I’m waiting for the OST to come out and am thinking of making an edit of this drama. This drama has caught me…
MK916: I'll be looking forward to your next edit! I clicked on this drama on a whim after perusing some images from the WeTV romance special "free" offer for Valentines Day. (It's still on until Feb17; there's LLTG as first choice, plus a few short sweet ones -but I had already watched them all in past "sugar fixes"). Jerry Yan's name caught my attention, since I had been going back to re-watch some of the old Meteor Garden/F4/BOF story last month, notably the TW one that featured Jerry Yan as Daoming Si... This Forbidden Flower drama does look very attractive. I was also impressed by the colors and music, wondering where the story is supposed to be set: Hainan? islands off Fujian or Zhejiang? Taiwan?
I hope not. And Cultural Revolution and the fact that it was a mistake is acknowledged and accepted by the Chinese…
It would have been perfect to make it eligible for nomination to a drama version Hugo award at the Chengdu Worldcon in August 2023 (first time China hosts a Worldcon, when Japan and New Zealand and many other countries already had). I was rooting for that Worldcon and the possibility that among items to be nominated there would be 3BP Chinese drama version, since it was possible that international audience including the SFF fandom could view it in time. But the rules for the award are that the work must have been published or been aired in the calendar year before Worldcon, i.e. 2022... Now, it might be eligible for the Glasgow 2024 Worldcon (I'll do so, then). I am looking forward to this version, nonetheless. Many things got annoyingly delayed in China, so the international SFF community is dubious on several counts about the Chengdu Worldcon, which only recently published news when progress reports had been annoyingly absent. There are still 7-8 months ahead, but time runs fast,and nomination period should not be too short. It's very soon that it must be launched now, and what was nominatable feels to me somewhat frustratingly all the same, Disney, Marvel stuff... Of course, there were strikingly good and surprising shows,such as the movie Everything, Everywhere, All At Once (although I am not sure it could be viewed by the Chinese fans: some parts are a bit extreme, although the movie as a whole, tickled my absurdist bone 😂). And then there was RESET (Kaiduan), which I kept mentioning everywhere I could (it is still my number one 2022 drama, from the onset). Love in Time could also go on my nomination slip (but it may not have enough mentions to make it). LBFAD also could go there, as a fantasy item. But Avatar: The Way of Water the 2022 American epic science fiction film directed and produced by James Cameron will likely be the most nominated movie despite it hitting theaters late. With no mention this time of the debt to impressions of Huangshan or Zhangjiajie landscapes, since inspiration this time was more from New Zealand. And House of The Dragon could likely lead the drama nominations, if GRRM having become anathema for some anglospheric fans doesn't torpedo it, like Xiao Zhan had once become unmentionable for a part of the volatile Chinese fandom (for different reasons of course). Racking my brains and memories of 2022 genre readings and watching, to propose a viable list that would not only include anglospheric items: it does not matter much, of course, since there's already Chinese SF awards (which usually don't extend much to fantasy, whereas the anglosphere awards have in my view very much strayed from looking at SF, and tilted towards superheroes and outright fantasy.) btw if you have suggestions about good 2022 shows or readings that I may have overlooked, you can drop me a line. (I did watch quite extensively in 2022, as you know, I think, but just in case. You know my bias for cdrama, but perhaps I also should have looked beyond to SK or J too after all, in the SFF related works.)
"The Erhai Lake covers an area of 250 square kilometers (96 square miles) and is located about two kilometers…
Yes, I was fortunate to first visit Yunnan province in the early 1990s, on a self-designed family tour and visits to acquaintances, before the Lijiang earthquake, but already after the pollution of the Kunming Dianchi Lake, caused by misguided industrialization and the surge of paper mill industry at the time, with the 1985-1991 economic boom. The paper mills became heavy-handedly curbed and regulated, a few days before we came, but our CPC hosts worriedly told us that it would take at least twenty years before damage could be repaired. (It was bad, as witness this news from 2019: https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d674d33456a4e32457a6333566d54/index.html and in fact, the water there is still not pristine today...) So instead of going to the inland "seaside" they first took us to the impressive Shilin Stone Forest, managed by the local Yi minority, and to the Kunming ethnic minorities park, to have a glimpse of living ethnic customs and cultures of the 26 minorities who make this province the most kaleidoscopically diverse in China. And to whet our appetite to come visit again on our travels throughout China. To watch a more recent travel vlog, check this 5-minute introduction: rhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ktCyewG-b4 and this 6-minute one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQCDxbTIPM As answer to the question raised at the end of this video, the identification of ethnic minorities had to do with the preservation of cultures, through political measures such as allowing bilingual education while sending teachers, bonus points for minority students applications to universities, setting up a special and prestigious University of Minorities in Beijing (which also does research on minority cultures), quota for representing each minority at the National Assembly, exempting most ethnic minorities from one child policy when it was in force, etc,.. the initial number was bigger because those groups became incorporated as sub groups of other minorities,such as the Red Miao, White Miao (Striped Miao), Cowery Shell Miao, Flowery Miao, Black Miao, Green Miao (Blue Miao) who are all "Miao" (no cat-talk: it's just the name of the minority, who are related to Myanmar hmong).
Dali (which was a kingdom) is mostly inhabited by Bai minority people. The drama showcases the traditional costume and some customs,such as the delicious and fragrant flower cakes. "The most well known Bai tradition is the san dao cha 三道茶, or three course tea ceremony. The courses in the ceremony consist of a bitter tea, a sweet tea, and a third tea that is both bitter, sweet, and a bit spicy. This ceremony is often presented to honored guests ."
Yunnan flower cakes 鲜花饼 (xiān huā bǐng) are indeed delicious! I hope to taste them again if I have time to visit Yunnan once more this year, aside from planned trip to China centering on a Chengdu event, and family & friends & partners meeting again. It's still some months away but then, the flower cakes are a seasonal delicacy, from April to May. "According to historical records, flower cakes were invented more than 300 years ago by a cake maker in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). They have gained wide reputation for their flowery flavor, agreeable sweetness and beneficial beauty effects. The shelf life of flower cake varies from seven days to 45 days depending on the ingredients, and there are more than a dozen varieties of pastries on sale now. Some cakes even use other ingredients such as pine nuts and Yunnan's famous ham." (China Daily) Well, if I miss the best months on the spot, I'll ask for some to be sent to me 😋
Love this drama!, but isn't Yunnan land locked?, ep2 beautiful seaside village, where was it filmed?
"The Erhai Lake covers an area of 250 square kilometers (96 square miles) and is located about two kilometers (1.2 miles) east of Dali. It is like a crescent lying between Cangshan and Dali city as seen from Cangshan Mountain." (Travelchinaguide.com) Many big lakes in China look like seas.
suddenly rating drop from 8.8 to 7.7 .................................. :0
8.4 now. Since I liked it so far and don"t expect to be disappointed, after finishing excellent Hi Venus, I did boost with one provisional 10 😁. Just so it can get back on normal track. It is a very enjoyable drama, although I was not following yet Crystal Liu or Li Xian (I did watch and was entertained by ADOS and GGS, but these dramas are not my all-time favorite, despite their being excellent too.) I have high expectations for Qu You Feng de Difang, also because the setting and some of the plot reverberate with personal vibes for me. Yunnan is such a beautiful and diverse province, with colorful minority traditions and costumes. The job description of the luxury brand hotel front desk manager in Beijing was realistically portrayed in the first episode of this Meet Yourself drama. The funeral, too.
True i can’t believe janice wu casted as FL’s best friend here. Such an emotional scene
Janice Wu was just perfect! Wondering where and how Joseph Zeng will come in, in this star-studded cast. Meanwhile, watching the last episodes of Hi Venus 🥰
You know, this kind of struck me the other day as well. Beyond them getting together I have absolutely no idea…
probably from the star 星 mention, but the guys who brainstormed the English title must have been very tired. It doesn't matter : seasoned c-drama watchers know these titles are like what popped out of the hat with surprise mix of words and labels. As long as the title does not end up like one that was already used for a different c-drama (which makes it complicated to find the right one, I don't mind too much any more. Would "Dr Ye Shilan's sweetheart"have sounded better and attracted more audience?
Why is there still no sub for ep 14 🥲 I need to start learning Chinese
Well, if you can read the Chinese subtitles, it always helps even with faulty bizarre translations. But learning to read Chinese takes more time than learning to understand spoken putonghua. Trouble is : when you are hard of hearing or when there can be colloquialisms or accents or even other varieties of mandarin or other Chinese languages, so learning "spoken Chinese" is not always as simple as one may think. Cantonese, hokkien, wu... and even Uighur language (Wikipedia: "a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8-11 million speakers") are all "Chinese" languages! Also, "read" Chinese means you need to choose between"simplified" (most used in mainland c-dramas) and "traditional" (most used in Taiwanese, and oftenin Chinese descriptions on Youtube). Even though after a while, one learns to recognize the most commonly used words in both print written systems. I am not going to delve into the arcanes of handwriting: luckily smartphones and computers don't use too much of that,but when there's a handwriten note appearing in a drama, subtitles can help too. Exchanging thoughts about the use of Chinese subtitling, a friend in Chengdu volunteered that "In fact, most Chinese people still need subtitles to better understand even Chinese dramas. We even use bullet screens when watching dramas."
It is annoying to see that. I assume some raters rate before having seen the drama in full, or even having started on it, just because they have a bias against XZL perhaps. Or against FL Hu Bingqing. I will probably rate it higher although I don't expect to generously award a 10 like I did (wholeheartedly) for L&P. This is up till now sweet candy fluff, but not over-sweetened drama.
I don't think you should watch this. Tell me some kdramas that you like, based on that I will suggest some good…
🤣🤣🤣 and merry Christmas to you if you're still in that time zone; otherwise there's still Hannukah and other to celebrate by this Tiger year's festive season, so happy times and drama watching to you.
Mmm-eow, I just realized there were more than just one or two familiar faces from my beloved 2022 costume c-drama LLTG in this Meow drama: - Li YunRui (cat café owner Zhang Hao) who was "Yuan Shen", - Hu JiaXin (Gigi/Ji Nian) who was "Wang Ling", - Wang HaoGe (author Qiao Yi, who briefly was "marquis Ban Jia", fatefully perturbing Shaoshang's twin brother's auspicious divination (but who I remembered best as "14th prince Mo JingXuan", the spontaneous and cute brother of "Mo LiangCheng" played by Xing Zhaolin in "The Eternal Love" series 1-2-3 adapted from funny “Hilarious Pampered Consort: Lord I Will Wait for Your Divorce” novel by by Fan Que ) - child actor Ella Liu (who appears in both casts of LLTG but who in fact, I did not really notice as "Cheng Xiao Mei" then, nor up till episode 5 of this cat story - I guess she'll be in more upcoming flashbacks of Zhou Tian's youth).
2 
5 
1 
1 
1 
I clicked on this drama on a whim after perusing some images from the WeTV romance special "free" offer for Valentines Day. (It's still on until Feb17; there's LLTG as first choice, plus a few short sweet ones -but I had already watched them all in past "sugar fixes").
Jerry Yan's name caught my attention, since I had been going back to re-watch some of the old Meteor Garden/F4/BOF story last month, notably the TW one that featured Jerry Yan as Daoming Si...
This Forbidden Flower drama does look very attractive. I was also impressed by the colors and music, wondering where the story is supposed to be set: Hainan? islands off Fujian or Zhejiang? Taiwan?
Many things got annoyingly delayed in China, so the international SFF community is dubious on several counts about the Chengdu Worldcon, which only recently published news when progress reports had been annoyingly absent. There are still 7-8 months ahead, but time runs fast,and nomination period should not be too short. It's very soon that it must be launched now, and what was nominatable feels to me somewhat frustratingly all the same, Disney, Marvel stuff...
Of course, there were strikingly good and surprising shows,such as the movie Everything, Everywhere, All At Once (although I am not sure it could be viewed by the Chinese fans: some parts are a bit extreme, although the movie as a whole, tickled my absurdist bone 😂).
And then there was RESET (Kaiduan), which I kept mentioning everywhere I could (it is still my number one 2022 drama, from the onset). Love in Time could also go on my nomination slip (but it may not have enough mentions to make it). LBFAD also could go there, as a fantasy item.
But Avatar: The Way of Water the 2022 American epic science fiction film directed and produced by James Cameron will likely be the most nominated movie despite it hitting theaters late. With no mention this time of the debt to impressions of Huangshan or Zhangjiajie landscapes, since inspiration this time was more from New Zealand.
And House of The Dragon could likely lead the drama nominations, if GRRM having become anathema for some anglospheric fans doesn't torpedo it, like Xiao Zhan had once become unmentionable for a part of the volatile Chinese fandom (for different reasons of course).
Racking my brains and memories of 2022 genre readings and watching, to propose a viable list that would not only include anglospheric items: it does not matter much, of course, since there's already Chinese SF awards (which usually don't extend much to fantasy, whereas the anglosphere awards have in my view very much strayed from looking at SF, and tilted towards superheroes and outright fantasy.)
btw if you have suggestions about good 2022 shows or readings that I may have overlooked, you can drop me a line. (I did watch quite extensively in 2022, as you know, I think, but just in case. You know my bias for cdrama, but perhaps I also should have looked beyond to SK or J too after all, in the SFF related works.)
So instead of going to the inland "seaside" they first took us to the impressive Shilin Stone Forest, managed by the local Yi minority, and to the Kunming ethnic minorities park, to have a glimpse of living ethnic customs and cultures of the 26 minorities who make this province the most kaleidoscopically diverse in China. And to whet our appetite to come visit again on our travels throughout China. To watch a more recent travel vlog, check this 5-minute introduction: rhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ktCyewG-b4 and this 6-minute one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQCDxbTIPM As answer to the question raised at the end of this video, the identification of ethnic minorities had to do with the preservation of cultures, through political measures such as allowing bilingual education while sending teachers, bonus points for minority students applications to universities, setting up a special and prestigious University of Minorities in Beijing (which also does research on minority cultures), quota for representing each minority at the National Assembly, exempting most ethnic minorities from one child policy when it was in force, etc,.. the initial number was bigger because those groups became incorporated as sub groups of other minorities,such as the Red Miao, White Miao (Striped Miao), Cowery Shell Miao, Flowery Miao, Black Miao, Green Miao (Blue Miao) who are all "Miao" (no cat-talk: it's just the name of the minority, who are related to Myanmar hmong).
Dali (which was a kingdom) is mostly inhabited by Bai minority people. The drama showcases the traditional costume and some customs,such as the delicious and fragrant flower cakes.
"The most well known Bai tradition is the san dao cha 三道茶, or three course tea ceremony. The courses in the ceremony consist of a bitter tea, a sweet tea, and a third tea that is both bitter, sweet, and a bit spicy. This ceremony is often presented to honored guests ."
"According to historical records, flower cakes were invented more than 300 years ago by a cake maker in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). They have gained wide reputation for their flowery flavor, agreeable sweetness and beneficial beauty effects.
The shelf life of flower cake varies from seven days to 45 days depending on the ingredients, and there are more than a dozen varieties of pastries on sale now. Some cakes even use other ingredients such as pine nuts and Yunnan's famous ham." (China Daily)
Well, if I miss the best months on the spot, I'll ask for some to be sent to me 😋
Since I liked it so far and don"t expect to be disappointed, after finishing excellent Hi Venus, I did boost with one provisional 10 😁. Just so it can get back on normal track.
It is a very enjoyable drama, although I was not following yet Crystal Liu or Li Xian (I did watch and was entertained by ADOS and GGS, but these dramas are not my all-time favorite, despite their being excellent too.)
I have high expectations for Qu You Feng de Difang, also because the setting and some of the plot reverberate with personal vibes for me.
Yunnan is such a beautiful and diverse province, with colorful minority traditions and costumes. The job description of the luxury brand hotel front desk manager in Beijing was realistically portrayed in the first episode of this Meet Yourself drama. The funeral, too.
It could also enhance understanding cultures and bilateral relations.
Also, "read" Chinese means you need to choose between"simplified" (most used in mainland c-dramas) and "traditional" (most used in Taiwanese, and oftenin Chinese descriptions on Youtube). Even though after a while, one learns to recognize the most commonly used words in both print written systems. I am not going to delve into the arcanes of handwriting: luckily smartphones and computers don't use too much of that,but when there's a handwriten note appearing in a drama, subtitles can help too.
Exchanging thoughts about the use of Chinese subtitling, a friend in Chengdu volunteered that "In fact, most Chinese people still need subtitles to better understand even Chinese dramas. We even use bullet screens when watching dramas."
Well I could perhaps go elsewhere, or back in time to Ever Night.
This is up till now sweet candy fluff, but not over-sweetened drama.
Mmm-eow, I just realized there were more than just one or two familiar faces from my beloved 2022 costume c-drama LLTG in this Meow drama:
- Li YunRui (cat café owner Zhang Hao) who was "Yuan Shen",
- Hu JiaXin (Gigi/Ji Nian) who was "Wang Ling",
- Wang HaoGe (author Qiao Yi, who briefly was "marquis Ban Jia", fatefully perturbing Shaoshang's twin brother's auspicious divination (but who I remembered best as "14th prince Mo JingXuan", the spontaneous and cute brother of "Mo LiangCheng" played by Xing Zhaolin in "The Eternal Love" series 1-2-3 adapted from funny “Hilarious Pampered Consort: Lord I Will Wait for Your Divorce” novel by by Fan Que )
- child actor Ella Liu (who appears in both casts of LLTG but who in fact, I did not really notice as "Cheng Xiao Mei" then, nor up till episode 5 of this cat story - I guess she'll be in more upcoming flashbacks of Zhou Tian's youth).