KLM in-flight entertainment and more

I took a couple of flights with KLM over the holidays. Being in the air is no excuse for keeping up with your language skills, so I took a look at what they have on offer. Their in-flight entertainment options are pitiful compared to Emirates, so I wouldn’t pick them for a long-haul flight, but the price was good and they actually traveled when a lot of airlines were cancelling flights, plus I felt very safe with them so I’m not complaining.

First they had this “Learn a language” program apparently given to them by Berlitz. It’s extremely basic though, just a few words like “Good morning” and “Help me”, nothing interesting for any serious language learner. The real problem with them for Cantonese was some random, crazy romanization system they pulled from goodness knows where. I really should have written down some examples because they were horrible. Think of something like “fay gai chong” for airport “fei gei cheung”, stuff that none of the common systems would ever write. And I hear Berlitz charge a lot of money for their programs. Is this the kind of useless lesson buyers typically get for their money? Sad.

The other thing I did was to see what kind of movies they were showing. I managed to find two in Cantonese, “Adventure of the King” about an Emperor who goes gallivanting around town and loses his memory, and “City Under Siege“, supposedly featuring a circus troop that has gone crazy and can only be stopped by the clown. Only in Hong Kong films, guys. My intention was to watch both of them, but after the first 20 minutes or so of “Adventure of the King”, I was so bored and sleepy I couldn’t keep going. They weren’t even trying hard to be funny, I guess they just assumed the setting would work for them or something. And it just dragged on and on with the silliness instead of moving the story forward. Maybe I’ve just outgrown mo lei tau? Dunno, I still like Stephen Chow though.

So essentially all four flights passed without me getting any serious learning done. At least I got home safely and my other studies are going well, right? That’s what really counts.

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