Another belated post (this show has long since aired!) but one that I thought to share as it was a lot of fun;  fact that it was all in Mandarin notwithstanding!

The producers rounded up people they thought to be “Mandarin-challenged” (my words, not theirs!), and pitted us against each other to see who would emerge the winner. Each week, three contestants vied for top spot as Tongue Twister champion. In the episode that I was in, I was up against Melissa Faith Yeo and Ris Low.

We had to go through a series of challenges – reciting a typical Mandarin tongue twister to see who made best time; styling a model and explaining in Mandarin why and how the final look came about; matching phrases with the option of asking passers-by by help. The tasks were not easy – I found describing how I chose a particular look for my model especially challenging, given that a limited vocabulary is my biggest weakness where the Chinese language is concerned! It really felt like I was back to school…

There’s Melissa struggling with her interview in Mandarin!

And I struggled even more!

Yifeng gave me a hug for what she dubbed “fearlessness” – I simply gasak-ed when I came across words I didn’t know how to pronounce. Hey, it got me through school…

I’m not sure who was more relieved when we were done butchering the beautifully language (it does not sound one bit as lilting as it is often described when we speak it); us or the hosts! Ah well. Back to the (Mando) drawing board.

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