Upcoming TV show

It's about as crazy as these 2 muppets look on this shot...

There’s apparently a competition for foreigners studying Chinese in the beginning of June in Nanjing. Participants need to take a written test, answer some questions about Chinese culture, and do some sort of performance (singing, dancing, opera, you name it!). The best ones qualifies to the final that will take place later this year in Beijing.

I am not kidding now, but pretty much every single student in my class have been asked to participate. Basically everyone, except for me. Aooooch.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my Mandarin is fantastic in any way… but when they asked some people whose ‘kouyu’ (spoken Chinese) is quite poor, and I still didn’t get asked, I felt kind of low….

….until I got a phone call. From Suzhou’s local TV station. With a request to have me on one of their talk show!

So guess who’s making her SECOND (da ta daaaaaa!) TV appearance this year?! Yup, me. Apparently I am going to be taught some local dialect on the TV show, because the idea of this show is to compare local Suzhou-hua to the standard Mandarin (pu tong hua). I would lie if I said that I wasn't nervous, because everything will be entirely in Chinese. But when I talked to one of their journalists on the phone and asked her if she really thought my Chinese level was good enough, she said:

-Well, we just had a whole phone conversation in Chinese so yes. Your level is good enough!

OK then.

So next week, while some people are going to Nanjing to compete in some competition (pfffft!), I am going to Suzhou’s TV station to learn local dialect, hagga hagga! (hagga= haode = OK in Suzhou-hua -that's about how much I know of the local dialect!) Stay tuned!

(ehhhh, although… who am I kidding? This brave face I am putting on is just a façade. I am actually scared to death).