Absolutely Fobulous

I recently saw these two commercials: one for Thai life insurance and another for a Taiwanese bank, and man, did my eyes get sweaty. While they’re only a few minutes each, I felt like I was watching  tear-jerking Korean dramas. Asians really have a knack for tugging at your heartstrings when it comes to dramas, or in this case, commercials. As entertaining as the American GEICO insurance commercials are, I think I’d be more inclined to buy life insurance after watching the Thai one. Check out the videos (don’t forget tissues)!

Thai life insurance commercial:

Taiwanese bank commercial:

(Thanks, Joyce!)

I just can’t get enough of these comical fobby depictions of American celebrities.  It looks like the Jersey Shore hype is spreading to Asia and so is Snooki’s bad reputation. Taiwanese animated news site, NMA, just released a video describing my favorite troublemaker and cast member, Snooki, from the American hit reality show Jersey Shore. This is by far, my favorite depiction, especially the scene with President Obama getting a bottle smashed across his head by Snooki after he interrupts her precious tanning routine to inform her about the tax increase on tanning beds.   However, I’m not sure whether the animated drinking and puking (minute 00:14) leaves a very positive impression of Americans for our fob friends in Asia.

Remember the hilarious animation illustrating the Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno feud?  Well, it looks like Taiwanese animated news site, NMA, has released another animation to keep the Taiwanese people up-to-date with American celebrity gossip.  Check out this creative interpretation of Lindsay Lohan’s arrest!

Remember Lin Yu-Chun and his amazing version of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”?  Well, it didn’t take him long to score a record deal with Sony! Sony would not say whether his version of Whitney Houston’s song will be on his album, but whatever his album offers, I’m sure it will be a bigger hit than William Hung’s album!

Link

That’s what these sisters did!  According to their YouTube page, these African-American sisters decided to learn Mandarin because of their interest in Asian culture.  After their Chinese-Singaporean friend introduced them to Jay Chou’s tunes, they began videotaping themselves singing Chinese music, including songs by my favorites, JJ Lin, David Tao, and Leehom Wang.

While I can’t speak Mandarin, I’m a huge fan of Jay Chou and can attest to how hard it is to learn Chinese–even my Mandarin-speaking friends can’t sing nearly as well as these two can.

For all us Asians out there, there’s no more excuses for not knowing your mother tongue!

Check out this video of them singing Jay Chou’s Ai Zai Xi Yuan Qian. Very impressive.