It All Started With Meteor Garden

It was just in 2003 or something around last decade when I started watching Chinese movies. I admit, I wasn't so much into it. I remember my paternal grandmother would borrow several Betamax tapes and she would return it weekly -- some of them were Wuxia series and some of them were Chiung Yao series. I saw Meteor Garden. At first, I thought the F4 were Japanese until I saw the Fantasy 4Ever music video called "Can't Lose You" and it was in freaking Mandarin! Yes, it was in freaking Mandarin!

I remembered watching a few episodes of Meteor Garden, and I didn't expect to get hooked. I wasn't exactly a fan of Chinese series and I wanted to watch more Japanese. But this was something new and something I originally didn't want to watch -- then it had me hooked. How I regret not taking Mandarin lessons seriously, all because I was sort of trying to pursue the American superiority mentality or because Filipino TV dramas (or teleseryes) just suck. After watching the first season (and later the second season), I really enjoyed it, though I prefer the first season.

But it didn't stop with Meteor Garden and F4. I personally wanted to check out My MVP Valentine, Westside Story, Dolphin Bay, Chinese Ghost Story, Lavender, Marmalade Boy, Poor Prince (though that was REALLY stupid), Return of Condor Heroes, and more of them because of Meteor Garden. Without Meteor Garden, I doubt I would have even started into the voyage with Chinese entertainment, which I have abandoned for a long time.

I may no longer be obsessed with Meteor Garden like I used to, but I still can't thank it for getting me interested in Chinese entertainment and my willingness to watch more Chinese films, though the craze isn't back in me right now. Right now, I just feel like rekindling it but I'm super outdated with Chinese entertainment and more up to date with Japanese and South Korean.