Hey nice response! Just wanted to add tho: the reference 官家 to address the emperor was, during the Song dynasty,…
In another era 'guanjia' could be used to refer to any government official, but during Song it's more or less reserved for the emperor. A official's wives could also use guanren 官人to address her husband. Bixia 陛下is the formal way of addressing the emperor, and is appropriate in all eras. Actually you brought up one of the reasons I'm unhappy with how the writer handled ways of addressing the emperor. Some people use one way of addressing, and other people uses another, but there is no clear logic behind their choice. This is problematic. The imperial court was a highly hierarchical and ritualized place, there must be reasons behind people's choices of word, and patterns of usage should reveal to the viewer information on the stations and relations of people involved. But I just can't see any logical patterns of usage in this drama.
I don't think 'guanjia' was used after Song, perhaps earlier but not later.
If you have watched the Longest Day in Chang'an, 'shengren' ('the sage') was used there to address the emperor.
Watched ep1-7. A few comments:1. The editing was a bit choppy. A lot of scenes were cut right after the last line…
CORRECTION: it appears the emperor's formal wear saw reduced usage during Song, so it might be historically accurate for Wang Kai to wear semi-formal on New Year's Day.
Hey nice response! Just wanted to add tho: the reference 官家 to address the emperor was, during the Song dynasty,…
Thank you. I knew 'guanjia' was indeed used during that period, but mostly likely it was used only informally. You will not find 'guanjia' directly used in official dynastic histories, only mentioned in quotes, and these quotes are mostly in informal contexts. In other words, historians did not themselves refer the emperor as 'guanjia' but only quoted others using it. So I think one can deduce that 'guanjia' was informal, and my criticism of the show was that they used 'guanjia' in fairly formal contexts.
Watched ep1-7. A few comments:1. The editing was a bit choppy. A lot of scenes were cut right after the last line…
Two more comments on men's costumes in this show.
1. The cuts are almost uniformly too slim. Too many costume designers/tailors for Chinese period shows seem to think all well-dressed men should dress like Season 1 Don Draper. No! Slim cut is antithetic to the traditional Chinese aesthetics which almost always prefer a fuller silhouette for men. I'm impressed by the promotion photo featuring Chu Junchen as Sima Guang: https://kisskh.at/photos/pjDrb This is a fuller and more authentic cut, and the proportion is just beautiful. Wang Kai in particular will benefit from a fuller silhouette as his frame is lighter than what I would consider ideal for his face. Watching Wang Kai wearing skinny suit in Ode to Joy was a painful experience for me. He will look much better if his dress is cut like Chu Junchen's.
A related problem is the lack of layering. The Kaifeng winter is no joke!
2. Wang Kai sometimes fails to dress for the occasion. Dressing properly for one's station and for the occasion is important to Confucian moral and political theories. The story in the show about the Empress Dowager's desire to wear the Emperor's formal dress and the court's strong opposition shows the writer understood this very well.
However, Wang Kai are often shown meeting multiple senior officials to discuss matters of the state while in leisure attire. This would have been unacceptable at the time and would have certainly resulted in immediate protests from officials attending the meeting (I'm not sure if that's even acceptable now. Imagine a Western president or prime minister holding a cabinet meeting wearing a sweater and no jacket).
In the original novel, the author took painstaking effort to remind the reader that whenever Renzong granted an audience with a government official, he would change from his leisure attire to court attire.
What a wonderful write-up here. Absolutely love it! You have very deep understanding of the Chinese culture especially…
Thank you. It's nice to be appreciated. But as I learned from the Longest Day in Chang'an discussions, a lot of users here are more knowledgeable than me. But I will do my best to contribute to the conversation.
1. The editing was a bit choppy. A lot of scenes were cut right after the last line of dialogue. I guess it’s done to ‘improve’ the pacing, but I found the results abrupt and unsatisfying.
2. I found the pacing and the amount of dramatic tension to be fine. I’ve read the source material. The original novel is remarkably under-dramatized and leisurely paced. This (greatly expanded) adaptation is consistent with the source material in this regard.
3. A lot of people confuse ‘slow pacing’ with a disinterest in the show’s promises. Chinese period shows form a very rich and diverse genre, it’s natural that not everyone will like every show. The author of the original novel stated that she intended her novel to paint a broader picture of the society, politics and culture of the Renzong era, not merely an incredible and sad love story between a princess and her palace attendant. The novel includes lengthy discussions on techniques of classical Chinese painting and principles of good writing. If you don’t get excited merely by looking at the names of the famous writers, poets and scholars appearing in this show, or have a willingness to acquaint yourself with them, this show is probably not for you. Also if you don’t like long discourses on Confucian moral and political principles, this show is probably not for you.
4. The writings on this show is better than I expected given the screenwriter had never worked on a historical before. It’s still jarring sometimes. For example, when people use the informal 官家guanjia to refer to the emperor when the situation clearly calls for the formal 皇帝huangdi or 天子 tianzi. Mistakes like these regularly breaks the immersion for me.
5. Costume design sees major improvements for men from Minglan, and minor improvements for women. To simplify, men’s attires at the time for serious occasions contain three tiers. Formal (think morning dress in the Western dress code), Semi-formal (think black tie) and Business (think business suit). This show correctly shows that man without a title or official position wear business attire for their wedding (unlike the travesty worn by Feng Shaofeng in Minglan). But I'm pretty sure it’s incorrect for Wang Kai to wear semi-formal to the court meeting on New Year’s Day [CORRECTION: it appears the emperor's formal wear saw reduced usage during Song, so it might be historically accurate for Wang Kai to wear semi-formal on New Year's Day]. The occasion would have called for formal attire. Also I’m not sure if black leather belts were historical. But overall it’s a clear improvement for men. Women’s attire is a different story. The formal dresses for women show an improvement from Minglan (which was also reasonably good), but the informal dresses were done less well (still better than Minglan overall).
6. The set design is good, but sometimes favor aesthetics over logic. For example, the dividers in the provincial exam scene all had paintings on them. Does anyone really think a provincial exam center would take the trouble and expense to put paintings on their dividers? The set design in Minglan suffered the same problem. The Sheng family, despite their lower status, has a better looking home than the princess and duke’s.
I might sound negative, but overall I’m enjoying the show.
English subbed trailers:https://wetv.vip/en/play/rh8nrh9a2ti0au5/k0033nonqvwhttps://wetv.vip/en/play/rh8nrh9a2ti0au5/p0032oj7xza
Tencent's translations are terrible as ever. The only hope non-Chinese speakers have for a tolerable experience is for Viki to get the license (I think the Mei Daxia team, the team behind Viki's Minglan subs will be in charge IF they get the license).
The screenwriter Zhuzhu (Surgeons/When a Snail Falls in Love) had never written a historical drama before taking on this one. I know this is not supposed to be a serious historical show, but still I'm disappointed with a lot of thematic choices revealed in the new trailer.
The whole mess has nothing to do with Xiao Zhan. He is nothing but an easy target for people to vent at. He had…
It's not just the blocking of AO3 by the government that sparked the outrage, it's also the willingness of some of Xiao Zhan's fans to break the unwritten rules of the Chinese internet.
In the last couple of days Xiao Zhan's more rabid fans were in spotlight again, this time for their harassment of the weibo account Asian-African Literature Bot. AALB was a platform serving a small but dedicated community of people interested in Asian and African poetry. For many years it had been the prime online depository of translations of Turkic (mostly Uyghur), Persian, and African poetry into Chinese. But a group of Xiao Zhan fans decided they didn't like the platform because it had published a translation from a Weibo user whose handle they deemed offensive to Xiao Zhan. They conducted a massive online harassment campaign against the team behind the platform and eventually the team announced they would cease operations indefinitely.
This time the closure had nothing to do with government censorship, it's simply the result of the behaviors of some Xiao Zhan fans. The closure of AALB was a major loss to the community it served. Many Uyghur users on Zhihu (the Chinese equivalent of Quora) were furious. It's just staggering Xiao Zhan fans would attack such a small community (AALB had only about 226k followers).
There are unwritten rules of conduct for members of fandoms and subculture communities on the Chinese internet. Some of Xiao Zhan fans' willingness to break these rules threatens the entire ecosystem. I know Xiao Zhan has nothing to do with it, but don't be surprised if more members of other fandoms/communities decide to band together and put pressure on Xiao Zhan in order to change the behaviors of his fans.
The new trailer had me worried. The screenwriter Zhuzhu (Surgeons/When a Snail Falls in Love) has never written a historical drama before. I know this is not supposed to be a serious historical show, but still I'm disappointed with a lot of thematic choices revealed in the trailer.
Watch this if you want to know how to pronounce her name in Uyghur. Hint: it's going to be difficult for a lot of people ('Delroba' in Farsi is so much easier!). Just fast forward to 0:32 https://www.bilibili.com/video/av90485617
Episodes 15-17 were pretty good provided you're wiling to turn your brain off whenever Tian Dan the super agent was in action. Loved the part where the former Manchu prince (Guan Baohui's father/Xu Tian's father's former master) was holding a prop spear and riding a rickshaw like a chariot on the empty streets of Beijing! Instant classic.
I had been wondering since the beginning why a district police compound would have red walls, then I saw the Buddhist murals in episode 12 which explained it (the building must have been a temple converted to police office). Terrific set design!
Also loved the Jingju-inspired musical score toward the end of episode 12. The frozen forbidden city dream scene in episode 13 was a great idea.
This show is so obviously a labor of love. A real shame that Tian Dan the super agent breaks the spell whenever she's on screen.
I don't think 'guanjia' was used after Song, perhaps earlier but not later.
If you have watched the Longest Day in Chang'an, 'shengren' ('the sage') was used there to address the emperor.
1. The cuts are almost uniformly too slim. Too many costume designers/tailors for Chinese period shows seem to think all well-dressed men should dress like Season 1 Don Draper. No! Slim cut is antithetic to the traditional Chinese aesthetics which almost always prefer a fuller silhouette for men. I'm impressed by the promotion photo featuring Chu Junchen as Sima Guang:
https://kisskh.at/photos/pjDrb
This is a fuller and more authentic cut, and the proportion is just beautiful.
Wang Kai in particular will benefit from a fuller silhouette as his frame is lighter than what I would consider ideal for his face. Watching Wang Kai wearing skinny suit in Ode to Joy was a painful experience for me. He will look much better if his dress is cut like Chu Junchen's.
A related problem is the lack of layering. The Kaifeng winter is no joke!
2. Wang Kai sometimes fails to dress for the occasion. Dressing properly for one's station and for the occasion is important to Confucian moral and political theories. The story in the show about the Empress Dowager's desire to wear the Emperor's formal dress and the court's strong opposition shows the writer understood this very well.
However, Wang Kai are often shown meeting multiple senior officials to discuss matters of the state while in leisure attire. This would have been unacceptable at the time and would have certainly resulted in immediate protests from officials attending the meeting (I'm not sure if that's even acceptable now. Imagine a Western president or prime minister holding a cabinet meeting wearing a sweater and no jacket).
In the original novel, the author took painstaking effort to remind the reader that whenever Renzong granted an audience with a government official, he would change from his leisure attire to court attire.
1. The editing was a bit choppy. A lot of scenes were cut right after the last line of dialogue. I guess it’s done to ‘improve’ the pacing, but I found the results abrupt and unsatisfying.
2. I found the pacing and the amount of dramatic tension to be fine. I’ve read the source material. The original novel is remarkably under-dramatized and leisurely paced. This (greatly expanded) adaptation is consistent with the source material in this regard.
3. A lot of people confuse ‘slow pacing’ with a disinterest in the show’s promises. Chinese period shows form a very rich and diverse genre, it’s natural that not everyone will like every show. The author of the original novel stated that she intended her novel to paint a broader picture of the society, politics and culture of the Renzong era, not merely an incredible and sad love story between a princess and her palace attendant. The novel includes lengthy discussions on techniques of classical Chinese painting and principles of good writing. If you don’t get excited merely by looking at the names of the famous writers, poets and scholars appearing in this show, or have a willingness to acquaint yourself with them, this show is probably not for you. Also if you don’t like long discourses on Confucian moral and political principles, this show is probably not for you.
4. The writings on this show is better than I expected given the screenwriter had never worked on a historical before. It’s still jarring sometimes. For example, when people use the informal 官家guanjia to refer to the emperor when the situation clearly calls for the formal 皇帝huangdi or 天子 tianzi. Mistakes like these regularly breaks the immersion for me.
5. Costume design sees major improvements for men from Minglan, and minor improvements for women. To simplify, men’s attires at the time for serious occasions contain three tiers. Formal (think morning dress in the Western dress code), Semi-formal (think black tie) and Business (think business suit). This show correctly shows that man without a title or official position wear business attire for their wedding (unlike the travesty worn by Feng Shaofeng in Minglan). But I'm pretty sure it’s incorrect for Wang Kai to wear semi-formal to the court meeting on New Year’s Day [CORRECTION: it appears the emperor's formal wear saw reduced usage during Song, so it might be historically accurate for Wang Kai to wear semi-formal on New Year's Day]. The occasion would have called for formal attire. Also I’m not sure if black leather belts were historical. But overall it’s a clear improvement for men. Women’s attire is a different story. The formal dresses for women show an improvement from Minglan (which was also reasonably good), but the informal dresses were done less well (still better than Minglan overall).
6. The set design is good, but sometimes favor aesthetics over logic. For example, the dividers in the provincial exam scene all had paintings on them. Does anyone really think a provincial exam center would take the trouble and expense to put paintings on their dividers? The set design in Minglan suffered the same problem. The Sheng family, despite their lower status, has a better looking home than the princess and duke’s.
I might sound negative, but overall I’m enjoying the show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGiXWLoHUV0
https://kisskh.at/31928-held-in-the-lonely-castle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHFvcgwoXws
Liked it a lot.
In the last couple of days Xiao Zhan's more rabid fans were in spotlight again, this time for their harassment of the weibo account Asian-African Literature Bot. AALB was a platform serving a small but dedicated community of people interested in Asian and African poetry. For many years it had been the prime online depository of translations of Turkic (mostly Uyghur), Persian, and African poetry into Chinese. But a group of Xiao Zhan fans decided they didn't like the platform because it had published a translation from a Weibo user whose handle they deemed offensive to Xiao Zhan. They conducted a massive online harassment campaign against the team behind the platform and eventually the team announced they would cease operations indefinitely.
This time the closure had nothing to do with government censorship, it's simply the result of the behaviors of some Xiao Zhan fans. The closure of AALB was a major loss to the community it served. Many Uyghur users on Zhihu (the Chinese equivalent of Quora) were furious. It's just staggering Xiao Zhan fans would attack such a small community (AALB had only about 226k followers).
There are unwritten rules of conduct for members of fandoms and subculture communities on the Chinese internet. Some of Xiao Zhan fans' willingness to break these rules threatens the entire ecosystem. I know Xiao Zhan has nothing to do with it, but don't be surprised if more members of other fandoms/communities decide to band together and put pressure on Xiao Zhan in order to change the behaviors of his fans.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av90485617
https://www.bilibili.com/video/av11309646
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a1w7FemZYc
I think this is Dilraba's very first TV appearance
Also loved the Jingju-inspired musical score toward the end of episode 12. The frozen forbidden city dream scene in episode 13 was a great idea.
This show is so obviously a labor of love. A real shame that Tian Dan the super agent breaks the spell whenever she's on screen.