After leg 1 in Hong Kong (with the fork in the road)
=1. Carson & Jack
=1. Alyssa & Josiah
=2. Brett & Mark
=2. Jonathan & Ana
=3. Ernest & Bridget
=3. Scott & Lori
=4. Bernie & Carrigian
=4. Pops & Jeff
=5. Nick & Mike
=5. Han & Holden
=6. Courtney & Jasmin
=6. Melinda & Erika
=7. Mark & Larry (eliminated in Hong Kong)
=7. Jackye & Lauren (eliminated in Hong Kong)
Was this outcome entirely predictable? Is this a problem with the casting?
I rolled my eyes so hard at the starting line because I knew which teams would probably be eliminated. We don't like it as viewers and fans when the outcome is predictable and practically a forgone conclusion. It was the two oldest teams who were eliminated: Mark & Larry averaged 61 years old and Jackye & Lauren averaged 56 years old. Ironically, there are still two older racers still in this season: Melinda who is the oldest at 66 and Pops who is 65, but both are racing with their child, so the average age of the team is lower at 49 for Melinda & Erika and 50.5 for Pops and Jeff. Having a younger, fitter partner means that you can actually arrive at a detour and decide, okay this looks really physical, the younger partner shall do this whilst the older partner will wait for something less physical. When you have two older racers, you don't have that option. I'm not saying that you shouldn't cast older contestants on TAR, Pops is 65 and still extremely fit - he sets a brilliant example for other older adults to follow. But I took one look at Jackye & Lauren and I thought, good grief, they're just set up to fail - they have no chance to even survive the first leg. Jackye even struggled with stairs when they had to collect the clue from the Tian Tan Buddha. I want to be kind here, if she is an elderly lady who struggles with stairs, then she should try a programme like the Traitors instead where your survival in the game doesn't depend entirely on being able to do these very physical challenges so she would at least have a fighting chance. Please, this is nothing personal - I'm not exactly young myself, I am 48 and will be turning 49 later this year. She is a nice person with an interesting back story but goodness me, she was cast in the wrong reality TV show! Whilst TAR has been very good when it comes to diversity in their casting, I feel that the issue here isn't one of diversity - simply putting an older team in the season doesn't address the issue adequately, but I would like to see a strong older team that has a realistic chance of making it to the finals, rather than the ones that just make the viewers roll their eyes ten minutes into the first episode.
Allow me to compare this to the Olympics, there is a qualifying system in place to make sure that some random country cannot send a 61 year old grandmother to compete in the Olympics - no, you have to meet a minimum qualifying standard and even after that, you need to go through a series of competitions at international level in order to earn your berth at the Olympics. This is to avoid situations like "Eric the eel" - here's a link for the full story but basically, Eric Moussambani from Equatorial Guinea was given a wildcard to participate in the 2000 Olympics despite not meeting the qualifying standard. This was a well-intentioned initiative to designed encourage designed to encourage participation by developing countries lacking full training facilities, however Eric's performance was so bad that it went viral for all the wrong reasons. He was so unfit and unprepared for the 100 meters freestyle race that he even struggled to finish the race, setting the Olympic record for the slowest time ever recorded for the event. Many people afterwards said that this was nothing short of public humiliation for a guy who should have never ever been allowed to compete at the Olympics in the first place and such a spectacle does absolutely nothing to encourage those from developing countries to participate in the Olympics: "come to the Olympics and make an utter fool of yourself, we offer public humiliation on a global scale, under the glare of the world's media." This is why you need to level the playing field - either only cast very strong racers or very weak racers, but having a mix of both simply isn't fair at all. If they wanted to give the older teams a fighting chance to survive even the first leg, they would have included at least a non-physical challenge - but no, first they had to climb this massive bamboo tower and then one side of the fork led to a very physical lion dance. Thus this was a leg clearly designed to favour the younger, fitter, more athletic racers and left the older racers at a really huge disadvantage.
Did it really make a big difference whether the teams got on the first or second flight out of LAX?
No, not at all! Not only was the first flight delayed by 18 minutes, the second flight was 11 minutes early and that led to 13 teams bunched up later waiting for the ferry at Cheung Chau island ferry terminal. We will talk more about that later.
Why did they send the racers to the big Tian Tan Buddha?
A practical reason is that it is quite close to Hong Kong International Airport, but a fair hike from Central Hong Kong. Some tourists who are on a tight schedule would visit this famous attraction either on their way from or to the airport - which was exactly what I did when I was last in Hong Kong. There is actually a lot to see and do in the area around the Buddha statue known as Ngong Ping and there's a cable car you can ride to get up the mountain - it is a fun day out and you need at least half a day to do that whole area justice; but all we saw was a cluebox on the staircase of the statue.
Why did they send the racers to Cheung Chau island?
Firstly, taking ferries is a big part of everyday life in Hong Kong but most tourists don't use the ferries as they never leave the Hong Kong Island and Kowloon area - thus this is a way to showcase another side of life in Hong Kong and experience some of the local culture. The Cheung Chau bun festival bamboo tower did originate on the island of Cheung Chau, but it is not a permanent structure and it can be constructed anywhere, including in London in 2006, when I was part of the team who participated in the climbing of that bun tower - not many people can claim that! So yes, I can tell you just how physically demanding that was. They could have easily built that tower a lot closer to either the airport or even in Lok Kwan Street Park itself, but I almost get the impression that the Hong Kong tourist authority wanted to get more tourists to visit Cheung Chau island, which I don't have a problem with - the issue I have though is the fact that the ferries are infrequent, so when 13 teams were bunched up all on the same ferry, it was like a big reset button and the order was completely randomized after that when they had to get a taxi to Lok Kwan Street Park. It is frustrating not just for the racers but also for the viewers when you have a 'reset' like that because those that did well to gain a lead have had that advantage taken away from them. The concept of fairness is very important in this format because the viewers expects the winner to have earned that victory through fair competition, rather than luck per se. If they wanted to make the racers use the ferries, then they really should have picked a bigger island with a more frequent service like Lamma island.
Why was it so hard for Courtney & Jasmin to get a taxi?
There were two main reasons and no, before you suggest it, it has absolutely nothing to do with racism! Firstly, taxis in Hong Kong have this habit of staying either on Hong Kong Island or in Kowloon - Hong Kong Island is connected to Kowloon via a series of tunnels but some taxi drivers just don't want to end up on the wrong side of that divide, especially if they are close to the end of their shift. For you Americans, it would be hailing a cab in downtown Manhattan and realizing that your taxi driver isn't willing to drive you all the way to Brooklyn. The ferry terminal was at Central Piers on Hong Kong Island and the destination Lok Kwan Street Park was in Kowloon However, they made another mistake - they tried to speak to their taxi drivers in English which was a mistake; some taxi drivers in Hong Kong will speak a little English but most don't. The racers were provided with an address in both English and Chinese in the clue card, so all they had to do was to show the taxi driver the address in Chinese. Instead, they insisted on trying to communicate with the taxi driver by speaking in English. Usually, when foreigners are in this part of East Asia where English is not widely spoken, tourists would have the address written in the local language either on their phones or on a piece of paper and simply show that to the taxi driver. If you start speaking to the taxi driver in English, they probably wouldn't understand you and just say no or shake their heads - not because they can't take you to your destination, but more because they can't speak English or worry that you might be a talkative foreigner who wants to ask a lot of questions in a language they can barely speak. Besides, it was a rainy day and the taxi drivers probably thought that they could've found another fare easily rather than struggle with some foreigners they couldn't really understand. With ride hailing apps these days like Uber, that eliminates this problem altogether but of course, the racers don't have their phones with them on the race.
Wait, don't they speak English in Hong Kong?
Well, yes and no. Hong Kong is a former British colony but English wasn't the only language used in the education system - parents had the choice of sending their children to either a Cantonese school or an English school. So in a Cantonese school, the language of instruction would be Cantonese for subjects like mathematics, science, history and geography whilst the students would get a few hours of English a week at best, whereas in an English school, those same subjects would be taught in English and the students would get a few hours a week of Cantonese lessons. Why would some parents choose to send their children to a Cantonese school instead of an English one? Well, if the parents didn't speak much English, they would be worried that they were not able to help their child with all the homework and thus the child would be at a massive disadvantage compared to their counterparts who had English speaking parents. The children with English speaking parents would have no problems learning subjects like science and mathematics, whilst the children who are struggling with English might be perfectly fine with the concepts in science and mathematics, but still face a huge language barrier if English is simply not spoken at home. Thus you have this massive divide where some people in Hong Kong speak English to a very high standard whilst others can barely string together a basic sentence in English and it all boils down to what language they were educated in. I remember when I was in a rather posh restaurant in Hong Kong when I struggled on in Cantonese with my waiter, he made this face and replied to me in perfect English, "I went to an English school, so you don't have to speak Cantonese with me." I'm afraid most taxi drivers in Hong Kong are rather poorly educated and working class so they are likely to have been educated in Cantonese and not English. It is a class issue - if you were to walk into a fancy five star hotel in Hong Kong, the staff there serving the tourists will speak English very well but if you try to hail a taxi or buy street food, then very little English will be spoken.
Hang on: Mandarin, Cantonese, Chinese, what's the difference?
Okay, allow me to explain. Mandarin and Cantonese are not the same language, they are two different languages from the same family - the Chinese or Sinitic language family. These two languages are not mutually intelligible even if they are related. It is like comparing Spanish to Italian - the two languages share common roots but have evolved to be remarkably different. Cantonese is the language of the deep south of China, from the Canton or Guangdong region of China whilst Mandarin is from the far north, around the Beijing area. I am quite rare in being able to speak both Mandarin and Cantonese, though admittedly my Mandarin is much better than my Cantonese. Thus it is easier for someone who speaks Mandarin to master Cantonese, the same way an Italian person will find Spanish a lot easier to learn than say a German or English person. There are a total of seven language groups within the Chinese or Sinitic family of languages - Mandarin and Cantonese are the two most widely spoken ones. Oh and Ana said 谢谢 xièxiè when she got her clue off the opera judge - no, that's a huge faux pas as that's thank you in Mandarin, not Cantonese. That's as bad as saying gracias instead of obrigado/a when you are in Brazil or Portugal. If in doubt, stick to English in Hong Kong. Josiah tried to say something to his greeter in Cantonese (I think?), but his words are so garbled I have no idea what he tried to say.
What do we think of the fork in the road?
Well, it really isn't that different from a detour, is it? A choice of two tasks which are quite different, offering the teams to pick a task that plays to their strengths. The only difference is that two teams will get eliminated instead of just one, thus your changes of elimination go up from 1 in 14 to 1 in 7. Yes it is nice to see something new after 37 seasons of TAR, but nonetheless, this really wasn't that unique. Whilst it was nice to see Cantonese opera being featured, I rolled my eyes again when I saw yet another lion dance challenge: whilst it is something we instantly associate with Chinese culture, there are other aspects of Chinese dance that could have been featured.
Was the lion dance challenge easier than the Cantonese opera challenge?
Yes it was - the teams that did the lion dance completed the task much quicker but that probably has to do with the fact that the make up for Cantonese opera takes an awfully long time whilst the costume for the lion dance is pretty simple to put on. But that's a moot point, this is not a deour, it is a fork in the road so as long as both challenges were judged by the same person to the same standard, then it is a fair process and that's the most important point at the end of the day.
Why did more teams gravitate towards dancing rather than singing?
Teams were worried about having to memorize lyrics in Cantonese but I think they forget that the kind of muscle memory required to memorize a dance routine is just as challenging, if not harder. Dance challenges will only favour teams who have had years of experience in taking dance lessons, when a dance teacher shows you a complex sequence and you are used to memorizing that huge volume of dance steps in a very short period of time. When teams were choosing dancing over singing because they don't speak Cantonese, I just rolled my eyes and thought, yeah what makes you think you can dance? Haven't you watched TAR before? The dance challenges are never easy, in fact they are a lot harder than you might think, especially if you do not take dance lessons regularly. The Cantonese opera challenge really wasn't that hard given that there were so few lines and they didn't have to worry about tones - Cantonese is a notoriously difficult language with six tones but when you sing in Cantonese, you simply let the melody dictate the tones of the characters. In any case, this was filmed in May 2024, that's the beginning of the summer monsoon season. That means it would have been very hot and humid that day, hardly the kind of conditions to learn a difficult lion dance routine outdoors. Hence I would have picked the singing challenge just to have been a lot more comfortable in an air-conditioned theatre!
Melinda & Erika ran from the theatre to the pit stop, how far was it?
According to Google maps, that was 2.5 km (1.56 miles). That was doable but not walking distance, especially in that hot and humid weather and considering how exhausted they would have been at that point already. They were misled by a local who made it sound like it was literally just around the corner when it wasn't. That is why it is necessary to check and double check when asking for directions on the race, especially if there might have been a significant language barrier.
Did this episode do Hong Kong justice?
Well they had bad luck with the weather as it rained very heavily that day but otherwise, I think the key aim of each leg is to showcase aspects of the local culture to the (mostly American) audience. They did make some bizarre choices though like sending the teams to Lok Kwan Street Park - this was just an ordinary park for locals and tourists would never visit it. If it was just a location for teams to make a decision for the fork in the road, then why not pick a more busy location in Mong Kok which is a busy, vibrant shopping district less than 1 km away from Lok Kwan Street Park. Of course, there would be all kinds of challenges trying to film in a busy shopping street (especially during the rainy season) but that would have been far more interesting than a small local park. All three challenges were done in private areas, away from the prying eyes of the public which would have made filming a lot easier but the key impression that most visitors have of Hong Kong is just how crowded and busy the place is and we didn't quite get that from this episode. Whilst the teams used the public ferry in this episode, I would have preferred if the teams used public transport rather than taxis in this episode as Hong Kong has a really great public transport system consisting of the MTR, buses and trams. So over all, whilst I liked the way they tried to show some of the local culture, I think this episode really didn't do Hong Kong justice.
Who are the strongest teams in this season?
It is still early days of course but a few teams have stood out for me: obviously, the two winning teams from this leg have done very well - that's Alyssa & Josiah and Carson & Jack. Other teams who have impressed me as well include Brett & Mark and Nick & Mike - I know Nick & Mike finished only 5th in Hong Kong, that's not a great result when you're 5th out of 7 teams but they are mega-fans of TAR and look well prepared. It's just a gut instinct thing that I have about them and I feel like they will go all the way to the end. I am stunned that Brett & Mark did not win the lion dance challenge but I'm sure they will go all the way. I'm looking for two key factors here: teams who are physically fit to do all the extreme physical challenges as well as teams who don't look fazed in a country where English isn't widely spoken. After all, Hong Kong is still Asia-lite with loads of English everywhere, wait till they go to Japan on the next leg where hardly any English is spoken. I also liked Han & Holden - I know they also finished 5th out of 7, but they work very well together and I may be totally wrong, but this is just me going on my gut instinct after watching so many seasons of TAR. Many of the teams actually finished quite close to each other in this leg, so I would take these rankings with a pinch of salt as well for now.
Which are the weakest teams that will be eliminated soon?
I hate to be harsh and judge them based on just one leg but there are two key factors that make a team weak: firstly, there's the racers who have very little travel experience (Larry admitted that this was his first trip out of the US and promptly got eliminated on the first leg) and these racers are likely to be overwhelmed by the language barrier and cultural differences on TAR. The team that looked the most uncomfortable was Courtney & Jasmin who spent ages trying to speak to their taxi drivers without realizing that most of them probably didn't speak any English - this resulted in them falling way to the back of the pack whilst other teams had little or no difficulty getting a taxi. The other factor that makes a team fall apart would be an acrimonious relationship - this is when team members turn on each other, become very negative at the very time they need to be supportive of each other. Yes I realize that TAR is probably the most stressful experience anyone can go through and it will really put your relationship under so much pressure, but two teams that didn't handle the pressure well in Hong Kong were Jonathan & Ana and Melinda & Erika. Jonathan was actually quite mean to Ana when she was trying to climb the bamboo tower and I was left shaking my head thinking, if this is what happens when they are in first place, they are so going to totally fall apart and crack under pressure when they are battling for survival. Even they admitted that they nearly broke up in the past and I can see why, given this was the way they handled the pressure. Melinda & Erika got lost trying to find the pitstop and Melinda actually got quite negative as the pressure got to her. Look, I don't want to be unfair to these racers as I know I too may lose my temper or get emotional when put under that much pressure, these are very human reactions to stress but unfortunately, these are all classic tell tale signs that a team would crack under pressure and that will then lead ultimately to elimination on the race.
What about the rest then?
Given we started with 14 teams, there will always be a bunch of "middle of the pack" teams that will avoid elimination but never really threaten the leaders. They will perform adequately each leg to proceed to the next round, until the middle of the pack becomes the end of the pack as the weakest teams leave the race, then they will drop off one by one. So the teams that fall into this category are not exactly "weak", but would struggle to beat the strongest teams in this season.
Who will win in E2 in Osaka? Who will be eliminated in Osaka?
The teams head to Osaka, Japan next and this is purely a gut instinct thing again, but I believe Brett & Mark will win in Osaka - heck, I'm gonna call it now, I think they are my favourites to win this season. As for who will get eliminated next, there were two teams who made huge errors in Hong Kong but survived. It was the taxi fiasco with Courtney & Jasmin and it was getting lost on the way to the pitstop for Melinda & Erika. This is nothing personal but I did notice that Courtney & Jasmin did figure out what they were doing wrong eventually and made up precious time by finishing the lion dance challenge fairly quickly, on just the second attempt. So I think it would be Melinda & Erika who will be eliminated next in Osaka, but in the previews, we see how the intersection will change the dynamics of this next leg. So we have 12 teams going to Osaka and the intersection will create six combined teams, my guess is that the team that finishes last amongst these six will have to do some kind of face off challenge to decide who gets to keep on racing and who gets eliminated. There is some kind of Japanese drumming challenge, which will be yet another intense memory challenge to have to learn a whole drum routine in a short space of time. Again, it will boil down to which racer struggles with memory challenges and at this stage, I don't think I see one particular racer struggling with this. We're still early enough in the race, so even if one team messes up and has a bad day in the office, they may still get away with it if there's another team who performs even worse, so teams know that they still have some wriggle room at this early stage of the race.
Okay, thank you so much for reading - I hope you have found this both useful and entertaining. Looking forward to E2!
No comments:
Post a Comment