Actually, I am a lazy person but I get too easily embroiled into watching too much, and giving in to temptation to comment here and other places with overlong observations. So, for the sake or my Qi and my eyes, I ought to slow down. Just ... not yet, lol
Currently watching : Gen Z Houlang, Here We Meet Again, Where Dreams Begin The Youth Memories, A Date with the Future, Mr Insomnia waiting for love, Youth In Flames of War, A Generation of Craftsmen, Back from the Brink, Prosecution Elite, The White Castle, and re-watching snippets from "old" In a class of her own, Count Your Lucky Stars, and Legend of Yunxi, TTEOTM, and miscellaneous stuff, while singing C pop and OST songs in pauses. I have noticed some other C drama maniacs who also seem to have grown several heads to watch. I have no merit : despite being a true blue alien from deep space on my planet size star ship, with heads that grow at will when necessary, there are others who line up even more staggering lists than I do !
Will I have enough time for it all ? Time will tell. Maybe I'll use the time bender or time traveling between threads of alternate worlds' option on the star ship. Trouble is : I hate to give up midways or to press ff in a drama, so perhaps it might be more efficient to solve the problems, by seeking treatment against the addiction, lol Or press "turn off". Again : just ... not yet lol !
Joining the pack to watch! It was on my tbw list, but I am slow and don't mind catching up with a nice binge watch of first episodes. The first sequence with the earthquake was spectacular. The dog was very cute; so I am watching on, after quickly going through comments to check if there was anything I'd need to know. Nothing special apparently, so will just enjoy the ride in the next few hours of blissful quiet, with my noise cancelling headphone for better immersion in the story. The actor I remember from a couple other dramas; the FL 's name rings a bell and is pretty, but I'm not quite sure whether or not I saw her before. Will take notice if this drama does not get my disapproval : but, I am a very lenient person, so it takes a lot for me to up and go in disgust, or "drop" a drama, once I've sampled first episode to satisfaction or to get curious enough to find out what's special that would justify my staying on and warm to it in spite of first impression. I am probably going to stay till end, after the good impression this started with. I will try not to post too many comments, and only if there's something I think is useful, or as usual, my thanks to those who provide good enrichment, like PeacheyBlossom and her excellent OST translation and transliteration MVs.
Wow you posting a comment every after a scene😂😂😂 not complaining.. though
Congrats ErickaRamirez! I got one too yesterday, though I wondered why and what it entailed; it's like a dun-colored and white-cream Pikachu design with a microphone. What does your one look like and what did you do with it? Me, after pondering, decided to show it in reply to some thanks at the end of one over long discussion that's reached 2nd page, but I think I got it for another one where I'd been indulging a bit too much in answering comments and expanding with explanations from what I know about period and more.
The music in the drama is excellant. The osts are very soothing and am glad they went with an instrumental opening…
Glad you could access and liked the Discussion part that you requested.
The PRC years from Liberation to Liberalization, going through upheavals that effectively uprooted the old stifling ways, is a period that remains polarizing for many outsiders, who view it sketchily and/or with a foreign negative judgmental attitude. Especially those who have been steeped in rosy or romantic views furthered by fluff or "historical costume" dramas, Jin Long epics (don't get me wrong, I also love wuxia, xianxia and xuanhuan) and get their ideas of "right and wrong" from these and from new age western ideas.
To the Chinese, who have gone through centuries of oppression and invasions, brilliant dynasties founded on the blood of past ones or common people, and a particularly dark couple of centuries from 1757 to 1980, the longing for peace and harmony has infused an infectious optimism that is very remarkable. It infuses much of what we can see in the drama. Such as the peaceful solution to the announced "mass fight" in the beginning. And the way for Chinese citizens to put aside weighty and vengeful baggage in order to move always forward, ordinarily, like in the lovely Pu Shu song.
Probably Mr Ren's (future) daughter (in law). = No lying, if Mr Ren had noticed and agreed about TZ falling for his dad's ward. A daughter, but not necessarily by blood and infidelity. It is now become quite the melodrama, with twists and turns, although the LiQuan spin was not a surprise. He did look sly from the start (good acting, actually). ... 2hrs to go until next episode.
Someone mentioned about the nostalgia stirred by familiar songs. So there's the one in Ep.3 20:10 played on the violin by He HongLing. It's one of the most liked patriotic songs which you can listen to in full in a spectacular flashmob version recorded in Wuhan bullet train station for Chinese national day Oct 1, 2020.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok4j_0qCwpw There are subtitles on screen to understand the lyrics which in a nutshell illustrate how Chinese people view their country.
The song was created for a movie about Korea war when Chinese soldiers were surrounded for several weeks running out of food and ammunition. Here's the snippet from the movie where it was first heard : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXXwBgyCYf0 The title is simple : 我的祖国 Wo de zuguo (My motherland) and if you'd like to know the lyrics with a transliteration into pinyin, plus credits to composer etc, it's here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yEHLZ9a0Pk (together with pretty landscape views)
(Beware that this is not the other likewise patriotic song 我和我的祖国 Wo he wode zuguo (My motherland and I) which is also often sung including in flashmobs in China)
Actually, it's interesting to know that the Chinese official national anthem the "March of the Volunteers" is also from a musical movie of the 1930s!
At that period, there was not even really a list of specific books to hunt down as banned : everything including music records, decoration and clothes, could be construed as "feudal" evil and destroyed on the spot. Temples were leveled down or burned. Many precious artifacts of Chinese cultural heritage were destroyed or hastily hid and forgotten to rot or reappear in construction work excavations, or bootlegged and sold away. Zhou Enlai tried to protect some buildings from these excesses and also managed to protect some courageous librarians and museum keepers who sealed away books and artifacts so they would not fall into the hands of the Red Guards. He was like a go player who skillfully played his hand staying near the "center" throughout the most troubled times, while he apparently supported the policies, took care of government as he could, and earned the respect of Mao and immunity from the Jiang Qing led Red Guards who were targeting Zhou Enlai too, along with Lin Biao and Deng Xiaoping (Zhou Enlai's friend and comrade from their time of work & studies in France). The truly learned and well-traveled, well-connected intellectual politician sometimes nicknamed the Red Prince, also went out of his way to extend the umbrella of his power to protect quite a few important people, and relics. That's also why his death caused a genuine stir of mourning from many, fearing that the Gang of Four with Jiang Qing might rampage unfettered and bring even worse times than the dreaded peak of the Cultural Revolution. So that's why the caretakers ex librarians let the young intruders off, "with a warning", after having ascertained that this was not a Red Guard preparing to burn down the dusty store room. That's also why the young woman could find books about the job of nurses, and the biography of Florence Nightingale...
Is The Youth Memories already the official English title? I don't understand why there's a sudden name change…
It is indeed the title on the WeTV platform and it is listed as alternate title by MDL. The nice title Where Dreams Begin is actually not the exact translation of the original title which was more something like "The sea in the Dreams". Dramawiki has it like this : Title: 梦中的那片海 / Meng Zhong De Na Pian Hai English title: The Youth Memories Also known as: Where Dreams Begin Dramawiki also has a more complete cast list.
I really appreciate the history lesson too. I also like that we're not hit over the head with it, but it's just…
My contribution to these History notes as background info for the curious: Some useful timeline to remember : The story of Xiao Chun Sheng is set to begin in December 1975, one month before the death of PRC Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, whose mourning sparked the first unrest among the youth, who wanted to shake off the yoke of the Gang of Four’s nefarious political activism (led by Jiang Qing, infamous wife of Mao who acted increasingly as his mouth piece during the Cultural Revolution, using the brainwashed Red Guards as their henchmen. They tried to keep power after the death of Mao in September 1976 but were arrested, convicted and Jiang Qing spent the rest of her life in prison).
Also, it is worth to know that the Tangshan earthquake in July of that year 1976 did shake Beijing too ; it is shown in the movie Sunflower (one of my favorite bc it also deals with the rise of contemporary art in China, around a painter modeled loosely on Zhang Xiaogang).
We briefly see a mention of May 7th Cadre School in Ep2. This was one of the maoist "social experiments" between 1968 and 1978 to "redress the disconnect between the bureaucracy and the common people" by sending educated people to be "reeducated" in the rural "communes" when schools and universities had been closed. A directive issued by Mao on October 4, 1968, described cadre training like this : “Sending the masses of cadres to do manual work gives them an excellent opportunity to study once again; this should be done by all cadres except those who are too old, too weak, ill or disabled."
These were the heydays of the fantasy production figures when the communes vied to look good on paper while many or most were starving because everything had to be decided after political meetings where the old village cadres or the young Red Guards were more concerned by fighting "feudalism" and age-old ways of doing things than really do agriculture and efficient manual work.
It was also the period when TCM was most promoted and used by "barefeet doctors" in lieu of modern health care ; it worked, sort of, surprisingly well sometimes, for not too severe illnesses and injuries, but of course, many did not survive, especially if they fell foul of leaders and ventured to object to directives. Deng Pufang, son of Deng Xiaoping, was thus targeted and thrown from a window at Beida university where he had been student until 1968. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair ; with the change in the Four Modernizations and the 10 year Plan and goals to the 2000s from 1978, following the ousting of the Gang of Four, and the economic U-turn initiated by Deng Xiaoping, Deng Pufang became the chairman of the Disabled Peoples Federation.
In those years "Each and every citizen of the People's Republic of China was assigned to a unit that would provide for his/her work, social, and cultural needs." The word danwei 单位 , is still in use as "work unit", although it is not often like before a workplace and housing spatial unit.
The communes and "producer cooperatives" survived after the end of the Cultural revolution, although often barely recognizable behind the walls of the mushrooming cities and suburbs in the 1980s. They were formally replaced by "townships" (all level xiang 乡 or urban zhen 镇) in 1983. In the 2000s, the "cooperative units" with their "production brigades" were mostly forgotten as a thing of the past. The old "villages" (xiāngcūn 乡村, or 农村 nóngcūn) may have later evolved and mushroomed into for example hi tech urban districts like Zhongguancun 中关村 in Beijing, a technology hub famous for computer and tech companies office buildings and sales centers.
Man I saw Ukraine president Zelensky on the uncle tv man...Whyyy... 😆
You're right !! That does look like a TV newscast of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressing the US Congress on December 21, 2022!! And on the other screens there are what looks like the blue and yellow Ukraine flag, and maps of the Crimean peninsula in red with an explosion animation. For the life of me I can't fathom why this would appear in this fluff. Why would the company in the drama concern itself with these unrelated news and the company president's "uncle-brother" leave such news on when his "nephew" arrived? It is so weird. I can't see how production has a stake in the conflict. Just random showing that China does show the conflicts in the world on prime time to inform the Chinese about the state of the world ? Chinese students were living and studying in the Ukraine : for instance Zhou Shen who went there for dentistry but stayed on to study voice and opera before morphing into the world famous Chinese singer he has become. But these ties have zero connection to the story in the drama. The only takeaway is that this sequence in Episode 11 must have been filmed Dec 21-22 2022...
Starting on ep 1 - This is a good retro drama! "How Pavel met Tonia" is a reference to a novel that everybody knew by heart then, which also sat on Song Qingling's shelf in the mansion she was housed in Shichahai on the banks of the BJ lake, at the time (it also sat on Doris Lessing's shelf back when she lived in Rhodesia. The book was known in many countries) -- Pavel and Tonia are the couple in " How the Steel Was Tempered or The Making of a Hero", a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky. With 36.4 million copies sold, it is one of the best-selling books of all time and the best-selling book in the Russian language. That novel was adapted to movies that were screened extensively in many countries and the book of course was not banned during the Cultural Revolution.
I know fans of SOKP are disappointed bcz of the drama postponement... but stop shading this drama / belittling…
Did I now? But some time ago I did suggest putting up somewhere on MDL a glossary of these drama insiders' "codes", perhaps in the form of a game to challenge those who like to look cool with trending new ones or half forgotten old ones, and inform the newbies in a funny way. Would you like such a game? Something in the way of : choose the right code and find the right title (i.e. OOL / TOOL ?) perhaps with link to drama description when choosing the adequate box and getting a score out of 100 items. It could even be linked to other trivia such as Webdrama vs TV drama, popularity rankings etc. Just some ideas. I am a lazy person, too busy watching half a dozen dramas and doing other stuff on the side, so I will likely not work on this project immediately. If others want to try doing it, I am not copyrighting my ideas... as long as the results stay free to play.
Looks like shebis badass here. The ML is cute tho expecialy in that black costume...I saw Bai Fang from SOTM omg…
Watching on two screens Insomnia ep9 & HuaRong ep1 : my head is going to explode in schizophrenia !! 😂 or... which of the two is going to win in the competition? Wishing you fun drama watching too.
Don't you know that this drama was finished filming 2 years ago?yet they just released the first trailer yesterday…
So you mean a slander campaign from a competing company? Bc I can't see how it would benefit iQiyi if it was their own product and they 'd try to suppress it. -- Looks like there are very many wars going on in c-ent? Motivation for this one?
Hello friend. Are we watching this. I didnt know its today. So many dramas who will watch them all. Hahaha!
I feel like you, juggling fluff of Insomnia and cybercrime Reba + TCM generation inheritor and Janice Wu doing her usual stuff with Vin Zhang. Sped through a Maid's costume drama with a bizarre end (amputated?) and various other items. Curiosity CAN kill the cat. I know I should take better care of my Qi and eyes and let go of drama addiction. Just... not yet, lol
2 
5 
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1 
Contributed a piece of info about earthquakes in China and dramas or movies featuring them which I posted as Discussion above. If you have something to add there, feel free to do it ! :)
Direct link : https://kisskh.at/discussions/a-date-with-the-future/105311-earthquakes-in-china
Answering another user's request, I have collected 4 of my comments on this title, adding some enrichment, in Discussion. For some unknown reason it does not appear immediately above, but it should do so, if you press "new topic". If it doesn't, here's the direct link :
https://kisskh.at/discussions/where-dreams-begin/105281-history-bacground-for-where-dreams-begin-the-youth-memories
Actually, I am a lazy person but I get too easily embroiled into watching too much, and giving in to temptation to comment here and other places with overlong observations. So, for the sake or my Qi and my eyes, I ought to slow down. Just ... not yet, lol
Currently watching :
Gen Z Houlang, Here We Meet Again, Where Dreams Begin The Youth Memories, A Date with the Future, Mr Insomnia waiting for love, Youth In Flames of War, A Generation of Craftsmen, Back from the Brink, Prosecution Elite, The White Castle, and re-watching snippets from "old" In a class of her own, Count Your Lucky Stars, and Legend of Yunxi, TTEOTM, and miscellaneous stuff, while singing C pop and OST songs in pauses.
I have noticed some other C drama maniacs who also seem to have grown several heads to watch. I have no merit : despite being a true blue alien from deep space on my planet size star ship, with heads that grow at will when necessary, there are others who line up even more staggering lists than I do !
Will I have enough time for it all ? Time will tell. Maybe I'll use the time bender or time traveling between threads of alternate worlds' option on the star ship.
Trouble is : I hate to give up midways or to press ff in a drama, so perhaps it might be more efficient to solve the problems, by seeking treatment against the addiction, lol
Or press "turn off". Again : just ... not yet lol !
The first sequence with the earthquake was spectacular. The dog was very cute; so I am watching on, after quickly going through comments to check if there was anything I'd need to know. Nothing special apparently, so will just enjoy the ride in the next few hours of blissful quiet, with my noise cancelling headphone for better immersion in the story.
The actor I remember from a couple other dramas; the FL 's name rings a bell and is pretty, but I'm not quite sure whether or not I saw her before. Will take notice if this drama does not get my disapproval : but, I am a very lenient person, so it takes a lot for me to up and go in disgust, or "drop" a drama, once I've sampled first episode to satisfaction or to get curious enough to find out what's special that would justify my staying on and warm to it in spite of first impression. I am probably going to stay till end, after the good impression this started with.
I will try not to post too many comments, and only if there's something I think is useful, or as usual, my thanks to those who provide good enrichment, like PeacheyBlossom and her excellent OST translation and transliteration MVs.
Me, after pondering, decided to show it in reply to some thanks at the end of one over long discussion that's reached 2nd page, but I think I got it for another one where I'd been indulging a bit too much in answering comments and expanding with explanations from what I know about period and more.
The PRC years from Liberation to Liberalization, going through upheavals that effectively uprooted the old stifling ways, is a period that remains polarizing for many outsiders, who view it sketchily and/or with a foreign negative judgmental attitude. Especially those who have been steeped in rosy or romantic views furthered by fluff or "historical costume" dramas, Jin Long epics (don't get me wrong, I also love wuxia, xianxia and xuanhuan) and get their ideas of "right and wrong" from these and from new age western ideas.
To the Chinese, who have gone through centuries of oppression and invasions, brilliant dynasties founded on the blood of past ones or common people, and a particularly dark couple of centuries from 1757 to 1980, the longing for peace and harmony has infused an infectious optimism that is very remarkable.
It infuses much of what we can see in the drama. Such as the peaceful solution to the announced "mass fight" in the beginning. And the way for Chinese citizens to put aside weighty and vengeful baggage in order to move always forward, ordinarily, like in the lovely Pu Shu song.
Since I am at it, and in case you or other readers here do not know that one, here are the lyrics to ponder, and a lovely stage rendition :
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbxCYdyRuro&pp=ygUbcHUgc2h1IG9yZGluYXJ5IHJvYWQgbHlyaWNz
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExSGYFBPuu0
If you're interested in more background on period, I compiled some previous answers of mine, adding some pics and links, which you can access directly from the direct link to MDL discussion https://kisskh.at/discussions/where-dreams-begin/105281-history-bacground-for-where-dreams-begin-the-youth-memories
= No lying, if Mr Ren had noticed and agreed about TZ falling for his dad's ward.
A daughter, but not necessarily by blood and infidelity.
It is now become quite the melodrama, with twists and turns, although the LiQuan spin was not a surprise. He did look sly from the start (good acting, actually).
... 2hrs to go until next episode.
抱歉(bàoqiàn) !
Ah no. Don't know what happened, but it looks like you can still find it through this direct link to MDL discussion : https://kisskh.at/discussions/where-dreams-begin/105281-history-bacground-for-where-dreams-begin-the-youth-memories
So there's the one in Ep.3 20:10 played on the violin by He HongLing. It's one of the most liked patriotic songs which you can listen to in full in a spectacular flashmob version recorded in Wuhan bullet train station for Chinese national day Oct 1, 2020.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok4j_0qCwpw
There are subtitles on screen to understand the lyrics which in a nutshell illustrate how Chinese people view their country.
The song was created for a movie about Korea war when Chinese soldiers were surrounded for several weeks running out of food and ammunition.
Here's the snippet from the movie where it was first heard : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXXwBgyCYf0 The title is simple : 我的祖国 Wo de zuguo (My motherland) and if you'd like to know the lyrics with a transliteration into pinyin, plus credits to composer etc, it's here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yEHLZ9a0Pk (together with pretty landscape views)
(Beware that this is not the other likewise patriotic song 我和我的祖国 Wo he wode zuguo (My motherland and I) which is also often sung including in flashmobs in China)
Actually, it's interesting to know that the Chinese official national anthem the "March of the Volunteers" is also from a musical movie of the 1930s!
Well since I am at it, here are links to listen to those other two "national anthems" :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3zw4BcGTz0 (我和我的祖国 w pinyin and translation)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obZOFnp64vc (义勇军进行曲 w pinyin &translations)
Zhou Enlai tried to protect some buildings from these excesses and also managed to protect some courageous librarians and museum keepers who sealed away books and artifacts so they would not fall into the hands of the Red Guards. He was like a go player who skillfully played his hand staying near the "center" throughout the most troubled times, while he apparently supported the policies, took care of government as he could, and earned the respect of Mao and immunity from the Jiang Qing led Red Guards who were targeting Zhou Enlai too, along with Lin Biao and Deng Xiaoping (Zhou Enlai's friend and comrade from their time of work & studies in France).
The truly learned and well-traveled, well-connected intellectual politician sometimes nicknamed the Red Prince, also went out of his way to extend the umbrella of his power to protect quite a few important people, and relics. That's also why his death caused a genuine stir of mourning from many, fearing that the Gang of Four with Jiang Qing might rampage unfettered and bring even worse times than the dreaded peak of the Cultural Revolution.
So that's why the caretakers ex librarians let the young intruders off, "with a warning", after having ascertained that this was not a Red Guard preparing to burn down the dusty store room. That's also why the young woman could find books about the job of nurses, and the biography of Florence Nightingale...
The nice title Where Dreams Begin is actually not the exact translation of the original title which was more something like "The sea in the Dreams".
Dramawiki has it like this :
Title: 梦中的那片海 / Meng Zhong De Na Pian Hai
English title: The Youth Memories
Also known as: Where Dreams Begin
Dramawiki also has a more complete cast list.
Some useful timeline to remember : The story of Xiao Chun Sheng is set to begin in December 1975, one month before the death of PRC Prime Minister Zhou Enlai, whose mourning sparked the first unrest among the youth, who wanted to shake off the yoke of the Gang of Four’s nefarious political activism (led by Jiang Qing, infamous wife of Mao who acted increasingly as his mouth piece during the Cultural Revolution, using the brainwashed Red Guards as their henchmen. They tried to keep power after the death of Mao in September 1976 but were arrested, convicted and Jiang Qing spent the rest of her life in prison).
Also, it is worth to know that the Tangshan earthquake in July of that year 1976 did shake Beijing too ; it is shown in the movie Sunflower (one of my favorite bc it also deals with the rise of contemporary art in China, around a painter modeled loosely on Zhang Xiaogang).
We briefly see a mention of May 7th Cadre School in Ep2. This was one of the maoist "social experiments" between 1968 and 1978 to "redress the disconnect between the bureaucracy and the common people" by sending educated people to be "reeducated" in the rural "communes" when schools and universities had been closed. A directive issued by Mao on October 4, 1968, described cadre training like this : “Sending the masses of cadres to do manual work gives them an excellent opportunity to study once again; this should be done by all cadres except those who are too old, too weak, ill or disabled."
These were the heydays of the fantasy production figures when the communes vied to look good on paper while many or most were starving because everything had to be decided after political meetings where the old village cadres or the young Red Guards were more concerned by fighting "feudalism" and age-old ways of doing things than really do agriculture and efficient manual work.
It was also the period when TCM was most promoted and used by "barefeet doctors" in lieu of modern health care ; it worked, sort of, surprisingly well sometimes, for not too severe illnesses and injuries, but of course, many did not survive, especially if they fell foul of leaders and ventured to object to directives.
Deng Pufang, son of Deng Xiaoping, was thus targeted and thrown from a window at Beida university where he had been student until 1968. He spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair ; with the change in the Four Modernizations and the 10 year Plan and goals to the 2000s from 1978, following the ousting of the Gang of Four, and the economic U-turn initiated by Deng Xiaoping, Deng Pufang became the chairman of the Disabled Peoples Federation.
In those years "Each and every citizen of the People's Republic of China was assigned to a unit that would provide for his/her work, social, and cultural needs." The word danwei 单位 , is still in use as "work unit", although it is not often like before a workplace and housing spatial unit.
The communes and "producer cooperatives" survived after the end of the Cultural revolution, although often barely recognizable behind the walls of the mushrooming cities and suburbs in the 1980s. They were formally replaced by "townships" (all level xiang 乡 or urban zhen 镇) in 1983. In the 2000s, the "cooperative units" with their "production brigades" were mostly forgotten as a thing of the past. The old "villages" (xiāngcūn 乡村, or 农村 nóngcūn) may have later evolved and mushroomed into for example hi tech urban districts like Zhongguancun 中关村 in Beijing, a technology hub famous for computer and tech companies office buildings and sales centers.
I can't see how production has a stake in the conflict. Just random showing that China does show the conflicts in the world on prime time to inform the Chinese about the state of the world ?
Chinese students were living and studying in the Ukraine : for instance Zhou Shen who went there for dentistry but stayed on to study voice and opera before morphing into the world famous Chinese singer he has become.
But these ties have zero connection to the story in the drama.
The only takeaway is that this sequence in Episode 11 must have been filmed Dec 21-22 2022...
"How Pavel met Tonia" is a reference to a novel that everybody knew by heart then, which also sat on Song Qingling's shelf in the mansion she was housed in Shichahai on the banks of the BJ lake, at the time (it also sat on Doris Lessing's shelf back when she lived in Rhodesia. The book was known in many countries)
-- Pavel and Tonia are the couple in " How the Steel Was Tempered or The Making of a Hero", a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky.
With 36.4 million copies sold, it is one of the best-selling books of all time and the best-selling book in the Russian language. That novel was adapted to movies that were screened extensively in many countries and the book of course was not banned during the Cultural Revolution.
But some time ago I did suggest putting up somewhere on MDL a glossary of these drama insiders' "codes", perhaps in the form of a game to challenge those who like to look cool with trending new ones or half forgotten old ones, and inform the newbies in a funny way. Would you like such a game?
Something in the way of : choose the right code and find the right title (i.e. OOL / TOOL ?) perhaps with link to drama description when choosing the adequate box and getting a score out of 100 items. It could even be linked to other trivia such as Webdrama vs TV drama, popularity rankings etc. Just some ideas. I am a lazy person, too busy watching half a dozen dramas and doing other stuff on the side, so I will likely not work on this project immediately. If others want to try doing it, I am not copyrighting my ideas... as long as the results stay free to play.
Wishing you fun drama watching too.