I've been watching a chinese series on ntv7 the past few weeks. I'm not watching it seriously but I just let it play in the background. The thing is the series is in Teochew and I'm purposely only listening so I could see just how my Teochew is going. So far, the challenge is to remember that the Teochew spoken in the show is pure Teochew and not the mixed up version we have here in Kuching. But even then, I'm gleeful to discover that I do understand quite a bit of it.

The one today has the main female character being confronted by her boyfriend's parents who don't approve of them. She spoke reasonably to his father who was the one adamantly against them. The thing that she found to be a difficult situation is that her boyfriend depends on his father for livelihood. They're both doctors and the father owns the clinic. So the girl was wiling to sacrifice the relationship for the guy's happiness.

But just before she wanted to walk out, the boyfriend came home with his mother and he got angry with his father for asking the girl to leave. The girl confronted him for fighting with his parents over her and she declared he was being treacherous to them. Then the guy gave his spiel about how his life would be worthless without her. And he said that if his parents cannot accept her then he was going to walk out.

It took me by surprise when he dragged her out despite the fact that his father threatened to take everything away the moment he does. In the next scene, the couple were in her house confessing to her teacher and father that he was now homeless, penniless and jobless.

And, of course, he gets the talk about threachery to the parents again. These people and their filial duty thing.

And I understood all this through listening! I was so gleeful with myself. My Teochew is still going strong and I'm of no shame to my ancestry. Haha!

But the story was so predictable. I figured the guy would either be a real loser and dump the girl for his parents or he'd be self-sacrificing and dump them for her. Either way is not practical, in my opinion. We humans have to survive. So, in reality, he could have either continued leeching off his parents yet still went out with her while they both conveniently forget that his money still comes from working at his father's clinic or dump both of them (parents and girl) and went some place where neither one of them can cause him any grief and confusion.

If I was annoyed enough, I would have done the latter. Who knows. There might be someone less of a problem out there. And besides, Yati and I could have moved to Bali, opened a ranch and enjoyed toyboys for the weekends. Haha! What a life! Oh, and don't forget the dozens of cats we'd keep as pets.

Oh, the other female character in the show told a guy they were lovers because they hugged. I was 'WTF?'. Is that all it takes for some girls? Dang cheap, if you ask me.