I would understand the motivation behind the TAXI! thing. Maybe not.

srah - Monday, 18 February 2002 - 9:14 PM
Tags: china, chinese, scola, tv

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