Nothing like a woman skinning a rabbit...

I've gotten a few more hikes in, and had a pretty lively night on the town, all of which would be interesting to blog about, but I realize that I haven't talked much about classes, which may leave you all with the impression that I'm not studying that hard. Well, I assure you all, and Uncle Sam too, who generously supported this trip, that there is indeed a whole lot of learning going on, though, as you are about to see, some of that learning is pretty fun, too.

Having no shortage of language teaching experience, I can be pretty critical of language teachers, but I have to say that the teacher I've had here at NTNU's (National Taiwan Normal University) Mandarin Training Center has been top-notch. She keeps things structured, sets a good pace, and makes sure that our assignments are truly relevant and appropriate to our needs. So far quite good, but she also posseses the rarer skill of knowing, and responding to, the mood of the classroom, and when the last-hour blahs set in, she can get us back in the game with a lively discussion. Thus in the midst of our unit on changing family values in contemporary Taiwan, we embarked on a discussion of dating practices in our various countries of origin, which then became a discussion of the latest outrageous dating shows. I'm not sure if this will be a relief to you all, or a cause for dismay, but the degeneration of television into an repugnant mixture of reality show voyeurism and talk-show sleaze is already a global phenomenon.

My Japanese classmates reported on the "Love Bus" show, which apparently aims to have something for everyone. 7 single men and 7 single women started out on a bus with a camera crew 5 years ago, and since then the bus has visited every inhabited continent and produced 80-something happy couples. Once you are selected to be on the show, there are only two ways off of the bus: 1. You fall in love with one of your counterparts and leave together, or 2. you get voted off by the opposite sex because they've judged you unworthy and want you replaced with someone else that might have more partner-potential. Part travel show, part reality show, part dating game. The setup gaurantees a steady level of angst and infighting. Do you hold out for the next round and see what new options arrive, or shack up with the best of the current lot? When the one you like gets voted off do you seek revenge and conspire to vote off someone else's sweetie?

As intriguing as I found the "Love Bus" concept, I'm afraid that the Russians outdo it with their own unique hybrid: dating and survival. The lucky contestants are stranded in remote tract of Russian wilderness and get to shop around for romantic fulfillment while pitching their huts and scavenging for sustenance. There is a certain romantic appeal to dating in the great outdoors, but it simply can't hold up once everyone has acquired a 3-month cake of dirt. Just ask yourself, how alluring would your partner look while gutting a rabbit without a knife? I never did get the mechanics of the show because class ended in the midst of my classmate Andrei's description, though he was very clear on the fact that the shows main appeal is watching nature operate as the great equalizer. The model-perfect good looks of the participants are slowly eroded by the elements, until the point that the hoots and hollers that might accompany bold gestures of romance on other dating shows are transformed into squeels of disgust. Obviously, we'd all have to see it to know exactly how far they let their looks go, but Andrei's pantomimed mask of horror and shudder seem to indicate that it gets pretty bad.

Those two were the standouts. There you have it. The global race to the bottom will be televised. We've come quite a way since the last blog about forms of Chinese opera. Yet, even the most refined forms of Chinese opera had their critics in their day. The open depictions of romantic feelings were a bit too much for many Confucians. Who's to say that todays reality shows won't one day be regarded as national treasures, paradigms to be studied and imitated?

OK, I don't believe that for a second.