Giddens

It Came from the Sinosphere: Full Count

January 1, 2013 by Sara K. 1 Comment

Oh goodness. It’s Giddens again.

Story

Li Ke with a baseball bat

Li Ke (Ah Ke) is a young man who works at an electronics store (he also has a passion for baseball). He has a big crush on his boss, Yu Wenzi.

His boss, Yu Wenzi

He wants to confess his feelings on Wenzi’s birthday but, understandably, he’s extremely nervous. Ah Ke’s friend, Bao Luo, recommends that he gets over his nerves by practising – confess his feelings of love to 100 women before he confesses to Wenzi. Since Wenzi’s birthday is just the next day, Ah Ke can’t be picky – he confesses to old women, young girls, basically any female he encounters.

Ah Ke awkwardly practises confesses his feelings of love

Most of these people reject him as a creep, which suits Ah Ke just fine since he doesn’t want a relationship with them. But – if know anything about romantic comedies, you know this is going to happen – when Ah Ke makes his 100th confession to a pretty young woman called Su Xiaoxue, she accepts.

Su Xiaoxue

Oh dear.

Oh, and to top it off, another colleague, Meng Xue, does confess his feelings to Wenzi on her birthday.

Background

This idol drama is adapted from the Giddens novel of the same name. I have discussed Giddens before here and here.

This is an early Giddens novel, in fact, I think it’s only the second romance novel he wrote (one of the main characters from his first romance novel makes a cameo appearance in this one). In the introduction, he says that he wrote this novel while his friend was in the hospital, so he wanted to write a light-hearted story.

For an American, I am extremely clueless when it comes to baseball, thus all references to baseball in this story are lost on me. Baseball is actually reasonably popular in Taiwan. Since Taiwan does not have its own major leagues, many Taiwanese baseball fans keep track of the major leagues in the United States (some also choose to keep track of Japanese baseball).

Novel vs. Idol Drama

The fundamental story is mostly intact, but there are actually a lot of changes between the novel and the idol drama, and there is a significant change in the ending. I don’t want to catalogue the differences, so I’ll make general comments instead.

Some of the changes seem to have no point whatsoever. I don’t mind them, since I don’t think they made the story worse, but I also didn’t why they bothered (production reasons)?

Some changes seem to be there to make the story longer i.e. add filler. As far as filler goes, I think most of it is okay, but it also doesn’t improve the story.

I did not like the way they changed the ending. They basically tried to shoehorn the ending into a typical idol-drama ending … and one of the things I liked about the novel is that it did not pick the most conventional ending for a romantic comedy. There are enough idol dramas which follow the standard formula – and do so with more flair – that I don’t think this drama should have forced the story down that route.

Storywise, though, the change I liked the least (spoiler warning, even though I think this is so predictable that it shouldn’t count as a spoiler) was Xiaoxue’s crime spree. In the TV show, she is a graffiti artist. In the novel, she burns mailboxes. I think burning mailboxes is much more interesting. And it also makes more sense in the context of the story – I think a mailbox-arsonist is much more likely to appear in the news multiple times. Furthermore, I think it’s more in character for Xiaoxue to be a mailbox-arsonist than a graffiti artist (okay, maybe I feel that way because I read the novel first). Maybe they changed the crime to graffiti art because they wanted to make Xiaoxue to be more likeable … but I think mailbox-arson adds much more zest to the story.

Actually, I think that reflects the overall change in tone between the novel and the TV show. The novel kept the readers on their toes by inserting all kinds of bumps of while keeping the story coherent. The TV show smooths out the bumps for a more conventional, idol drama ride.

About Bao Luo’s Homosexuality

This is another change from the novel.

In both the novel and the idol drama, Bao Luo identifies as gay. However, in the novel, his romantic/sex life is completely off-screen. I know there are issues with having gay friends in fiction whose romantic/sex lives are never shown, but what the TV show does is definitely worse.

In the TV show, he gets a crush on a woman.

Now, I know that sexuality is fluid, and that sexual orientations are not as fixed as some people claim they are (this is an example). However, this plot change doesn’t seem to come from great sensitivity to the full range of human diversity. Instead, it feels like a denial of Bao Luo’s non-heterosexuality. In other words, the TV show is saying that he’s not *really* gay, and by extension, implies that homosexuality isn’t a *real* sexual orientation.

On the one hand, Taiwan is probably more tolerant towards queer people than any other large society in Asia (this is mainly because that’s a pretty low standard). The Taipei Gay Pride Parade is the largest gay pride parade in Asia, and there are many civil organizations run by and for queer people. Queer people in Taiwan are probably less likely to be targeted for violence on account of their orientation than their peers in the United States. Most Taiwanese people under 30 who I’ve met will at least say that there’s nothing wrong with being gay, even though they sometimes display a certain degree of discomfort.

On the other hand, I have been astonished by how ignorant most Taiwanese people are about queer people. Granted, I grew up in San Francisco, so I may underestimate most of the world’s ignorance of queer people. Still, this ignorance leads many Taiwanese people – even the people who claim that they have nothing against gay people – to enforce heteronormativity. Taiwanese queer people say they still face plenty of discrimination.

I think making a Bao Luo a “gay man” instead of a gay man reflects this ignorance. Thank goodness Giddens didn’t do that in the original novel.

Location

The story is set in Taipei, and as such, much of it is familiar territory to me. What I want to point out is Core Pacific City, which is described by Lonely Planet as:

Some people call it Core Pacific City. We like to think of it as The Great Golf Ball of Taipei. Designed by Jon Jerde, the Pablo Picasso of the architecture world, Core Pacific City is quite probably the weirdest shopping mall in Asia. An inspired (by MC Escher or perhaps LSD) building to say the least, from the outside CPC looks like a gigantic golf ball being embraced by a stone sarcophagus.

Core Pacific City is used as a background for some of the scenes in this TV drama.

I personally was underwhelmed when I visited Core Pacific City, though I thought the puppet museum next door was very informative.

Nonetheless, I think it’s appropriate that Core Pacific City is used as a location for this odd story.

Did I Enjoy Watching This?

The short answer is yes.

Overall, the acting is pretty good, and even the music grew on me after I heard it enough times.

And, to its credit, it actually does not follow the standard idol drama plot formula (despite the last-ditch effort at the end). Plenty of the quirkiness of the novel still comes through, and makes for a refreshing change. But it’s not just the quirkiness. Most of Giddens’ work have a certain sincerity, and I think that’s one of the reasons he’s so popular. The sincerity also comes through in the TV series.

Availability in English

As far as I know, there is no legal way to watch this idol drama or read the novel in English.

Conclusion

I actually do like the novel (quite frankly, I like this novel more than You Are the Apple of My Eye). It’s off-beat and a nice change from what I usually read.

I even like the TV show. While I complained about the changes, I think a lot of what I like about the novel is also present in the TV series. And … I think that there should be more Giddens-inspired idol dramas. He influences the genre in a good way.

Next Time: The Eleventh Son (novel)

Sara K. wishes everybody a happy new year.

It Came from the Sinosphere: You Are the Apple of My Eye (film)

November 20, 2012 by Sara K. 3 Comments

A bunch of high school boys are looking at the same thing

The Shen Chia-yi fan club

You Are the Apple of My Eye is one of the most popular novels and, more recently, one of the most popular Taiwanese movies of the last ten years. The Mandarin title ‘Nà Xiē Nián, Wǒmen Yīqǐ Zhuī de Nǚhái’ (那些年，我們一起追的女孩) roughly means “Those Years, The Girl We Pursued Together,” and I think that’s a more accurate description of this story.

The Story

The story starts with a senior high school student, Ko Ching-teng, in Changhua. Changhua is to Taiwan as Indiana is to the United States, in other words, a place generally not known to people outside of Taiwan that is noted for … not being very interesting (the tourist town of Lukang nonwithstanding).

Ko Ching-teng and all his buddies have a crush on the same girl, Shen Chia-yi. The story is basically about the progression of Ko Ching-teng’s relationship with Shen Chia-yi in senior high school, college, and afterwards.

About Giddens Ko

So, I’ve talked about Giddens before, but considering that this is one the most popular novels he ever wrote *and* he is the director of this movie, I think it’s time to talk more about him.

A bunch of ... monks? ... collapsing in front of a Buddha at night

This is what a Giddens high school romance looks like

Last time, I talked about one of Giddens’ quasi-wuxia stories. Well, in addition to writing quasi-wuxia, he also writes high school romance. That in itself is rather admirable.

Notice the “Ko” in “Giddens Ko.” It’s the same as the “Ko” in “Ko Ching-teng.” “Giddens” of course is a pen name; his name in real life is … Ko Ching-teng. That’s right. Though this is labelled as fiction, the novel is basically a memoir (though I don’t know to what extent it is accurate and to what extent Giddens has changed things for entertainment purposes).

This is not going to be the last time I talk about Giddens, so I think that’s enough for now.

Novel vs. Movie

It’s striking just how different the novel is from the movie. I think this is actually a good thing. I can’t really imagine the novel working well as a movie, and most of the changes do make the story more cinematic.

First of all, the time frame of the movie is shorter than the novel. The novel starts when Ko Ching-teng is 12 years old, the movie … I’m not clear, but at the earliest the movie starts when Ko Ching-teng is 15 years old.

The movie focuses a lot on juvenile humor, and depicts Ko Ching-teng as your everyday class clown. The novel is much more centered on nostalgia, and the force of Ko Ching-teng’s thoroughly geeky personality is much more apparent. For example, the novel drops references to Windows 3.1 and TV shows which were popular in Taiwan in the early 1990s, all absent from the movie.

Somebody is reading the Taiwanese Edition of Dragonball

In the movie, Shen Chia-yi tutors Ko Ching-teng in English (well, not just English, but the movie focuses on the English). In the novel, IIRC, it says that that Chinese and English were the only subjects in school that Ko Ching-teng actually got good grades in because he was destined to become a novelist. Shen Chia-yi had to prod him into studying other subjects.

In fact, there are lots of changes between the novel and the movie. What doesn’t change is the main idea. And that’s the point. Anybody (who can read Chinese) who wants the novel can read the bloody novel. If communicating the main idea—that first love is valuable even if it doesn’t last—is what’s important, then the movie is actually rather faithful.

Look! It’s a Pingxi Sky Lantern!

The three main towns in the Pingxi District—Shifen, Pingxi, and Jingtong—are some of the most touristy towns in Taiwan. They are supposed to represent an idyllic rustic Taiwanese town (if you want to visit the area but without the hordes of tourists, I suggest visiting the little village of Lingjiao, between Shifen and Pingxi, which has some nice stuff, and is much quieter). Of course, my favorite town in the Keelung valley is Houtong, which is finally getting discovered (I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about that).

These are the train tracks right outside Jingtong’s quaint Japanese-era train station. If you’re seen the idol drama Devil Beside You (adapted from the manga The Devil Does Exist), then you might have noticed that the main characters also spend some time in Jingtong.

One of the most famous things about the Pingxi District is their custom of launching sky lanterns, in particular during the Lantern Festival (an island-wide celebration). Many tourists choose to launch their own sky lantern when they visit.

Now, I have been to the sky lantern festival in Shifen, and to be honest, I think it’s overrated. But my main objection to the sky lanterns is the environmental toll. The Pingxi district is a great place to go hiking—both for people who like easy strolls and people who like strenuous treks on knife-edge ridges—and the woods are filled with fallen lanterns. Made out of plastic. I think they should, at the very least, use some compostable material to make the lanterns, and if that makes it a lot more expensive, so be it. If the tourists don’t want to pay for it, then they can pass.

Of course, when I see this, I think about how kitchy this tradition has become, as well as the woods filled with discarded plastic. But in the context of the movie, it’s actually a nice symbol of the characters’ hopes.

About that Juvenile Humor

Two high school boys masturbate in class.

The boys are having fun in class (notice where their left hands are).

I have a confession to make.

I actually like the humor in this movie. Yes, even though much of it revolves around masturbation and erections and other sexual subjects.

But it works.

It works because it’s authentic. Giddens isn’t using the humor just to score lafs. This is a movie about the transition from adolescence to adulthood, and 1) many adolescents and young adults spend a lot of time masturbating and thinking about sex and b) it’s really awkward, and sometimes humor is the best way to talk about something awkward.

Why I Have Trouble Relating to the Movie

I didn’t have a “Shen Chia-yi” in my teenage years. There was nobody who I waxed romantically about even 10% as much Ko Ching-teng does about Shen Chia-yi. If I made a list of the things that I was most preoccupied with during my teenage years, “romance” would not make it to the top ten (likewise, the things that would appear in my top five don’t seem to be so important to Ko Ching-teng, at least not in this story). There is such a disconnect between my experience as a teenager and Ko Ching-teng’s experience as shown in both the novel and the movie, that I get the feeling that this story is not for me.

But that’s okay. Not all stories have to be about me. And the popularity of both the novel and the movie prove that it does resonate with a lot of people.

Availability in English

This movie is available on DVD with English subtitles.

Conclusion

Everybody I have asked says that the novel is better than the movie. I cannot argue with them. The novel gives a much deeper and more thorough description of Ko Ching-teng’s feelings, makes it easier to understand why Ko Ching-teng and Shen Chia-yi are attracted to each other, makes Ko Ching-teng seem more like a unique person, and makes it clearer why Ko Ching-teng and Shen Chia-yi are not actually a good match. I think MJ would like the novel more that the movie too.

Yet I happen to like the movie more than the novel.

I respect the novel. But as I said earlier, it is not easy for me to relate to this … and there is page after page after page about Ko Ching-teng’s feelings.

The movie puts more emphasis on humorous hijinks. It’s more entertaining, and it’s much faster. And the movie still manages to get the main point across. Whee!

Next Time: North City, Book of a Hundred Drawings (manhua)

Sara K. thinks that the popularity of Giddens is evidence that Taiwan is a society of geeks. It’s probably more accurate to say the subset of the population that actually reads novels is extremely geeky, but even so, Giddens’ works have a much higher geek factor than the vast majority of bestsellers in the United States.

It Came From the Sinosphere: The 8th Bronze Man of Shaolin (Manhua)

October 30, 2012 by Sara K. 6 Comments

So our protagonist, Qisuo, grew up hearing stories about heroes. Naturally, he wants to become a hero. Where do you become a hero? Shaolin Temple of course (see my previous post about The 36th Chamber of Shaolin).

Qisuo manages to get to Shaolin Temple. Being Buddhist, the monks of Shaolin temple are supposed to be celibate vegetarians. What does Qisuo find at Shaolin temple?

Why, it’s monks eating meat and hanging out with prostitutes! What gives?

Shaolin Temple started accepting any rich kid as a student in order to get generous donations, and the rich kids don’t really want to give up on meat and sex, and … well it influenced the whole institution. Shaolin Temple is now a school for anti-heroes.

Note 1: this is an example of truth-in-fiction; the present day Shaolin Temple does allow the consumption of meat, and according to one martial arts master I know, has become a tourist trap which has lost its traditional way.
Note 2: It is very common, at least in the wuxia fiction I read, for Shaolin (or other Buddhist) monks to somehow break their vows of chastity. They actually seem to be more likely to get laid than the lay unmarried male characters.

Anyway, WHAT IS QISUO SUPPOSED TO DO?! He is so naïve that even this isn’t enough to break his rose-colored glasses.

Don’t worry, he gets to study some marital arts … after getting bullied at the Shaolin Temple.

Oh, and childhood friend, Hongzhong, also leaves the village to learn martial arts. She’s not going to let Qisuo have all the fun.

About Giddens Ko

Giddens Ko is nobody important. He’s just Taiwan’s most popular active novelist.

About Online Novels

It’s a bit hard to describe the world of online novels, partially because I don’t know it as well as I should.

On the one hand, for aspiring Taiwanese novelists, online is pretty much the only way to start these days. Even novelists who prefer the traditional publishing route have to go there because the traditional publishers would rather work with writers who have already proven themselves online.

Fortunately for the aspiring novelists, Taiwan has a vibrant and unique online culture, which I actually am not too familiar with since I spend most of my online hours in the English-language net (hey, I already live in Taiwan offline, I don’t need to live in Taiwan online too, at least not yet). One of the distinctive features of the Taiwanese internet is that bulletin board systems (BBS), which are considering a relic in most of the world, still flourish (another reason I’m not too familiar with the Taiwanese internet – while I’ve learned thousands of Chinese characters, I still haven’t learned how to use a BBS!). Anyway, it is in the BBS-world that aspiring novelists show their stuff.

Now, there are traditional-style novels which first reach readers through the internet. For example, Passionate Wastrel, Infatuated Hero was originally published online. If these novels get a traditional publishing contract, they will generally be listed under a traditional genre (in this specific case, “wuxia”). However, a new style of novel writing has emerged from the labyrinths of the Taiwanese BBS world, and if these novels get printed, they will be listed as “online” novels.

Giddens first became famous in the BBS world, and I know about half of his novels originated there. I have not confirmed whether The 8th Bronze Man of Shaolin is one of them. Nonetheless, pretty much all of Giddens novels get shelved under “online novels,” regardless of the story’s genre. And while this story is in some sense a wuxia story, the novel is written in an online style.

Oh wait a minute. I’m not discussing the novel. I’m discussing the manhua. So I also need to talk about…

James Khoo

So, if Tony Wong (whom I’ve discussed here and here) and Ma Wing-shing (whom I discussed here) are the two top Hong Kong kung-fu/wuxia manhua artists, then James Khoo is around number four. He actually started as an assistant for Tony Wong, and later left to make his own name.

Artwork

Unsurprisingly, James Khoo’s style is a lot like Tony Wong’s style. On the one hand, his artwork doesn’t pop the way that Tony Wong’s does, nor does it compel me to flip back through the pages after I’ve finished a volume. On the other hand, it’s more grounded—and I don’t think it’s any less lovely. I haven’t seen James Khoo display Tony Wong’s skill in telling a story visually, though this might not have been the right story in which to do that (NOTE: the artwork looks way better in print than in these terrible photos).

Seriously, was it necessary to expose Ling Xue’s belly like that? She’s a flipping martial artist! None of the male martial artists wear such impractical clothing…

Original Tragedies and Monkey Wrenches

Most wuxia novels (or at least the ones I’ve read) follow the original tragedy/monkey wrench pattern. To me, it’s more essential than the martial arts. The “original tragedy” is something horrible that happens to the protagonist early on and propels the protagonist into embarking on a journey, literal and/or metaphorical. The story is basically about the protagonist coming to terms with the “original tragedy.” But the path is not straightforward, because at some point, a monkey wrench is going to hit the protagonist on the head (and sometimes there are multiple monkey wrenches).

To make this clearer, let me use the wuxia novel Pingzong Xiaying Lu as an example. The protagonist is Yun Lei. In the prologue, we learn that her grandfather had been exiled in Mongolia for 20 years, her father had been killed, and she had been separated from her mother, all because of somebody called Zhang Zongzhou. Shortly before his death, her grandfather commanded his offspring to grow up and get revenge by killing any member of the Zhang family, young or old, that they may encounter. At the time, Yun Lei was seven years old. This is her original tragedy.

Ten years later, Yun Lei is a teenager who knows how to wield a sword. It is time for her to actually go about getting revenge for the wrongs done to her family. She intends to reunite with her brother, whom she hasn’t seen in more than ten years, so they can get revenge together. Of course, traveling alone isn’t fun, so she travels with a young man called Danfeng. He’s also pretty good with a sword. They have adventures together and fall in love. Then it is revealed that Danfeng is Zhang Danfeng and … well, I think you can guess who his father is. He is Yun Lei’s monkey wrench.

This is the most common setup—somebody killed the protagonist’s parent(s), so the protagonist must work hard to be powerful enough to get revenge—but then ZOMYGOSH THE PROTAGONIST FALLS IN LOVE WITH THE CHILD OF WHOEVER KILLED THE PROTAGONIST’S PARENT!!!!!! There are, however, plenty of other ways to set up original tragedies and monkey wrenches. And of course, original tragedy/monkey wrench setups can be found outside wuxia too (in manga, for example).

Why did I go into this long digression? Because this is why the story of The 8th Bronze Man of Shaolin doesn’t quite click with me. Qisuo does not have an original tragedy—he left his village because he wants to be a hero. Okay, he does get bullied a bit at the Shaolin temple but a) Qisuo doesn’t seem to be hurt enough for that to work as an original tragedy b) it doesn’t change Qisuo or inspire him to take a particular course of action.

Now, Jubao does have an original tragedy, but a) he’s not the primary protagonist and b) it … I just don’t feel enough pain coming from Jubao for that to quite work either.

Wuxia stories don’t absolutely need original tragedies but this story doesn’t really work without one. The lack of monkey wrenches also does not help. This story feels to me like it’s just about youths learning martial arts, improving, and defeating increasingly powerful enemies … all without growing or maturing as people.

And the thing is, I don’t even think the fights are that good. I have no issue with James Khoo’s artwork—to the extent that the fights are interesting, it’s thanks to him—it’s just that the fights aren’t written to be very interesting. On a technical level, most of the fights lack any elements of puzzle-solving or surprise which can provide intellectual stimulation. On an emotional level there is … little impact.

In other words, this story fails for me.

Availability in English

The artwork is available to anybody who has eyesight. The story (in both manhua and pure prose form) is only available to readers of Chinese, but I don’t think that’s a big loss.

Conclusion

I don’t think Giddens was trying to write a classic wuxia story at all. I think he was trying to indulge in wuxia geeks’ fantasies. Qisuo—who grew up listening to stories of heroism—is basically a cipher for the reader. He gets to be best friends with Zhang Sanfeng, the legendary creator of Tai Chi and a character in many wuxia stories, help him develop Tai Chi, and eventually marry his sweetheart.

Well, it did not work for me. But the idea is good. In fact, Giddens tries the same thing in another novel, and in that novel it works so well that it is my favorite Giddens novel so far (I will discuss it here eventually, I am sure).

I do like James Khoo’s art … and I find it a bit disappointing that he choose to adapt this novel when there are so many better novels out there he could have adapted (Pingzong Xiaying Lu for example).

Next Time: Bump Off Lover / Ai Sha 17 (idol drama)

What was Sara K. doing while this column was on hiatus last week? Last Tuesday she was visiting Little Liuqiu Island, where they burn boats (they weren’t burning any boats while she was there though). Anyway, Sara K. is going to do a lot less running around Taiwan now, which means this column will regain its regularity. Hopefully.