Dumbfounded.

It was only several weeks ago that I discovered this apparently off-the-hook famous, what I would call 人氣旺盛 character by the name of 張杰 from the Mainland, not to be confused with the Taiwanese 張傑. I first discovered him in Wilber Pan's new video 愛x愛 (love x love), a Mainland Taiwan collaborative to support the "I Want to Go to School" campaign. Two things stuck out to me. 1) His vocals, and 2) the fact that he wore a wedding ring.

Soon enough, I found myself looking up this "new" artist and some of his works. Obviously, he really isn't that new, I am just usually extremely slow when it comes to pop culture - 慢人一拍 (slower than others by a beat) is the sad reality. Anyway, one of the few songs that made it to the top of my list is "First Lady" 第一夫人. Cute concept and sweet, especially since he was so obviously in love with his then girlfriend, and now, wifey - hence the ring! Little did I know...

This favorite of mine was actually composed and conceptualized by none other but my favorite Wang Lee Hom. You can imagine how dumbfounded I was upon making this discovery... as in. ARE. YOU. SERIOUS? I really cannot escape WLH for life! Per Xiao Zhang's request (but with no response for quite a while), WLH came up with the genius idea of "first lady" for not only Xiao Zhang's lovebird fans, but also (maybe even more so) a gift to and representation of him and his lover. Lee Hom popped a mini demo in good ol' Lee Hom fashion - keys, humming to the envisioned chorus melody, and ending it with a to-die-for 我的第一夫人 (my first lady). Explanation? You do not need to be the president to have a first lady. Your loved one IS your first lady. Cute or whaaaat?



Now, moving on to the crazier.

Last night, in my slightly obsessive trance, I posted the following on my secret  weibo (a.k.a. chinarr twitter account):

最近才開始聼張杰先生的作品。除了他的聲音以外，另外一件讓我非常感動的事就是他可能是在演藝圈比較年輕，結了婚以後還一直帶著婚戒的男生！敬佩。so cute!
Roughly translates to: I only recently started listening to Mr. Zhang Jie's work. Aside from his vocals, another touching thing that I noticed is that he is probably one of the few married youngins in the entertainment circle who still continually wears his wedding ring after his wedding! Respect. so cute!

When I checked back today for my daily post, I almost thought I ridiculously signed into the wrong account because there were notifications for 130+ comments, 550+ retweets, and a good 10+ new followers. HOW IN THE WORLD DID PEOPLE COME ACROSS MY POST when I did not even tag the guy! or his wife! Talkin' bout crazy-on-it fans! Not to mention how I now have random followers of my definitely not famous life (thank God I never post anything private on that thang)! What just happened?! 張杰 is really a phenomenon over there. Unbelievable!

Thanks to my Chinese clients, I now have a much better grasp and understanding of Mainland accented Chinese, but I think my mandarin will always sound more Taiwanese. The influences set foot at an early enough age to make current change difficult.