TARA S5E1: Oh dear, we're not off to a good start...

Hi guys, the Amazing Race Asia is back after a hiatus of 6 long years! Now, many of my regular readers will know that I am a massive fan of the Amazing Race (TAR). I have actually watched every single episode in the US series (yes all 28 seasons) as well as every episode of the Australian, Asian, Canadian,Chinese (both TAR China Rush and 极速前进), French versions and some of the South American ones. Being able to speak so many languages has allowed me to consume more TAR than most! On my travel vlogs, there are always zillions of TAR references if I happen to visit a city where TAR has been filmed. There are a small, dedicated group of TAR hardcore fans and we talk about the show with each other on Facebook, often interacting directly with some of the contestants as well who pop in and say hi to the fans. I actually spent ages today talking about the latest series of TAR Asia season 5 episode 1 with my friends on Facebook, so I thought I'd write a short piece on the latest TAR episode since I do have quite a lot to say about it!

TAR Fans, it is back!

Allan Wu and that new co-host: what's her name? Why didn't she say much?

Oh there was supposed to have been another co-host this season but she barely got to speak. Tara Basro is a celebrity in her own right in Indonesia, but what was the point of her being there? She got to describe one of side of the detour and greeted the teams when they got to the mat, but Allan Wu did most of the talking. What is going on here? Did they not trust her to speak? Was her English not up to scratch or did she have a really bad sore throat that day? Now this is not the first time TAR has two hosts: in the Ecuadorian version, there were two hosts: Toya Montoya and Jaime Arellano. Both hosts worked together well, you could sense that there was real chemistry and rapport. Contrast this to Allan and Tara, oh dear - I hope Tara becomes a lot more confident and speaks a lot more otherwise this is going to go down in the history of TAR as the worst host pairing ever. I have a feeling it is not even her fault, I have worked in TV and realize that it is often the producers and directors who call the shots on things like that.

If you must argue, at least do it in your own language. Tolonglah, aiyoh. 

This has been a problematic feature of TAR - the programme is essentially in English which works fine in the America and Australian version but in the Canadian version for example, you have French-speaking contestants from the province of Quebec. The producers on TAR Canada allow the contestants to speak in whatever language they want and then provide subtitles when a language other than English (well, only French so far) is spoken by a contestant. In the French version, the contestants constantly use English when communicating with anyone outside France (in Dubai, Bangkok, Tokyo, Los Angeles etc) so when they spoke English, subtitles in French would magically appear. You get the idea, the use of subtitles is nothing new. But when Rachel and Vicky had their meltdown at the port of Sunda Kelapa, they had the most awkward argument in English which clearly was not their mother tongue. Under such a stressful situation, I had expected them to switch to Bahasa Indonesia or even Betawi - but no, what ensued was an argument that was only matched in awkwardness by the meltdown that Janis and Aleksandra had in TAR China Rush season 1 episode 4 - watch the Youtube clip here. (Please jump to 3:22 in the Youtube clip below for the arugment.)

I hate to be the bad guy to bitch about Janis' English, but his English was so hard to understand at times he had to be subtitled in English because the producers weren't even that confident that most English speakers could understand his broken English (with a very strong Latvian accent). Aleksandra's English isn't great but at least it was better than Janis'. At that point of the race, they had gotten very lost and were arguing which way to go. Instead of simply lapsing back into their native Latvian, they continued to argue in broken English which honestly left me baffled. It was almost as if there was a producer there shouting, "if you're going to argue, then you must do it in English! Don't speak in your own language - speak only in English! No Latvian allowed!" Look this whole business of forcing the contestants to speak English is so totally ridiculous I am going to transcribe that argument they had in Jiangsu for you.

Aleksandra: We just turned right. No left.
Janis: How you know? How you know? You are so one point on all. What is he who knows what happens, what happened now. Yes. People! Aleksandra know what happened here. He know exactly right way.
Aleksandra: I am not he, I am she.
Janis: She okay, let's go she.

At this point, if there are any Latvian speakers reading this, perhaps you could translate all that into standard English for us please. Perhaps there's something slapstick about hearing two people arguing in a language which is not their native language - but imagine if Aleksandra and Janis had actually argued in Latvian and not English during that scene in Jiangsu. Or if Rachel and Vicky had argued in Indonesian - I think it would have been a far more interesting argument and as the viewer, I would have gladly read the subtitles. Rachel, Vicky, I know you speak English rather well but that scene did come across as really awkward. Why didn't you guys just speak to each other Indonesian then?

Just ask the freaking taxi driver damnit, awak boleh bercakap Melayu!

The one moment when I found myself shouting at the computer was when the Malaysian guys Brandon and Alphaeus were discussing what an Ondel-Ondel was. Guys, it was a very long taxi ride from Jakarta to Bogor - you're Malaysians, you speak Bahasa Melayu. Yet it didn't occur to you to ask your taxi what an Ondel-Ondel was? Like seriously? There was no language barrier - Malay and Indonesian are mutually intelligible. Why didn't they even think about asking their taxi what an Ondel-Ondel was? Have you guys not watched TAR before? Haven't you seen how you need to get on the right side of your taxi driver so he will be good to you? Imagine if the taxi driver understood enough English to follow the conversation - he would be thinking, "bastards, they think I am too stupid to be of any help? They would rather wonder what an Ondel-Ondel is than ask me? Are they looking down on me just because I'm an Indonesian taxi driver? Damn these stupid Malaysians, I am going to take a detour via the nearest traffic jam."

Whoopee - a first openly lesbian couple, wait they're eliminated already?

Yes we have our first openly lesbian couple on TAR Asia! There have been loads of LGBT teams on other versions of TAR (USA, Australia, Canada, Brazil etc) and you almost come to expect that there will definitely be at least one team that ticks the LGBT box in those versions, but this is a first for TAR Asia. However, Lisa and Nicole were sadly eliminated just minutes into the show after they failed at the first task at the starting line. Damn and this was just after TAR Canada 2016 was won by the lesbian couple Steph & Kristen (they were the first lesbian couple to win any edition of TAR worldwide) - I was totally rooting for Lisa and Nicole for all of the ten, maybe 15 minutes they latest in the show. Incidentally, in TARA Season 1, there was a gay couple: Howard & Sahran (representing Sri Lanka). However, back in 2006, AXN were too nervous about featuring an openly gay couple as some of the Asian countries in AXN's network were quite conservative (and admittedly they still are today). Instead, Howard & Sahran were branded as "best friends" in that series and no mention was made about their sexuality. I note the word 'lesbian' wasn't explicitly used in the case of Lisa and Nicole, but as they were branded as 'life partners' - it was pretty obvious that they are a lesbian couple. (Or was it? How many viewers actually realized?) Hey, good on AXN, but what a shame they were eliminated already. 

A step in the right direction for gay rights in Asian media!

The cruel starting point elimination - ouch.

Interestingly, this rather cruel elimination at the starting point has happened before in TAR's history: in the TAR USA season 15 (please see the video below) as well as in TAR China Rush season 3. At least in the case of TAR Asia season 5 and TAR USA season 15, there was an element of skill to the task at the starting line so it wasn't completely random which team was eliminated then. In TAR China Rush season 3, it came down to luck which team got the correct flag and you gotta feel very sorry for the team (Jiajia and Rob) who got eliminated for being plain unlucky. But in Jakarta, it was a case of more haste less speed - how hard is it to figure out what 210 degrees SW was on a compass? It seemed that Lisa and Nicole simply descended into blind panic as they saw more and more teams depart and that was their undoing in the end. What a shame, I would have liked to have seen a lot more of them in this race. 

Detour at Sunda Kelapa - like there's no where nicer in Jakarta to shoot? 

Those who chose the 'Freight' side of the detour had to haul bags of sand into barrels -at Sunda Kelapa. This is the old port of Jakarta but damn it looked dismal. TAR usually chooses to make contestants do their roadblocks and detours in beautiful places because it makes for pleasant viewing on screen and it is also tourist advertisement for the locality. But Sunda Kelapa just looked dismal - there was nothing in that locality to compel you to want to visit that old port (though the Wikipedia page does do a slightly better job of selling it to us). Detours usually bring out a fascinating aspect of the country's culture and at least the other side of the detour - decorating the bicycles in Fatahillah Square did achieve that. This begs the question: if this season of TAR Asia is sponsored by Wonderful Indonesia and The Ministry of Tourism of Indonesia, why didn't anyone from those two sponsors veto the choice of either the location or the task at Sunda Kelapa? Did they seriously believe it was a good choice? Did they consider other alternatives? 

This wasn't the first time that TAR had visited a dismal location - in TAR USA season 16 leg 9, they visited Singapore and went to the ASL Marine Shipyard for a roadblock. Boy it is hard to decide which locality is more dismal: Sunda Kelapa or the ASL Marine Shipyard. I can easily think of much nicer places in Singapore and Jakarta just off the top of my head and I don't even live in SE Asia anymore. Because this season of TAR has two big Indonesian sponsors, many more legs will be run in Indonesia and I wonder if we will see even more dismal, gloomy locations coming up. 

The best moment of the episode was...

For me, it was when Rei and Keiji (of Singapore) were eliminated. Nothing personal but they were irritating. You need personality to sparkle in a show like this and simply had none to speak of.  I was pleased to see them go. Contestants who do well in this race usually are quite interesting to watch in action - they can either be nice (I'm thinking of the Sweet Scientists, winners of US season 25) or downright nasty (definitely team Guido, of US seasons 1 and 11) but they have to be bloody good at this game. Those who are simply inept and useless are depriving another team who auditioned of a chance of going on TAR and that's Rei and Keiji. Sorry if that sounds terribly harsh, but these two never got their act together from the start. Things just fell apart spectacularly at the bicycle decoration task and they were never in a position to recover. The next team I want eliminated are Rachel and Vicky because they are also getting on my nerves (ref: the meltdown at Sunda Kelapa as discussed earlier). I am not fond of JK and Mike (of Singapore) either - they think they're funny when they are not at all. The problem is that they are DJs - they can laugh at their own jokes in the studio whilst none of their listeners actually found what they said funny at all. 

Whom I am supporting now...

There are two teams that I actually do like. Eric and Rona from the Philippines - they certainly have big personalities, they seem to have both the brains and the brawn (they were speaking a little Indonesian with the locals - that always impresses me) and I reckon they have what it takes to do very well in this race. I also like Alex and Will (of Malaysia) because they are eye candy. So sue me, yes I am shallow, very shallow. I suppose the straight men and lesbians will then like Chloe and Yvonne (of Malaysia) for the very same reason. But let's see - it is still early days and maybe after an episode or two, it will be clearer if there will be one or two teams who are clearly a lot stronger than the rest. Brandon and Alphaeus may have won this leg, but I think they just got lucky. They certainly don't strike me as the strongest team in this race. But let's see what awaits the team in leg 2, when they travel to Bandung in West Java. 

So what do you make of the race so far? Have you picked a favourite team yet? What do you think about my criticisms of TARA? How does TARA compare to other versions of TAR for you? Are you enjoying the show thus far? Do let me know what you think, especially if you are a hardcore TAR fan. Leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.