L13

Right, the fact even she can't keep up the subservient act and have a normal conversation with the Xin family despite badly wanting to please them but somehow deludes herself into pretending that MCH would be "happy" in their household is insane to me. No matter how ignorant of the world and financially motivated she is, surely she realises MCH has a proud and graceful personality that would clash terribly with everyone in that house?

I can't tell if the mother truly doesn't know her daughter at all or if she thinks that because she's had an "unhappy" life (entirely due to her greed and victim complex preventing her from taking responsibility for her choices and appreciating what she has), it's fine for MCH to be dissatisfied in her marriage too, as long as she lives in a huge house.

I love his personality too, but I wish we saw things from his perspective a bit more often.

For me, a happy ending to this drama would be the mother having to keep living in the house she hates so much. If MCH gets rich and buys her a house to make her happy, I'll riot. This woman does not deserve to get out of poverty! (In reality she's not even that poor, just endlessly greedy and self-pitying.)

Isn't there a Korean webtoon with the same plot?

Favouring one child over the other constantly and in every aspect of life is not part of Chinese or any other culture and even if it was, the family’s resources would be going toward Chengzao’s upbringing because he’s a boy and Chinese parents have a strong preference for boys. Let’s stop pretending everything the mother does is normal because it’s not.

I agree with you, it’s abusive. I feel terrible for the dad.

I think that aspect of their relationship is pretty realistic; it's a common experience for middle-aged women to feel like they've sacrificed too much of their youth/life for their families and their husbands owe them more than they've provided. You're totally right that no one forced her to make these choices, but at this point she's just bitter that her life has turned out 'worse' than she wanted/thinks she deserves and her timid husband is a convenient target.

I'm sure the drama will conclude with the Mai family getting rich, which will resolve that tension. Ms Liu may even get a job once she no longer needs one...

She does mean well, but her treatment of Chengzao in particular is very hard to swallow IMO. He's lived on the balcony for years FFS! She doesn't care if he has to commute to work for 2-3 hours as long as she can add more money to Chenghuan's dowry! And Chengzao is so sure his mother doesn't care about his problems he doesn't even bother to tell her anything about his life. The time his mother didn't even give him a chance to announce he had an important networking meeting on the weekend because in her eyes meeting Xin Jialiang's family was so much more important than anything that could be going on in Chengzao's life actually made me dislike her more than anything she's done to Chenghuan (SO FAR...).

The way she treats Chenghuan's best friend is lowkey really scummy too. She's more than happy to accept this woman's kindness and generosity, but she looks down on her for getting divorced and doesn't want to be associated with a divorcee in public. You just know if/when Mao Yongxin and Chengzao start dating there's going to be a major shitstorm in the Mai household. An older woman! With a child! What will the neighbours think! Her Xiao Zao deserves so much better (never mind that she hasn't paid him a speck of attention in 14 episodes so far)!

Anyway, I agree with you that she loves her family a lot, but I don't think her love makes her a kind person. I'm sure she'll be redeemed by the narrative by the end and the drama will conclude that Ms Liu has a big heart and just needed a bit of time to see things from her children's perspective, and that she loves her children in different ways but with equal intensity, but I just don't think she's a good person. Her first instinct in every situation is to be selfish and prejudiced. See how mean she was to her neighbour in episode 14 for no reason.

I really enjoyed that one, but I'm enjoying Best Choice Ever as well. It's not an either/or situation.

Meet Yourself and I Will Find You a Better Home are also good modern romance cdramas.

In fairness their bread has different nutritional values in different countries. Bread in America is generally much sweeter and has more chemicals than bread in many other countries.

The revelation that she's apparently some sort of serial killer who goes around assassinating people who get on her son's nerves instead of just talking to him was a bit much.

The WeTV link in the Where to Watch section on this page has the same trailers with English subtitles.

In an alternate universe these episodes are 55 minutes long because sanity prevailed in the studio and they cut all the corny slow-mo scenes and 50-second montages of people gazing at each other meaningfully in the middle of crisis situations while emotional instrumental music plays in the background. I would like to watch the drama in that universe...

Now that MCH doesn't have to be involved with the Xin family, observing their trashy drama from an outsider's perspective is way more entertaining. I liked the shot where Mrs Xin (actually Ms Chen, I think) looked around her big fancy house with despair as she took off her ring. To me, it seemed like she was taking in the wealth she'd been so proud of—that made her and her son so much better than the Mai family in her eyes—and realising none of it belonged to her. It tied in with the theme of hard work vs relying on others for status and wealth that the drama has been developing.

I did feel a little bad for Xin Jialiang too. He was a useless boyfriend to MCH, but it seems he'll continue to be a prominent character in the story, so I hope we'll see him grow up and grow a spine by the end of the show. He's not a bad person, just immature.

Also YZM was lowkey MCH's knight in shining armour at the hospital/during that whole episode. I liked that he got mad at MCH for signing off on Mr Xin's surgery. I think signing was the right thing to do and displays of moral fortitude like that are what makes MCH so likeable, but at the same time YZM was only thinking of her wellbeing at that moment and was totally on her side. And when he protected her from Xin Jiali later, I cheered. AND THEN MCH reverse-wrist grabbed him and marched him out of the hospital??? OMG!

So far it remains a mystery how exactly MCH figures into YZM's plans for corporate domination and it may well be the case that he thinks he's being kind to her for selfish reasons, but I think it's obvious he's starting to worry about her for real. The slow transition from "this girl is such a martyr she has to be faking" to "I guess MCH is just stupid for being so nice to everyone" to "I have to stay by MCH's side to prevent her from sacrificing herself for other people!!" has been great.

She needs to stop helping for real. Every time she decides it’s a great idea to talk to other people about MCH behind MCH’s back, I want to hit my head against a wall. Lady, WHEN has that ever worked out in your experience? Haven’t you noticed you keep making things worse every time you open your mouth?

I hated that storyline and skipped through many scenes with the mother and the useless boyfriend, but there was a point to it; it showed us what the Mai family is like in great detail, including the story behind the parents’ marriage (girl from a poor village comes to the big city and marries a local to better her life, but he never becomes successful) and how that’s affected their views on their children’s futures, the mother’s neglectful treatment of their younger child, the rich grandmother’s connection to the family and Mr Mai’s discomfort with her, the mother’s belief it’s her job to set Mai Chenghuan up for a good life coupled with her lack of respect for her daughter’s feelings and opinions, Mai Chenghuan (and Mai Chengzao)’s work ethic and pride in their own efforts and the mom’s inability to understand it, the fact that despite it all MCH loves her parents very much, etc. Since this is a family drama, the first 10-12 episodes served to establish the major themes we’ll be dealing with for the remaining 25.

As for MCH’s relationship with Yao Zhiming, the opening arc of the story set up that part too. They needed those 10 episodes (in reality it will probably take another 10) to see each other’s best and worst sides before they could even begin to see each other in a romantic light, so it hardly mattered if MCH was in a relationship with someone else during that time or not.

Anyway, I agree many scenes in the early episodes were frustrating and I was dying of impatience with the show at times, but they were necessary IMO.

Clocking in for my daily shift at the hating Ms Liu factory... It's painfully annoying to watch someone with the mentality and social graces of a child being parented by her own children while thinking she's helping them. But also... Yao Zhiming sexy...

The whole drama is about Huan living her values and how different she is from her mother, so saying the show wants you to simply “accept” her mother’s excessive meddling and harmful behaviours (like how unfair she is to her son and the way she goes behind Huan’s back to beg people for inappropriate favours that make Huan herself look bad) simply because that’s how some Chinese mothers think is insane. The story itself does not approve of Huan’s mother or excuse her actions because she’s Chinese!

The drama provides several examples of women taking care of their families and clearly pits the ignorance and selfishness of Huan’s mother against the grace and wisdom of her grandmother and Huan herself. Please stop saying we’re supposed to accept the mother’s actions because that’s just how Chinese women are; that’s not true and it’s not what the drama is saying.

He knows how to win a battle of wits for sure, but she's winning the war ;)

I totally agree, it's getting better and better now that we're almost done with the Xin Jialiang arc. I'm also very glad MCH refused to forgive WY because as she herself said, 1. WY had tried to sabotage her multiple times, which is completely unacceptable, and 2. she even harmed the company's bottom line by invalidating the bidding process just to get MCH in trouble. That's such an egregious error of judgment it would actually be unfair to the other employees if the company just swept it under the rug. MCH's boss really annoyed me with his weaselly attempt to cover for WY there.

As for XJL, when he was first introduced I thought he was kind of goofy but sweet. Well, in the last several episodes he's become completely intolerable. He doesn't listen to MCH at all and doesn't seem to know the first thing about the principles and values that guide her. He will only have himself to blame when she dumps him.