As children, we watched the Chinese edition of popular Disney and other American cartoons. In a way, we were culturally connected to our American peers but linguistically immersed in a Chinese language ecosystem.

We watched the Chinese cartoon series adapted from famous martial art novel “The Return of the Condor Heroes (神雕俠侶）”……

and Chinese edition of Japanese animation series “Inuyasha” or 犬夜叉.

We (6 & 9) watched blockbuster movie “You are the Apple of My Eye” (那些年，我們一起追的女孩) from Taiwan as soon as it was available online. My dad says he showed us the “clean version”! We re-watch this movie every few years. I also read this novel by 九把刀 a couple of times over the next few years.

We (9 & 12) watched the blockbuster movie “Our Times” (我的少女時代）from Taiwan as soon as it was available online. We loved it!

Around these few years, Christine and I watched quite a few kungfu TV series.

Christine (10) and I (13) enjoyed watching “Love Cuisine”, a Taiwanese high school drama, and “Someone Like You”, another Taiwanese soap, available then on Netflix.

Who would’ve thought! Our parents unexpectedly had job relocations to metro Atlanta, so we had to move there on 3 days of notice! My dad, sister, and I had to pack away our things from the house we’d lived in for 10 years, in rural eastern NC, to move to metro Atlanta, with a population of nearly 6 million!

We started binging the popular Chinese TV drama series 琅琊榜. It’s great!

Christine (11) watched 女醫明妃傳.

Christine (11) started watching「那年花開月正圓」, set in late 19th century China.

Christine (12) watched 2018’s summer blockbuster TV series “延熙攻略“. She loved it!