My Current Top Must-watch Serial

Lately I was very into this particular 32-episode drama serial from China, titled "旗舰" ("Qi Jian", or "The Flagship" when translated into English). What makes me intersted in this drama is due to 2 factors: it features a naval-theme which I can somewhat still relate to, and that it stars one of my favourite China actor Jia Yiping.

I know it would cause some people to raise their eyebrows when I say I like this drama, for even some of my China friends do not even watch the shows from their own country, and some simply don't support their national CCTV network of channels. Actually, I only watch selected China-produced serials too. Many serials, alas, were major disappointments.

From what I can tell, it tells the story of an ambitious university graduate who started as off as a fresh naval recruit and climbed his way up to become the captain of his own vessel. In someway, I could see similiarities between the title character and me. The only differences were that I was only a naval specialist and not an officer, and that the system of military training shown in the serial was very much different from what I had experienced before, but of course that's nothing unusual! That was so much I could say about this serial for I only managed to catch just 2 episodes of it on TV, but the first episode was still not that bad in my opinion. Hopefully it shall remain that way till I finish the last episode!

A.C. The Traveller (Trip to Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou) III

Quanzhou is an ancient city also known as "Silk Road of the sea". Situated to the northeast of Xiamen, it takes slightly over an hour to get from Xiamen to Quanzhou, and about 2 hours from Zhangzhou to Quanzhou. Quanzhou is relatively more unfamiliar to me as compared to the other 2 previous cities as I don't have much friends there, and neither am I very familiar with any of the troupes there. However, being a fan of Gaojia and Liyuan opera (both based in Quanzhou), I thought I should pay a visit to this city as well.

Quanzhou still retained quite a bit of it's old-world charm with it's antique architecture everywhere.

A rather famousKwan Ti temple in Quanzhou.

Beside the Kwan Ti temple is one of the oldest mosque in China, built in AD 1009.

Quanzhou is famous for bridges, and you can expect to find bridges like this in every corner of the city.

West Street in Quanzhou city is a very old district, as one can see from the condition of the shophouses along the sides of the street.

The front gate of Quanzhou Liyuan Opera Experimental Troupe, the troupe which I had longed to pay visit to...

... but it was empty inside. Perhaps I went at the wrong time?

Shophouses at Zhongshan Road in Quanzhou; as one can see, the buildings are really quite old.

Zhongshan Road in Quanzhou don't look quite different from it's Xiamen cousin, in my opinion!

Nanyin (one of the most ancient musical forms still existing in China now) performances like this take place in various parts of the city every night.

Nanyin is still popular among the older folks of Quanzhou.

This street here is full of shops selling dog meat, mutton and goose meat steamboat; it's hard to find an empty table in these shops on a cold winter night!

Having steamboat by the side of the road on one cold, windy winter night.

The patrons here seemed to be enjoying themselves even though they were not sheltered from the cold winds by any walls or ceiling.

A.C. The Traveller (Trip to Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou) II

Zhangzhou lies to the west of Xiamen and takes about an hour of bus ride from Xiamen's bus terminal. Zhangzhou to me is a more exciting place because Zhangzhou is the breeding place for my favourite Hokkien opera (xiangju), although really good troupes are not quite easy to come by. From what I heard, Zhangzhou used to be quite well developed, but it seems like in recent years, development of this city has been rather stagnant. Still, I believe that Zhangzhou is still not that bad as compared to other cities within the province.

Side streets of Zhangzhou.

A shop selling a Zhangzhou delicacy, guo bian hu; it looks and taste like our local kueh chap, although I believe they're totally different from one another.

Trishaws are everywhere in Zhangzhou; some are even paddled by women riders.

Longhai's Zhupu Xiangju Opera Troupe performing in Zhangzhou. (video clip of the troupe in action will be posted onto my other blog)

A view from the backstage; look at the turnout despite the cold weather!

Another troupe, Huang Yamei Gezi Opera Troupe, performing in another location on the same night. The stage may look very dilapidated, but their performing standard is still not bad. (video clips of the troupe in action will be posted onto my other blog)

Zhangzhou City Opera Troupe actors rehearsing for their competition show to be held in Fuzhou.

Final full dress rehearsal on the same night in the theatre above the troupe HQ, before leaving for Fuzhou the following day. How convenient! (video clips of the troupe in action will be posted onto my other blog)

A brick structure in Zhangzhou central in the style of an ancient city tower; on the top of the wall reads "Wen Chang", and I thought Wenchang is in Hainan?

A.C. The Traveller (Trip to Xiamen, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou) I

I have been missing in action for quite a while on my blog, mainly because I have been away for quite a while and had just returned from Xiamen last Friday. Actually, Xiamen is just one of the destinations I've been to, with Zhangzhou and Quanzhou among the rest. These 3 areas formed the minnan district of Fujian province, which is what we people in southeast Asia call "Hokkien". You should have guessed why I chose these 3 areas to visit: because I'm a proud member of the Hokkien diaspora!

Xiamen city is a jumble of new and old buildings; however this scenario might not last for long, as like Singapore, Xiamen is constantly tearing and constructing new buildings.

The street scene from the window of my hotel, V-Inn. This place looked secluded, but is actually very near to the city centre, and is relatively cheap as well. Plus, it is very near to Xiamen Municipality Gezi Opera Troupe and Xiamen Jin Lian Sheng Gaojia Opera Troupe.

There's quite a number of Muslim Chinese in Xiamen and Quanzhou, despite being quite far away from the northern and western borders of the country.

Looks can be deceiving; this lady might be selling popiah by the side of a small alley, but her food taste much, much better than what I had experienced in some local restaurants!

One of the small side lanes in Xiamen central district. There're quite a number of good catch in these areas, so don't simply overlook them.

One wrong turn at the main junction and you'll find yourself looking into some narrow back alleys.

Vehicles behold! A portion of Zhongshan Road (old central district) is reserved for walking pedestrians only.

Old folks relaxing in Zhongshan Park on a Sunday morning.

Zhongshan district by night.

Street hawker selling Muah Chee; slightly different from the ones we have in Singapore but tasted equally good.

Dining with some friends from Xiamen Jin Lian Sheng Gaojia Opera Troupe; this was a bad period to visit Xiamen, for not only there wasn't any opera performances in Xiamen city, Jin Lian Sheng was scheduled to leave for Macau for a performance, but I was lucky that I could still catch them around on their last day in Xiamen and had dinner with them.

Night skyline of the cenral district of Xiamen

Another Dissatisfory China-produced DVD!

Recently I was told by Amai that I could get original Taiwanese drama DVDs off the Yahoo Auction at a much lower price. I was abit skeptical in the first place, but decided to try my luck.

I saw a show I had always wanted to get, "KO One", starring Jiro, Calvin and Aaron from Fahrenheit. There was one problem: the DVD sets listed were either self-burnt, or doesn't look like Taiwan-released versions. If you have read my previous posts, I had mentioned before that I had no confidence in China-produced DVDs, due to their inferior quality in general. When I saw the image of the DVD cover from the auctioner, I was hesitant, because the words on the DVD cover, other than the title, were in simplified Chinese. For those who had no idea what's the difference between simplified and traditional Chinese character system, the former is used in Singapore, Malaysia (Malaysia actually uses a mix of simplied and traditional systems on different occasions) and China, whereas Chinese from elsewhere (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) uses traditional Chinese. Therefore, the words on the cover gave me the impression this DVD set is not produced in Taiwan. However, I still dropped the auctioner a message, asking her where the DVD set was produced, of which she replied "Taiwan". I decided to gave her the trust, because her ratings in the auction doesn't seemed to be too bad. I was wrong.

When I got the DVD set by post, I scanned through the entire packaging carefully, and failed to find any company name listed (although there's a copyright notice at the back). I started to get worried, as no authentic commercially produced material would not carry the name of the production company. The contents of the DVD package was a dismay too; the discs were all packed inside CD pockets, something which I do not like because one might scratch or dirty the discs if you are not careful in taking out or putting them back. As for the video content, disc one to six are alright; the video quality is clear, but not so sharp as my original Taiwan-released "ISWAK" or Singapore-released "Hana Kimi". For disc seven onwards, it was a totally different story; the episodes recorded in these discs were obviously recorded off TV, as GTV's (the TV network which produced and airred the show) logo was embedded into the video, and there was annoying scrolling text commercial on the lefthand edge of the video at times. Worst of all, the video quality wasn't sharp, as if watching a poorly produced VCD, and the audio was slightly muffled too.

It was a total waste of money buying it, and hence you see, I have my reasons for not having confidence in China-released DVDs, except for some Chinese opera ones. So from now on, no thanks to China-released DVDs!

On a side note, I got my DVD set on Tuesday night, and had actually finished all 20 episodes by this morning. Crazy right?!