Last Sunday, Shana, Lynn (a student teacher at Wen Fu), and I met up with my host mom and sisters for an Italian lunch at New House. The biggest typhoon to hit Taiwan yet was on its way, so we decided that a day spent inside would be best. After we stuffed ourselves with soup, salad, pasta, and dessert, we braved the wind and headed across the street to the Mega Mall. The girls went home to do their homework, and my mom, Shana, Lynn and I settled on seeing Cape No. 7 (海角七号), the latest Taiwanese movie that everyone is seeing. We had all heard how amazing it was from our friends, and I couldn't wait to see it!
The movie was so good! Although it it best classified as romance, there was plenty of hilarious comedy, and a wide array of characters each with their own personality to love. There are sort of two main stories in the movie, one which happens long ago when Taiwan was colonized by Japan. A young man is too cowardly to admit his love for a girl, and even though she's ready to go back to Japan with him, he leaves without saying goodbye. The movie begins with the love letters he wrote to her thereafter, apologizing for not being brave enough to acknowledge their love and expressing his eternal love for her. The other story, needed to lighten the mood, I suppose, is about a group of misfits who try to put a local Taiwanese band together to perform an opening act and prove their city's talent at a big concert put on by a Japanese pop star. One of the band members is a senile old man who can't really play anything but traditional Chinese instruments and is always angry at the others for trying to get rid of him. Some of the funniest lines come from him. Within this rock band story exists the main love story and the way the love story from the past and present are connected, but I'll leave that for you to figure out since I don't want to give everything away. ;)
The actors and actresses in the movie speak Japanese, Mandarin, and the local Taiwanese dialect, and there were both Chinese and English subtitles. The lead actor is actually a Taiwanese pop star who was popular a few years ago but had sort of faded away until this movie. The movie actually makes use of a song he wrote a while ago, and another one that I believe was written for this movie. Immediately after the movie, Shana and I went to the Mega bookstore to see if we could find the soundtrack, but found that it hasn't been released yet. We both agreed that we want to buy the soundtrack and the movie.
Although we couldn't buy the soundtrack that day, I did find a book written by an author whom I just discovered this year. I recently read a book titled Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos, and absolutely loved it. As the title suggests, it is a book about love, but not just romantic love. The chapters alternate between two individual stories of a young girl and a woman in her 30s, whose paths cross during their respective searches for their own kind of love. It's beautifully written, and when I came across another novel, Belong to Me, written by the same author, I had to get it. I'm looking forward to starting it this weekend, now that I finally finished Life and Death in Shanghai, the story of a Chinese woman who was imprisoned for six years during China's Cultural Revolution, and The Alchemist, which is now probably one of my favorite books.
After making my purchase, Shana and I hurried home before the typhoon hit. Restaurants were closing early, so we stopped in to Domino's to get a pizza and watched a movie while we ate. Later that night we found out that there was no school the next day, since all of Taiwan was being hit with heavy winds and rain. In some places I heard that they received up to 30 inches of rain. Kaohsiung fared okay, and I am very lucky to have been placed here, especially since the other location in Yilan has been at the center of many of the typhoons that have come in the past month or so.
After work on Tuesday, Lynn invited me to see a movie with all of the student teachers at Wen Fu. We hurried across town to the Mega Mall and grabbed a quick dinner before seeing Orz Boys. It wasn't what we expected it to be, but it turned out to be great. It told the story of two elementary school boys who are good friends and have a dream of going to this make-believe world called Hyperspace. Both boys have sort of rough family lives, so most of the movie focuses on how they escape to their own world. Although a bit sad, it was also very funny, and beautifully done. It's another movie that I'm looking forward to buying and sharing with my friends back in the States.
On Wednesday, I went to another movie with Shana and Kelly, a mutual friend from work. This time we saw The Fox and Me (狐狸与我), a French film. The scenery was beautiful and Shana and I wondered how they did such an amazing job of filming chase scenes between the animals, but it was way too sad for me. The film is about a young girl who sees a fox on her way home, and devotes all of her spare time to finding this fox again. Eventually, the fox learns to trust her, and waits for to come out every day. The girl is too young to understand the delicate balance between our world and the natural world around us, and oversteps the boundary, trying to domesticate the animal. Shana and Kelly thought it was great, but it just fell into that weird category I have of things that I can't handle because it involves a sad story with either old people or animals. I've heard that a lot of European films tend to be somber and depressing, so for now I think I'll stick to the Taiwanese films!
I've been dying to see the Hollywood movie Nights in Rodanthe with Richard Gere and Diane Lane since I saw the preview this summer, so I might go this weekend. I also fell in love with the song in the preview, "Love Remains the Same" by Gavin Rossdale, and have had it set on repeat on my iTunes, so I think it's about time I see the movie. Maybe I'll take up a job as a movie critic on the side...
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