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It Came From the Sinosphere: Shadow of Visions

August 6, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

Cover of Volume One of Shadow of Visions.

Example Scene

When I first picked this up and browsed through it, this was the scene that caught my eye.

shadow03

Wanxiang’s dream is to win the beauty pageant so she can win the prize, return to her hometown, marry her childhood friend, and live comfortably ever after.

shadow04

However, a seer has told her that it’s best for her to forget about the pageant and just return to her hometown now. But without the prize, she will be poor. And she’s certain she will win.

shadow05

The pageant has started, and Wanxiang is as confident as ever.

Wanxiang is on a boat displaying her beauty.

It is the most beautiful, splendid, glorious moment of her life …

Wanxiang is shot, is bleeding, falls, and dies.

… and the end of her life.

shadow02

I was struck by the contrast of her beauty and the serenity all around her, and the fact that she has just been murdered.

The Story

Yingshuang has a dream: the freedom to wander and go where she wants. Strange, I know. However, everybody expects her to marry the son of her wealthy neighbor, Wen Moyan. Though Moyan has been sweet on Yingshuang since childhood, she doesn’t have the slightest interest in being his wife.

Moyan visits Yingshuang

Then one day, an apparently blind man, Shan Yumu, appears in the village. He is said to bring bad luck. In fact, he’s not blind – he’s merely tired of seeing the future. And he sees that, unless Yingshuang gives up her dream and marries Moyan, her family will soon be destroyed.

Well … not long afterwards, her home is set on fire, and Yingshuang is the sole survivor of her family. It is eventually revealed that the arsonist/murderer is … Moyan, who is so in love with Yingshuang that, after her repeated refusals of his marriage proposals, was driven to destroy her family so that she would be completely dependent on him and finally agree to marry him (note: if this is “love,” then I hope nobody ever “loves” me).

After Yingshuang frees Yumu (who had been arrested as a suspected arsonist), they start wandering together. But Moyan does not give up so easily…

Background

This is yet another Star Girls title (I have written about StarGirls before). Sheau Giun (she seems to prefer her Taiwanese name to her Mandarin name) is a regular contributor to Star Girls – she has a series running in the magazine right now.

Artwork

shadow09

Can you tell this is from Taiwan and not Japan just by looking at the artwork?

shadow08

I can’t. Sure, the visual sensibility is certainly informed by Chinese traditions, but that’s also true of Japanese manga set in historical China.

shadow12

Of course, this is what I expect from Star Girls, which tries to be as much like Japanese shojo magazines as possible.

And this manhua can be just as bloody as Japanese shojo manga.

And this manhua can be just as bloody as Japanese shojo manga.

I like the artwork. First, it’s very effective at telling the story. It’s also clean, and pleasing to the eye (or at least my eye).

shadow11

While I could go into a detailed analysis of how the artwork works, this time, I think I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

shadow10

Choice vs. Predestination

Well, the premise of this story is: are our fates determined, or can we choose our fate? (the answer: both, because our choices are predetermined)

The story adds a feminist slant, in that society defines women’s fates more narrowly than men’s. Yingshuang *should* just go ahead and marry Moyan, who will “love” her and spend many happy years with her, while her family can continue to prosper. All she needs to do is give up on her dream of having some freedom.

And when Yingshuang refuses this path, and Moyan decides to burn her family because he “loves” her so much, it’s *Yingshuangs’s* fault that her family is gone and that Moyan is now a criminal. No, not Moyan’s fault at all. In the real world, this victim-blaming happens all the time when men punish women for exercising autonomy.

The thing is: it’s humans who determine this. There wasn’t any supernatural force which makes Moyan act as he does; Moyan, in spite of his claims that Yingshuang’s rejection of his love “forced” him, actually chooses his own actions. However, society assigns the blame to Yingshuang because she has rejected the status quo, whereas Moyan is acting in accordance to the status quo. We later learn that, though Yumu is male, his personal circumstances are more like Yingshuang’s than Moyan’s. This is why, repeatedly throughout the story, people trust Moyan but not Yingshuang or Yumu – Yumu looks like a bum, Yingshuang is a teenage girl, but Moyan is a “charming” man from a “good” (re: powerful) family.

Yingshuang, with her hair cut, wanders through the desert

The story puts a neatly ironic twist in Yingshuang’s ‘fate’, but that would be a spoiler.

My History With This Manhua

When I was first nursing a curiosity about Chinese-language comics, there was precious little information available. I could piece together some bits of information from the internet, but it was not very newbie-friendly. I did, however, learn about Star Girls, and lacking better guidance, I went to a Taiwanese comic book shop and picked up the first volume of every Star Girls manhua they had in stock.

This manhua was one of them.

Some of the manhua I picked up from that grab-bag were so terrible that I am grateful that I’ve already forgotten them.

This, however, made the deepest impression. It was one of the few which I bothered to track down in its entirety.

One of the reasons I write this column is so that it will be a little easier for the next person who becomes curious about Chinese-language comics. While this column is not a comprehensive guide, I hope it’s more useful than what I was working with when I started exploring.

Availability in English

This manhua has never been licensed in English *Sara K. experiences a coughing attack*.

Conclusion

This is overall a solid read. While I can quibble about its faults (for example, that plot hole left wide open in the last volume), overall, it’s competent storytelling. I also have fond memories of it being one of the first manhua I liked.

Yet, somehow, it falls short of being so wonderful that I simply MUST SHARE WITH EVERYONE!!!! But perhaps that’s just as well. I’m fine with it going on being the manhua which I like, but which nobody else reads (not that anybody reads the manhua which I enthusiastically recommend either).

Next time: Laughing in the Wind (TV show)


Hail. In Taiwan. In JULY. Sara knows it snows in the mountains in winter, but she sure did not expect the summer to be this cold. After spending three nights at temperatures of about 12 degrees C with only a sleeping bag to keep her warm, Sara was even looking forward to returning to humid, 30+ degrees-C weather. Well, one of the reasons she went to the mountains in the first place was to get away from summer heat. In that respect, the trip was a resounding success.

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: manhua, Sheau Giun, star girls, taiwan

It Came from the Sinosphere: Starry Starry Night

July 23, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

Right near the beginning of the film, our protagonist is sitting inside Taipei Train Station, with a train ticket in her hand. Then it begins to snow.

starry01

I think that says more about what kind of movie this is than any blurb I can think up.

The Story

Xiaomei is not as happy living in the city with her parents as she was when she lived with her grandfather in the countryside. She becomes friends with her new classmate, Xiaojie, who is often bullied by the other students.

There is a piece missing in her “Starry Starry Night” jigsaw puzzle, and she can’t find it or replace it.

starry06

Eventually, shortly after her grandfather’s death, Xiaomei’s parents announce that they are going to divorce. Afterwards, Xiaomei runs away with Xiaojie to go to the house where she lived with her (now dead) grandfather. But they get lost…

Background

This film is based on the picture book by the very successful Taiwanese illustrator/writer Jimmy Liao, which in turn was named after a certain Vincent Van Gogh painting. It was a Chinese-Taiwanese co-production (China supplied the money, Taiwan supplied the creativity), and the first public screening was at the Busan International Film Festival.

Location, Location, Location

Wow.

First of all, when I saw the first scene, which was filmed in Taipei Train Station, I thought “that is exactly how it looked when I was living in Taipei.” I remember when the scaffolding in the background was first put up. However, it’s been over a year since Taipei train station looked like that (the scaffolding was for the renovation), so I checked. Lo and behold, that scene was shot in March 2011, when I was still living quite close to the train station. Back then, I spent quite a bit of time wandering around Taipei station, pondering whatever was on my mind (for example, I remember one evening when I was walking around Taipei train station and couldn’t stop thinking about Basara). The fact that this is exactly how Taipei Train Station looked when I lived around there (minus the snow, of course) makes this specific scene very nostalgic to me. When I get around to discussing Mars (I can hardly believe that I haven’t dedicated a post to Mars yet) I will say more about the neighborhood.

And then there are the scenes in the Alishan mountains.

This looks like it's might still in the subtropical zone, so I suspect this scene isn't too deep into the Alishan mountains.

This is nothing compared to the famous cypress or bamboo forests in the Alishan region.

The film never says that Xiaomei’s grandfather lived in the Alishan mountains … but it looks like the Alishan mountains, and I know that it was filmed in the Alishan mountains.

The Alishan mountains have an important place in Taiwan’s cultural heritage. First of all, Taiwan’s most famous kind of tea, Alishan mountain tea, is grown there. A popular Taiwanese drink/desert, aiyu, originated in the Alishan mountains, and the best aiyu I’ve ever consumed was in Ruifeng, one of Alishan’s villages. Alishan is one of the most popular places to view Yushan, Taiwan’s highest – and most culturally revered – mountain. And then, there is the famous Alishan Forest Railway, which an important cultural symbol, as well as notorious for its many mishaps. Currently, only a few sections of the railway are in operation (the tracks have a tendency to collapse during earthquakes and typhoons). The silver lining is that, because the trains aren’t running, it is safe to walk on the tracks, which is sometimes the best way to get around the transportation-hostile Alishan range (roads are often washed-out, buses get cancelled, etc). In fact, during the film, Xiaomei and Xiaojie do walk on some train tracks.

There are tons of tea fields in the Alishan region.

There are tons of tea fields in the Alishan region.

Currently, the grandfather’s house is in the historic town of Fenqihu. The movie was not filmed there, but the county requested they move the film set to a place where tourists could visit it. At the time I visited it, I had not seen the movie, but I could see the loving and meticulous care put into all of the little details of the house.

What Does France Have To Do With It?

Xiaomei’s mother is into all things French. She wears French clothes, drinks French wine, decorates her home with French artwork, often talks in France, and after the divorce, she moves to France.

A scene in France.

A scene in France.

Until a few decades ago, most prominent visual artists in Taiwan received their training abroad, usually in Japan, China, or … France. When I visit art galleries focusing on Taiwanese artists from before 1980, I can often tell whether the artist trained in Japan, China, or France. Since the institutions to support native talent in the fine arts in Taiwan are relatively young, patrons of the arts who are not so interested in contemporary work often devote most of their attention to foreign art.

What I find interesting is that, in Xiaomei’s imagination, Alishan/Taiwan and France/Europe are not separate worlds. They are part of the same world – her world. Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the scene where an Alishan alpine train rolls through Van Gogh’s “Starry Starry Night.”

The Alishan alpine goes through Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night

Climate-wise, Alishan and France are also not so different. Though Taiwan is a tropical island, the Alishan region is at such as a high elevation that it’s climate is temperate, as you can tell in the movie. When I show some of the photos I’ve taken in Taiwan’s mountainous interior to both Taiwanese and European people, they often comment ‘that looks like Europe’.

The Alishan region also has a significant number of European Catholic missionaries – as reflected in the movie by the abandoned church.

The abandoned church, next to a section of the Alishan railway.  There are reasons why most of the Alishan train line is not operating right now, and reasons why, back when it was operating, it was unreliable and had a number of accidents which killed a bunch of passengers.

The abandoned church, next to a section of the Alishan railway. There are reasons why most of the Alishan train line is not operating right now, and reasons why, back when it was operating, it was unreliable and had a number of accidents which killed a bunch of passengers.

Strike ‘Em With Magical Realism

A lot of the appeal of this movie comes from juxtaposing ordinary things in an extraordinary way. For example, Taipei Train Station is ordinary, and snow is ordinary, but snow in Taipei Train Station is extraordinary. Ditto with the Alishan alipine train and the painting ‘Starry Starry Night’.

However, sometimes it’s a little more subtle – light the shadow of Xiaomei’s half-naked body in an abandoned church (I’m surprised that I’m calling the silhouette of an adolescent girl changing her clothes inside a church “subtle”).

starry09

However, the climax of the movie is Xiaomei’s nightmare.

starry04

In her nightmare, her friend Xiaojie, and then her parents, are a jigsaw puzzle – and the pieces are falling apart.

The Human Side

However, what makes a deeper impression on me than the magical realism is the human side of the story.

Xiaomei's Mother

Xiaomei’s Mother

One of the most memorable scenes is when Xiaomei is dining with her mother in a very posh establishment. Xiaomei asks her mother if she’s happy, and her mother says that she is very happy. It’s obvious to the audience, however, that she is not at all happy. To get away from the topic of her (un)happiness, her mother spontaneously pulls her daughter out of her seat for a dance. For a moment, mother and daughter are cheerfully dancing together and then … the cheerfulness recedes.

It’s little touches like this throughout the film which makes the characters feel lively and real.

Availability in English

This movie is available on DVD with English subtitles.

Conclusion

I don’t get this movie.

Though I appreciated many of the individual elements in this movie, for some reason, the trees would not come together in my mind to form a forest.

It’s not that the plot is hard to follow. The plot is quite easy to follow. It’s the significance of what happens which baffles me.

I know this is supposed to be a movie about the loss of childhood innocence, and I can get that the jigsaw puzzle is a metaphor for Xiaomei’s life/world. However, I still do not get how some elements tie into this, and I’m not completely sure what the movie is trying to say about the loss of childhood innocence.

Maybe if I were to see the movie again next year, I would totally get it, and wonder why it wasn’t obvious to me before. Or maybe I still wouldn’t get it.

In spite of all this, the movie is still recommended. Even though I had trouble figuring out the sum of the parts, nearly all of the parts are very charming.

Next Time: Shadow of Visions (manhua)


As long as there isn’t a typhoon, or a big earthquake, or roads closed by landslides, or huge rocks falling for no obvious reason, Taiwan’s mountains are an excellent place to get away from the heat of the Taiwanese summer. Sara K. plans to go into the mountains next week, partially for that very reason. Alas, there are plenty of things which can foil her plans. Fortunately, she is less susceptible to altitude sickness than many people, which makes things a little easier.

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: movie, Starry Starry Night, taiwan

It Came from the Sinosphere: Khóohái Lúsînliông

May 21, 2013 by Sara K. 2 Comments

PUPPETS!

Ever since I started this column, I’ve hoped to eventually feature a Taiwanese puppet show. Well, the time has come.

The Story

This series is a spinoff of a Taiwanese puppet saga known in English as The Scholar Swordsman. It stars one of the main characters of “The Scholar Swordsman,” called Khóohái Lúsînliông.

Khóohái Lúsînliông is being punished.

Khóohái Lúsînliông is being punished.

Khóohái Lúsînliông is a Tartar princess who has become a travelling sword fighter. She prefers drinking alcohol and kicking butt to acting like a princess. Various characters have trouble whether to treat Khóohái Lúsînliông as a friend or enemy.

She is in love with a poet called Sú Gânbûn. However, there’s a fake Sú Gânbûn running around! Where’s the real Sú Gânbûn? At one point, a ‘Sú Gânbûn’ gets rescued by a mysterious horse-rider called Tiònghuakióng. Is Tiònghuakióng the real Sú Gânbûn? Is Tiònghuakióng actually

Tiònghuakióng is caught in a spider web!

Tiònghuakióng is caught in a spider web!

Khóohái Lúsînliông in disguise? And why is there a fake Sú Gânbûn?

Anyway, the plot keeps going on an on like this. Every episode ends with a cliffhanger, usually either along the lines of “character X and Y are about to fight, who will win?” or “What is the true identity and motive of Character Z?”

I’ll be honest, and admit that I had trouble following the plot. This is not necessarily the drama’s fault. I must point out that

1) This is in Taiwanese, and my Taiwanese comprehension skills suck.
2) I am not terribly familiar with The Scholar Swordsman, so I seem to be missing out on some background.

About Taiwanese Puppets

Glove puppetry has been extremely popular for as long as Chinese speakers have lived in Taiwan. Live puppetry used to be the most popular way to entertain masses of people.

There are actually many kinds of traditional puppetry in Taiwan, and I’m not qualified to describe them, but they can be broadly divided into the “northern school” and the “southern school.” The “northern school” tended to focus on tales of magic, adventure, good vs. evil, and heroism, whereas the “southern school” focused on tales about family, love, and ordinary people. Guess which school Khóohái Lúsînliông is descended from.

Back in 19th century Taiwan, the “southern school” was considered higher-brow than the “northern school” – scholars could admit to enjoying the southern school, not so much the northern school.

Then something called “television” appeared in Taiwan.

Is that television coming to Taiwan? No, it's just Khóohái Lúsînliông going somewhere.

Is that television coming to Taiwan? No, it’s just Khóohái Lúsînliông going somewhere.

Did the puppeteers say “Oh no, television is going to take away all of our audience, we must stop it!!!!”?

Nope. They said “What a great way to reach more people.”

And that’s how the “Golden Light” puppetry style was born.

“Golden Light” first appeared around the 1950s, and is a style which has been adapted to work well both live and on the small screen, with a heavy focus on exciting special effects to dazzle viewers.

And it worked.

Throughout the 1960s, not only were many of the most popular Taiwanese TV shows puppet dramas, many of the top selling music albums were soundtracks from puppet dramas. Live puppet shows also did well.

When I talk to middle-aged Taiwanese people, if I mention puppet shows, their eyes will light up with nostalgia. 40-year-old men will become 10-year-old boys. It’s like talking about popular old Saturday-morning cartoons with Americans.

However, puppet dramas have gradually fallen out of the mainstream, and are now considered something primarily for fans. While puppet dramas used to be broadcast over the air, now they are almost only present on cable (that said, there is an ENTIRE CABLE CHANNEL dedicated just to puppet dramas). When I ask people why puppet dramas aren’t as popular as they used to be, I am told that there is too much media from Hollywood, Japan, Hong Kong, etc., crowding out the puppet dramas.

A puppet is buried in sand.

The sand represents Hollywood/Anime/Hong Kong Cinema/K-Dramas, and the puppet represents, well, Taiwanese puppetry.

Even so, there is a very active puppet fandom in Taiwan. They have conventions. The puppets themselves can become collectors’ items which demand high prices. It is not unusual to see a 7-11 advertisement featuring puppets.

Many traditional events, such as temple festivals, often feature live puppet performances. I remembering seeing one just two blocks away from my apartment. However, while some people look on curiously for a minute or two, I have never seen anybody enraptured by a live puppet performance. It seems to be there as a ritual, not as a form of entertainment.

About this Drama

The Scholar Swordsman is the magnum opus of one of Taiwan’s most celebrated “Golden Light” puppeteers, Toshio Huang, who belongs to the third generation of a noted puppeteering family. The saga has been produced multiple times for TV, and has also been performed many times live. This specific spinoff seems to be a collaboration between Toshio Huang and his son, Huang Liwang.

The themesong, of course is “Khóohái Lúsînliông.” The song had originally been popularized by The Scholar Swordsman, and become a standard of Taiwanese music. I had actually been familiar with the song before I found out that it came from a puppet drama. The Youtube video above features the song.

The Puppetry

One of the things that’s frustrating about writing this post is that stills taken from the show *completely miss the point*.

Though the puppets can move their eyes and mouths, the expressions on their face generally don’t change very much. Therefore, much of the expressive power of the puppets come from how they move. You really do have to see them in action to see just how skilled the puppeteers are in conveying personality, mood, feeling, etc., just by how the puppets move. Still images of the puppets look almost lifeless, whereas the puppets in motion feel like living people.

The show integrates both “real footage” and “puppet footage.” For example, sometimes they use shots of real deserts, forests, etc … and sometimes they have miniature puppet forests, deserts, etc.

It's a puppet waterfall.

It’s a puppet waterfall.

And I never imagined that puppet fighting could be so exciting to watch. The fights are really well done – detailed, easy to follow the flow of the action, variety, etc. And there are a lot of things you can do with puppets which cannot be done (ethically) with live performers. Cutting off their heads, for example. Also setting them on fire.

The fact that they are puppets, in a way, makes it all more magical. It’s very hard to explain. However, I also feel that special effects in live performances feel more special than special effects in Hollywood blockbusters, for that matter, I think special effects in silent cinema feel more special than special effects in Hollywood blockbusters. The fact that the technology is cruder ironically seems to make it more wonderful. The same effect it at work in this puppet drama, at least for me.

Influences

Obviously, this show is heavily influenced by wuxia, in fact, it *is* wuxia. But it’s not just based on wuxia.

A witch with a broomstick who looks like she came from Western fantasy (specifically the kind of witch you might see in Halloween festivities).

Puppets. Seriously.

American culture does not take puppets seriously. Anything involving puppets is assumed to be cute and/or funny. I bet you can count on one hand every work of American puppetry which is neither a comedy nor for kids.

I’m an American too, and so it’s also my reflex not to take puppets seriously, even though I have been an (amateur) puppeteer myself. So while watching this show, there were time when I thought, “Oh, the puppets are travelling through the desert, how cute” or “Prostitute puppets, ha ha ha” (yes, some of the characters in this story are prostitutes).

However, I know that Taiwanese culture does not have this reflex. They take puppets as seriously as they take popular cinema, particularly the older generations. Puppet dramas can be for kids and/or comedic, but they aren’t necessarily so.

Puppetry is considered “masculine,” so much so that a Taiwanese girl/woman who took great interest in puppetry might be considered a tomboy. In the United States, a boy/man who took great interest in puppetry might be considered a sissy. (Sadly, in both Taiwanese and American culture, “masculine” things are taken more seriously than “feminine” things).

Encountering things like Taiwanese puppetry drive home the point that, yes, I am culturally American.

Availability in English

Well, Khóohái Lúsînliông is not available in English.

There is a movie, Legend of the Sacred Stone, which is available on DVD with English subtitles. Weirdly, the movie is in Mandarin – most puppet dramas are in Taiwanese (they also sometimes are performed in Cantonese).

Taiwanese puppetry has also been adapted into the Cartoon Network show Wulin Warriors, which of course is available in English, but I’ve read that the Cartoon Network version is inferior to the original.

A pretty woman (puppet) with lots of pink flowers.

She works in a brothel.

Conclusion

Many Taiwanese people take a “the glass is half empty” view of puppetry because they know it’s not as wildly popular as it was a few decades ago.

I take a “the glass is half full” view because, even today, puppetry is way more popular in Taiwan than it ever has been in the United States.

What I take away from this drama is not the story, which, while somewhat entertaining, did not make much an impression on me. What I take away from it is the sheer creativity which goes into golden light glove puppetry as a medium. It feels new and fresh to me, and the special effects probably inspired a greater sense of wonder in me than the special effects of all the Hollywood movies I’ve seen in the last seven years combined.

Next Time: What the **** Are You Doing, Wei Xiaobao? The Duke of Mount Deer (novel).


One time, Sara K. was assigned the task of making bird puppets. She thought it would be really boring if they were perched, so she wanted to make it look like they were flying. It wasn’t enough for the wings to be outstretched – she wanted the wings to move as if they were flying. She found it was amazingly difficult to get information about how birds move in flight, and ended up reading a book Bird Flight about the science of how birds fly because she couldn’t find any other source. Who would have thought that taking a theatre class would lead to doing detailed research in physics and ornithology?

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: puppets, taiwan

It Came from the Sinosphere: The Wushe Incident

May 14, 2013 by Sara K. 3 Comments

A Seediq warrior throws a weapon, with his cape billowing up to his right.

Practically everybody in Taiwan knows about Seediq Bale, the most expensive Taiwanese movie ever made. During my entire time in Taiwan, not a single other movie, Taiwanese or not, has made as much of a stir as that one. What few people know is that it was adapted from a manhua, The Wushe Incident (台灣第一部霧社事件歷史漫畫), which is gratefully back in print thanks to the success of the movie.

The Story

Deep in the central mountains of Taiwan, 1930, the Japanese relentlessly inflict suffering on the Seediq people. Many young Seediq men are anxious to strike back at the Japanese, but their leader, Mona Rudao, stops them, and always placates the Japanese whenever a young Seediq man loses his temper. Of course, Mona Rudao himself hates the Japanese, as they killed his father, ruined his sister’s life, and continue to exploit his people. However, Mona Rudao has also travelled to Japan, and personally witnessed just how powerful the Japanese military is, so he dares not provoke the Japanese … before there is a good opportunity.

Background

If I had to sum up Taiwan in two words, those two words would be “mountain island.” Those two words alone explain a great deal about Taiwanese culture, history, politics, geography, agriculture, economy, weather, etc.

For example, Taiwan is difficult to conquer/unify because it’s a mountain island. That’s why the indigenous peoples speak over 20 different languages – travel was so difficult that most people would never went far from their birthplace.

During my various trips to Taiwan’s mountains, when I didn’t have to deal with road closures, landslides, fog so thick that the driver can’t see more than a meter or two ahead, buses that got cancelled because the road collapsed, etc., I was lucky. To read about the condition of what until recently was one of Taiwan’s most important mountain roads, click here. Right now, I reckon at least half of the major mountain roads in Taiwan are closed or have major obstruction, and there hasn’t even been a typhoon recently. This is why Taiwan has been politically united for less than a hundred years.

Conifers and high-mountain grasses are cloaked in lots of fog.

I took this photo near Wushe, where the story takes place.

Astonishingly, some of the “Japanese” mountain trails are still intact. I’ve been on a couple sections of the former Japanese Hehuanshan trail, which is one of the trails used by the Japanese to send reinforcements to Wushe. Along the trail there are the remains of Japanese police stations, schools to teach the indigenous children how to be more Japanese, and the graves of Japanese police/soldiers who died along the trail (most of them were killed by Mother Nature). Here is a description of an epic Japanese mountain trail running through Taiwan.

The manhua starts with a set of detailed color drawings showing various scenes of Seediq life.

The manhua starts with a set of detailed color drawings showing various scenes of Seediq life.

The creator of the manhua, Qiu Ruolong, got stranded in Wushe (which is near Wuling pass, Taiwan’s highest mountain pass which is car-accessible – though I personally wouldn’t want to drive through it) when his vehicle broke down. While he was stuck in Wushe, he stayed with the local Seediq people, who gradually shared their history with him. This is how he first learned of the Wushe incident, and it fascinated him so much that he did more and more research – for example, he spent six months sewing traditional Seediq clothing. Eventually, he made this manhua.

The Wushe incident is historically significant as the last act of armed resistance to Japanese rule in Taiwan.

The Artwork

I love it.

A page depicting high-mountain scenery.

First of all, Qiu Ruolong manages to capture a bit of the majesty of Taiwan’s high mountains. Just flipping through the pages brings up memories of my trips to the mountains.

It’s not just that he draws spectacular scenery – he populates it with the characters, making both the people and the scenery look solemn and magnificent.

Seediq men carry logs on the left side, while a river flows from a high mountain on the right side.

Sometimes, I just have stop and let my eyes rest on a page for a while.

Mona Ludao walks through a forest as sunlight comes through.

I love that halo of light around Mona Ludao as he walks through the dark forest, as the diagonal rays of sunlight frame him from above.

Which brings me to another point – Qiu Ruolong is great a compostion.

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Take this page, for example. Here, Qiu Ruolong explains the way the Japanese treated Seediq women. These two pages can be split into about four parts – in the top-right, we see the Seediq women in their native village before any Japanese men bother them, in the bottom-right, we see the Seediq woman marrying the Japanese man and adopting a Japanese hairstyle (she does not look overjoyed), in the top-left we see the Japanese husband beating her, and in the bottom-left we see the Seediq woman weeping, isolated in the midst of Japanese architecture. Notice that the last section is the biggest, and the image of the weeping woman is the single biggest thing on these two pages. That makes that the center of this scene, and all of the other, smaller drawings are supports which explain the existence of this central image.

In the picture below, notice how all of the Seediq warriors with their backs facing the reader circle around Mona Rudao, whose front faces the reader.

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And in this picture (below), notice how the simple image of the stare, surrounding by black, contrasts with the detailed drawings around it.

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Qiu Rulong is a master of drawing violence. The way the Seediq warriors chop off Japanese heads is both silent and chilling.

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However, possibly the best part of the artwork is he really brings the Seediq people (and to a lesser extent the Japanese people) to life. This is partially because the drawings are so detailed, but it’s mainly because he puts a human in every figure.

Seediq people dance at a wedding.

This is How You Make a Historical Graphic Novel

One of my biggest criticisms of In the Fires of 2/28 is that it didn’t focus on any specific characters, so it didn’t make the historical events feel personal. Qiu Ruolong does not make this mistake. While he often goes into digressions about Seediq life, historical background, etc., he centers the story around Mona Rudao and his family. Watching their personal journeys makes the story that much more powerful.

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That said, I would have liked to have seen a bit more about the Seediq characters who adopted a Japanese lifestyle. The graphic novel shows just enough about them to intrigue me.

Exploited Resource vs. Sovereign Agent

While the Japanese did various bad things to the Seediq people, all of the awful behavior stems from a single root – the Japanese regarded the Seediq people as a resource to be exploited, not as agents with which one should establish mutually beneficial relationships. Some people would phrase this as “the Japanese did not see the Seediq as fully human.” which would be accurate … but I’d like to emphasize that the Japanese had the exact same attitude towards the Seediq people as they did to the other “resources” in the mountains. For example, the Japanese saw the mountain forests as a way to make money quickly (that was one of the main reasons the Japanese wanted to control the mountains), rather than as an ecosystem to steward and preserve.

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The Seediq people knew that the Japanese were treating them as objects, not as agents. They could feel it. The Japanese were constantly rubbing it in. And passively accepting it was destroying their psyche.

The graphic novel does an excellent job of getting the readers to understand why the Seediq act as they do. First, the manhua patiently describes humiliation and humiliation suffered by the Seediq at the hands of the Japanese, making the reader angry. The worst is when the Seediq have to bow their heads and plead for forgiveness from the Japanese, even when it was the Japanese whose behavior was wrong. It’s like a rubber band slowly being stretched until it … snaps.

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The Seediq knew that they were not strong enough to drive out the Japanese and restore their independence. But they felt they had to attack anyway. They had to prove to the Japanese, and to themselves, that they have some agency, and that they could not be oppressed without consequences. Suicidal action which proved they still had some power was better than powerlessly submitting to the Japanese.

Availability in English

This manhua is totally unavailable in English. And that’s a shame. This is a downright excellent graphic novel, and it’s only about 300 pages long – would somebody please publish it in English?

Conclusion

This manhua definitely exceeded my expectations. It brings out so many feelings … from relatively benign nostalgia of my trips to the mountains, to the horror of the humiliation and violence, to passionate desire of the Seediq people to assert power over their lives.

Though the Seediq did not drive out the Japanese, they did shatter the Japanese perception that they were just passive objects to be used however the Japanese pleased. And today, the Japanese are long gone, while the Seediq are still there.

This manhua would not have been possible, or at least not as good, without Qiu Ruolong’s passion for the subject. I know the film Seediq Bale has been criticized for historical and cultural inaccuracies, and I cannot judge to what extent this manhua is or is not accurate. Accurate or not, it is clearly something that Qiu Ruolong cares about deeply.

Next Time: Khóohái Lúsînliông (TV show)


Sara K. has had far more fantasies about living in the mountains that living by the beach. She is upholding the San Francisco tradition of disliking beaches (the beaches in San Francisco are at best unpleasant, and at worst life-threateningly dangerous). She is no doubt also influenced by her family – her father, who was born and raised in southern Florida, also has a distaste for beaches, as does her mother, who grew up on the coast of the Mediterranean. That said, it is still good for her to go to beach instead of the mountain once in a while. Heck, last week she went *swimming* for the first time in over five years.

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: manhua, Seediq Bale, taiwan

It Came from the Sinosphere: Yanyu Mengmeng (TV Drama) Part 2

April 23, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

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Pouring Sugar on Stakes Thrust through the Heart, or TV Drama vs. Novel

The plot between the novel and this TV adaptation is mostly the same, aside from the addition of new characters (the Li family, Keyun, Du Fei, Ji Yao), and expanded roles for Erhao, Mengping, and Fangyu.

However, the feeling is significantly different. The TV drama does a lot of sugar-coating. For example…

[HUGE SPOILER WARNING + TRIGGER WARNING FOR SEXUAL VIOLENCE / SUICIDE, skip to “End Trigger/Spoiler Warning” if you want to avoid spoilers and/or triggers]

In the novel, Mengping is gang-raped and gets pregnant. When she can’t identify the father, her father stop treating her as his daughter, or even as a human being. After a back-alley abortion gone wrong, Mengping spends most of the novel in the hospital, out of sight. By the time she gets out of the hospital, her mother is in prison, her father and sister are dead, her younger brother is in an orphanage, and she has to live with her older brother, who is penniless.

She is also gang-raped, emotionally discarded by her father, and gets injured in an abortion in the TV Drama. But in the TV drama, her loving sister cares for her after the rape, and her boyfriend agrees to marry her even after he knows what happened. Furthermore, her boyfriend tracks down the rapist and personally punishes them, with some help from Mengping’s father, who starts treating her as his daughter again once a man (her boyfriend) agreed to marry her. Mengping and her boyfriend (later, husband) live happily ever after.

Then there is Ruping.

Mengping and Ruping

Mengping and Ruping

In the TV drama, Ruping commits suicide. After the suicide, all of the characters are heartbroken, blame each other for her suicide, blame themselves, and pour out all of the love they felt for Ruping but didn’t express properly while she was alive.

In the novel, when Ruping commits suicide, the characters either a) hardly notice or b) are upset because her death inconveniences them. None of the characters are depicted being sincerely sad that she is dead (well, maybe He Shuhuan is sincerely sad … to some extent).

In the TV drama, Ruping is mistaken to think that nobody loves and cares about her. In the novel … she is mostly correct.

[END TRIGGER/SPOILER WARNING]

Though the plot is mostly the same, these little differences add up to a very different message. In the novel, the message is “What goes around, comes around.” Since what goes around is pain and abuse, what comes around is not pretty. By contrast, the message in the TV drama is that, deep down, everybody loves each other, they just don’t know it, and that love can get you through everything. That is a VERY different message.

Why Was the Message Changed

So … why does the TV Drama sugar-coat the story?

I have some ideas.

First, the novel was written in the 1960s. Many people in Taiwan, including most of the characters and Chiung Yao herself, had been in China during the Chinese Civil War, and were still recovering from the aftermath. The rest of the population had experienced WWII under Japanese rule and the 2/28 Incident, which was also very traumatic. The novel was also published during the height of the “White Terror,” when Taiwan’s authoritarian government practised strict censorship and imprisoned anybody who was inconvenient to the people in power.

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By contrast, the 1980s was a much more forgiving era. The economy was booming and standards of living had risen. Taiwan was already moving towards democracy, and in 1987, just a year after this drama aired, martial law was lifted. things didn’t seem so bad.

Then there is Chiung Yao’s own personal circumstances. At the time she wrote the novel, she was a young mother, and had either just ended her first marriage or was about to end it (I couldn’t find a timeline to double-check the order of events), but in any case, ending a marriage while caring for a young child is stressful. She relied on the money she made by writing to make ends meet, so if she had stopped writing, or if her writing hadn’t sold well, she would have been in trouble.

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By contrast, in the 1980s, she was financially secure and independent, had well-established and extremely successful writing career, and had been happily married to her second husband for years. Chiung Yao herself says that she couldn’t have written the novels she wrote as a young woman at a later age because she had stopped experiencing such sharp, forceful feelings.

It’s entirely possible that a TV drama faithful to the spirit of the novel would not have been allowed to air in the 1980s. I think that Taiwanese TV nowadays wouldn’t produce a TV show with even the 80s drama adaptation’s level of emotional harshness. Audiences would not receive it well.

In fact, based on the reviews I’ve read, the 2000 adaptation of Yanyu Mengmeng is even sappier than the 80s version.

Why I Hate This Story

For starters, I hate most of the characters … Yiping, Ruping, He Shuhuan, Lu Zhenhua, Xueqin, etc. In the novel, just about the only significant characters I didn’t hate were Fu Wenpei (Yiping’s mother) and Fang Yu. I don’t hate any of the new characters (Keyun, Du Fei, etc.) who were added to the story in the TV adaptation.

Yiping has ulterior motives for going out with Erjie.

Yiping has ulterior motives for going out with Erjie.

Okay, I did feel more sympathetic to Yiping in the TV drama, so I suppose I don’t hate TV!Yiping, but that’s mainly because I felt everybody else was treating her unfairly. Everybody was telling her that she should set aside her hatred for the Lu family, that she was their daughter, and that she should learn to love them. I, on the other hand, felt that not only was Yiping entitled to resent the Lu Family, but I was advising her to cut off contact with them as soon as feasible. Her father abused and neglected her for more than ten years, and her siblings either contributed to the abuse/neglect, or refused to offer any help to Yiping … and never ONCE in the entire drama do they apologize to Yiping and admit to her that they were wrong (his father quasi-apologizes to her mother). If any reconciliation is to happen, I think the Lu family (particularly his father) is responsible for the first move, and before there is a clear and sincere apology, nobody should tell Yiping to let go of her bad feelings about the family.

That’s not to say that I approve of Yiping’s actions – on the contrary, I advised her (in my head) to forget revenge so she can get the Lu family as much out of her life as possible. I also advised her to dump He Shuhuan, particularly considering how inclined he is to use physical force to control her in the drama (at least in the novel he’s not physically abusive). Yiping needs a sassy gay-friend, not a self-centered borderline-abusive boyfriend like He Shuhuan (I personally think Yiping was doing Ruping a favor when she ‘stole’ He Shuhuan, but I know Ruping disagrees with me).

When Yiping wants to get away from Shuhuan, he grabs her, carries her as she's kicking and screaming, and pins her to a fence.  What a charming boyfriend.

When Yiping wants to get away from Shuhuan, he grabs her, carries her as she’s kicking and screaming, and pins her to a fence. What a charming boyfriend.

And how could I hate Ruping? Mainly because she seems very passive-aggressive to me. She repeatedly claims that she loves Yiping like a sister but … well, it never translates into her actions. When Yiping needs help, Ruping does nothing (and I don’t buy that Ruping doesn’t have enough courage, because she certainly has enough courage when her other siblings get in trouble). And when Yiping is going through some really terrible things, Ruping is caught up in her own selfish concerns. Yiping, at least, is honest about the fact that she is not looking out for Ruping, and even tells Ruping so.

Ruping needs a cool-old-lady friend.

What’s worse, Yiping, Shuhuan, and Ruping are all bookworms. To Yiping, novels are like water, and reading is one of her main mechanisms for getting through the day. Shuhuan has a large library. Yiping loves 19th century European novels – Tolstoy, Bronte sisters, etc., while Shuhuan enjoys contemporary foreign literature. Ruping is a fan of popular Chinese-language literature, particularly romance and wuxia (I find it intriguing that she is an wuxia fan, considering that she’s a total doormat who wouldn’t hurt a fly). I also identify as a bookworm, and I suspect most people who read the novel are bookworms to some extent, so this makes the characters more like the readers.

In Shuhuan's library.

In Shuhuan’s library.

And that brings me to the crux of why I hate the story – I can see myself in the characters, and it’s an awful part of myself. My family is much more functional than the Lu family – but even I know something about the resentment which builds up between family members, and how it can drive people (myself included) to do terrible things. You could say that I am Yiping’s daughter (my mother as a young woman had some things in common with Yiping). In the TV show, and especially in the novel, I could feel that a) what the characters were doing was wrong and b) understand why they were doing it because, under similar circumstances, I would have the same impulses.

I hate being shown that I can be an awful person.

I seriously considered not watching the TV drama because I hate the novel that much.

My Reaction to the Drama

This is hands down the most addictive TV drama I’ve seen in Chinese, and one of the most addictive things I’ve watched in my life. Even though I already knew the story, I simply had to keep going. As soon as one train-wreck has happened, it’s possible to see the next train coming to pile on the damage.

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In some ways, the TV drama is much better written than the novel – many supporting characters are much more fully realized, and the suspenseful elements are more deftly crafted.

And the tears. Oh the tears. In my mind, I’ve re-titled the drama “River of Tears” because of the effect it had on me.

But towards the end of the TV drama, I stopped engaging with it because it started to seem a little false to me. The story wants to go to awful places, but somebody puts on the brakes, assuring the audience, ‘no, it’s not really that awful’.

The ending of novel feels profoundly sad because it feels true. The more optimistic ending of the TV drama does not feel true to me.

Availability in English

Currently, this is not available in English, and since it’s a Taiwanese drama from the 1980s, I am not going to hold my breath. Still, if any Taiwanese drama from the 1980s has a chance of being licensed by a streaming service with English subtitles, it’s this one, or another one of the 80s Chiung Yao dramas.

Conclusion

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Nowadays, before I pick up a Chiung Yao novel, I have to ask myself whether I am ready to tear out my heart and put it through the washing machine for cycle. I’ve read that Yanyu Mengmeng is the rawest of them all, but based on some of the summaries I’ve seen, I suspect some of Chiung Yao’s other novels might wrench me even more. She is a genius of pressing emotional buttons.

For a heart-warming Chiung Yao story, read Princess Pearl. Otherwise, beware!

Next Time: Datang Shuanglong Zhuan (novel)


Why is it that Sara K. only found out that the Takarazuka Revue was coming to Taiwan AFTER the tour was over????? Now she’ll actually have to go to Japan to see them perform live. Oh well, if she ever has the chance to see them in Japan, it will probably be better than seeing them in Taiwan.

Filed Under: Dramas, It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: chiung yao, Love in the Rain, taiwan, TV, Yangyu Mengmeng

It Came from the Sinosphere: My Lucky Star, Part 2

March 12, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

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Welcome back. You can find Part 1 here, and here is the opening song again (yes, I do like the song).

Background on the Actors

For an idol drama, this drama has remarkably few idols. It rose to popularity mainly on the strength of the story. The only actor who really qualifies as an idol is Jimmy Lin, who plays Zhong Tianqi. This role was pretty made for him, for in addition to being an actor, he is a real-life professional car racer. However, his most famous role as a actor was not in an idol drama, but in wuxia (specifically, he played Duan Yu in the 2003 version of Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils).

Jimmy Lin as Duan Yu, Prince of Dali.

Jimmy Lin as Duan Yu, Prince of Dali.

Arguably, Leon Jay Williams (who plays Zhong Tianjun) is also a quasi-idol, since he is a professional model, and quite easy on the eyes, even compared to most idol drama stars.

Interestingly, they cast a Korean actress, Yoo Ha-na, to play Xia Zhixing, which occasionally happens in Taiwanese television. It seems that her lines were dubbed, and I’m not sure who the dub artist (which I think is a pity, since the dub artist deserves as much credit as Yoo Ha-na). While I think their acting is okay, I think there are a number of Taiwanese actresses who could have played the role even better (I would have cast Barbie Hsu). There is a scene where Zhong Tianqi overhears some very soap-opera-ish dialogue, and Xia Zhixing claims “Oh, it’s just a K-drama.” I found that line doubly funny because the very character claiming that it was just a K-drama was being played by a Korean actress.

Location Location Location!

This drama features Ruifang, Wulai, and Pingxi, three of the top tourist attractions in the Taipei region.

However, rather than setting the story in Ruifang/Wulai/Pingxi, the story combines all three of them into the fictional village of “Mingde,” which is Xia Zhixing’s hometown. As someone who is familiar with Ruifang, Wulai, and Pingxi, this is a bit confusing, since sometimes the characters are in Ruifang one moment, and then they are in Pingxi the next moment.

However, I don't think the drama shows the *really* beautiful parts of Pingxi, such as this spot, which just happens to be one of my favorite spots in all of Taiwan

However, I don’t think the drama shows the *really* beautiful parts of Pingxi, such as this spot, which just happens to be one of my favorite spots in all of Taiwan

Actually, Ruifang, Wulai, and Pingxi are more than just tourist attractions: they are important symbols of Taiwanese culture. Pingxi is often held up as being an idyllic Taiwanese rural town, which is why is it often featured in commercials, movies, etc (part of You Are the Apple of My Eye is set in Jingtong, which is in the Pingxi district). Wulai is the location of northern Taiwan’s highest waterfall.

The town of Wulai (I am resisting the urge to share even more photos of Wulai).

The town of Wulai (I am resisting the urge to share even more photos of Wulai).

However, Ruifang in particular has an important place in Taiwanese culture. The towns of Jiufen, Jinguashi, and Shuinandong are all in the Ruifang district. Jiufen was once so prominent as a cultural center that it was called “little Shanghai.” As I’ve mentioned before, Jiufen and Jinguashi are the location of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness, which not only a famous Taiwanese film, it’s often ranked as one of the best Chinese-language movies ever made. Furthermore, Jiufen inspired Hayao Miyazaki to make Spirited Away, which is why the town is almost always full of Japanese tourists.

My own photo of the Thirteen Levels

My own photo of the Thirteen Levels

The “Thirteen Levels,” one of Taiwan’s most recognizable landmarks, is in Shuinandong, and it appears in this drama (it also appears in Fated to Love You). One of my favorite works of art in the Tapei Fine Arts Museum permanent collection depicts the Thirteen Levels, and it’s featured in many films, both professional and amateur. I have never been inside the Thirteen Levels since it’s technically forbidden to enter, but I know someone who has been inside, and he said that he saw other people inside too, so apparently a lot of people ignore the restrictions.

In other words, watching this drama is a bit like taking a tour of the most popular destinations in rural Taipei.

Okay, I can't help it, here's a picture I took in Shuinandong looking up at Chahushan, which is in Jinguashi (if you're confused, just know that this is all in the Ruifang district).

Okay, I can’t help it, here’s a picture I took in Shuinandong looking up at Chahushan, which is in Jinguashi (if you’re confused, just know that this is all in the Ruifang district).

Fashion

I mostly find the costuming choices in Taiwanese idol dramas uninteresting, but this drama is definitely the exception, which is what you would expect from a drama which deals a lot with jewelry. And the guys’ clothes are just as interesting as the girls’ clothes.

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See Zhong Tianqi and Xia Zhixing together. They’re clothes are not boring. I think Zhong Tianqi’s checkered collar is a particularly nice touch.

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See Xia Zhixing and Han Zhiyin together. Again, their clothes are not boring.

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Xia Zhixing and Han Zhiyin together, again. You can’t tell from this picture, but this outfit makes Xia Zhixing look a little pregnant. I actually like that, since it emphasizes her motherly qualities.

The Silliness and the Sadness

Whereas Fated to Love You has tongue-in-cheek humor, this drama is straight-up silly. In fact, part of the appeal for me is seeing just how far the drama will go. Just as protagonists are fearlessly themselves, this drama is fearless in is silliness.

Xia Zhixing and Zhong Tianqi are sitting on a toilet, and it looks like they are having sex, even though they are actually not.

Zhong Tianqi and Xia Zhixing get into awkward positions.

(Tangent: in a world free of rape culture, I would think it is totally funny that certain things the characters happen to be doing seem to be sexual assault, even though that is not the character’s intent at all, just I would think it’s funny if the characters seemed to be murdering somebody when actually it’s just an innocent mistake. But victims of sexual assault are so often disbelieved and told that the assault was “just a misunderstanding,” in fact, I can tell you from personal experience that victims sometimes tell themselves that it’s just a misunderstanding so that they don’t have to face that they are victims of harassment/assault, that I’m not completely comfortable with laughing when it’s revealed what certain characters *reasonably* suspect is sexual assault really turns out to be a misunderstanding).

Some of it gets pretty corny, but that, weirdly, is part of the charm.

It’s also full of melodrama (this fan music video, featuring the theme song, offers a good taste of the melodrama). Many of the plot twists are awfully cliché, but, well, it’s boldly cliché. And considering that a five-year-old girl gets Xia Zhixing to spend 8 hours publicly handcuffed to the hot and handsome Han Zhiyin, I am willing to overlook a couple cliches.

And I think this drama just might have the saddest moment of any idol drama I’ve watched. Specifically, the scene where Ou Yaruo listens to the MP3 player.

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Why is listening to the contents of an MP3 player sad? Part of me wants to explain the context, but I do hope that this drama will eventually get licensed in English, so I don’t want to spoil it.

Someone on Youtube claims that (spoiler warning, especially if you understand Mandarin) this is the most moving scene in My Lucky Star, but I found it too cliché. Okay, I’ll be honest, I got totally emotionally invested in that scene too, but at least I’m embarrassed that such cliché melodrama got to me.

However, the moment which really got my tears flowing was when Xia Zhixing falls down on the road between Jinguashi and Shuinandong (even though I know this is supposed to the fictional village Mingde, I still can’t help but think of these places as being Ruifang/Pingxi/Wulai). There is nothing original at all about this scene, but the story is so bold, and so sincere, in its melodrama, that I really could not help myself. Even if I forget everything else in this drama, I don’t think I’ll ever forget this particular moment.

Availability in English

Currently, there is no legal way to watch this drama in English. It would be really nice if someone changed this state of affairs.

Conclusion

When I first started watching idol dramas, I stuck with idol dramas adapted from Japanese manga, since the stories were familiar to me, and I didn’t have enough confidence in my Mandarin comprehension skills to delve into completely new territory (and how is it that I have yet to discuss a single idol drama adapted from manga?)

This is the first idol drama I watched which a) was not adapted from a manga and b) had a plot that was totally unknown to me. I was not just concerned about my language skills, I was also concerned about whether or not it would be a good story (if I had read the manga, at least I could reasonably predict whether or not I would like the drama). Not only was I totally capable of understanding this drama, I fell in love with it.

It definitely has its flaws, and overall, I have to say that Fated to Love You is a higher-quality production. Nonetheless, this is one of my top favorite idol dramas, and when I say that somebody should license this in English, I’m serious.

Next time: The Nine Provinces (novel)


An earthquake is happening right now as Sara K. is writing this. Many Taiwanese people expect Sara K. to be freaked out at every single earthquake. Sara K. then points out that she grew up in San Francisco. She does feel a lot less earthquakes in Taoyuan than in other parts of Taiwan (such as Taipei and Hualien), most likely because Taoyuan has more stable ground than Taipei, and the faults around Hualien are more active.

Filed Under: Dramas, It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: idol drama, Jimmy Lin, My Lucky Stare, Pingxi, Ruifang, taiwan, Wulai

It Came from the Sinosphere: My Lucky Star, Part 1

March 5, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

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Jewel thieves! Car racing! Beautiful scenery! Melodrama! Silly sexual humor! This drama has a lot going for it. Let’s set the mood with a song:

Now, a scene from the first episode.

Example Scene

Ou Yaruo is getting married today. Or at least that’s what she thinks.

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When the door opens, she assumes that it’s her fiance.

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Actually, it’s her ex-boyfriend.

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Clearly, this is not good news.

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Ou Yaruo tells him to get out.

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He does not get out.

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In fact, he gets closer to her. She apparently broke his heart when she dumped him.

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He’s very interested in her necklace.

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The sneak tabloid photographer has arrived on the scene…

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… and he’s just in time to take a picture of them kissing.

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After the kiss, he leaves, leaving her wondering what the meaning of this encounter was. Does she still love him? Did he come to take back the jewel of her heart?

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Then she realizes, no, he did not come to steal the jewel of her heart. He just wanted to steal the big jewel in her necklace, which he has slipped off her neck while kissing her.

The Heroine

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From all of the Taiwanese idol dramas I’ve seen, I think Xia Zhixing is my favorite female protagonist. She’s one of the most honest and compassionate characters in the entire drama – which is ironic, considering she’s a con artist dating another con artist.

Well, Zhong Tianqi catches her in the act, and she gets sent to prison for two years. Not only does she spend two years in prison, but when she gets out, she discovers that she’s lost her con artist boyfriend.

But wait! She catches Zhong Tianqi stealing a jewel too! He got her sent to prison while he’s a thief himself. No fair!

So why did Xia Zhixing become a con artist in the first place? It’s revealed that she’s an orphan, and she grew up in poverty. Being a con artist was the only way she was able to find out of her poverty, and after leaving prison, she finds herself back in financial distress. The fact that she now has a criminal record makes it hard for her to make an honest living which, ironically, is the only thing pushing her back into a career of crime.

Because of her own difficult experiences, Xia Zhixing has a lot of empathy for other people in unfortunate circumstances, especially people who ended up in them through no fault of their own. At one point, she makes a HUGE sacrifice for the sake of an innocent child she barely knows.

When she’s not trying to pull off a con, she is not afraid to be herself, even when this might make people uncomfortable. For example, she does not try to hide her criminal past to anybody that she cares about.

Many of her cons revolved around selling fake jewels. During this “job,” she learned a lot about jewelry, and developed an interest in jewelry design. Is this the path to an honest living, or will her past hold her back? Or will she put others’ needs before her own?

The Guys

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Much as I love Xia Zhixing, this drama is make even better by a good set of male protagonists.

Guy #1: Zhong Tianqi

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He is the black sheep of his rich family. He’s handsome, he speaks French, and he races cars. Most of all, he’s fearless, whether that means defying his father, standing up for what he feels is right, or car racing while blindfolded.

I am not kidding about the blindfolded car race.

He also takes things very, very deeply to heart. That means that, when somebody is important to him, he will dedicate himself to that person 100%. On the other hand, when he feels betrayed, he gets very, VERY nasty (see the above scene where he ruins his ex-girlfriend’s wedding).

It’s a common trope in Taiwanese idol dramas for Guy #1 to turn into a jerk at some point, and in my opinion Zhong Tianqi does this better than any other Guy #1. First of all, it’s clear that he becomes a jerk because of intense personal suffering, but most of all, I like that he’s a colorful jerk. He is the standard to which I hold up all other Guy #1 jerks. If the male protagonist must turn into a jerk, he at least should be as much fun as Zhong Tianqi.

Oh, and he’s also a prince.

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Guy #2: Zhong Tianjun

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Zhong Tianjun is Zhong Tianqi’s older brother. He is one of the sweetest male characters I have encountered in a Taiwanese drama, He’s patient, forgiving, understanding. He protects people from sexual harassment. And he tries very very hard to be romantic. Oh, and he’s handsome and wealthy.

He’s the perfect romantic hero. In fact, he’s too perfect. That is why there is Guy 2.5.

Guy #2.5: Han Zhiyin

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Han Zhiyin is hot celebrity from Thailand who is, ah, flirtatious and promiscuous. However, he finds himself having deeper feelings for her than he’s felt for anyone else. And while he’s a hotshot model, he grew up in the slums of Bangkok, so he can relate to Xia Zhixing’s background in a way that Zhong Tianqi and Zhong Tianjun cannot.

He also does things with as much, if not more, flair than Zhong Tianqi. Then again, as a celebrity, it’s his job to do things with flair.

The Bechdel test highlights the lack of deep female-female relationships in fiction, but in Taiwanese idol dramas, there is also a dearth of male-male relationships too. However, the relationship with the Zhong brothers is quite touching and interesting in its own right, and the relationship between Zhong Tianqi and Han Zhiyin is also quite fun.

Not that female-female relationships are completely neglected. Though Xia Zhixing and Ou Yaruo most certainly are not friends, I actually think their relationship is one of the most intriguing in the entire story.

Ou Yaruo

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Ou Yaruo is a jewelry designer who works for the company owned by the Zhong family. She loves her job, she’s a rising designer, and she is Zhong Tianqi’s first love. Seems like she has exactly the kind of life Xia Zhixing wants, doesn’t it?

Well, on the surface that’s the case. But Ou Yaruo has a terrible secret.

Her past is possibly even sadder than Xia Zhixing. Xia Zhixing is an orphan who grew up in poverty, but at least she was cared for by a loving uncle. Instead, Ou Yaruo wishes that she had been an orphan, and least then she would not have been traumatized by her abusive father, who currently is in prison.

She is terrified by the thought that somebody will find out the truth about her family, and that if the truth comes out, she’ll lose career and that the people who love her will hate her. In fact, she is literally willing to kill to protect this secret.

The people close to Xia Zhixing, on the other hand, know that she was a con artist, and that she has a prison record, so she has no dark secret which may cost her livelihood and the love of the people around here.

Ou Yaruo has the career Xia Zhixing wants, and possibly the heart of the man Xia Zhixing is in love with. But Xia Zhixing has the integrity, bravery, and emotional security that Ou Yaruo wishes she had.

But Wait, There’s More…

You have probably figured out by now that this is one of my favorite idol dramas, which meant this post was getting a bit too long. I hope this post has piqued your interest enough to bring you back next week, when I will talk about this drama some more.


Sara K. saw swarms of purple butterflies in Maolin last week. Some of those butterflies flew all the way from Japan. Maolin itself is a gorgeous place. On a different note, she also has a guest post up at Yago.

Filed Under: Dramas, It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: idol drama, Jimmy Lin, My Lucky Star, taiwan

Special Post: In the Fires of 2/28

February 28, 2013 by Sara K. Leave a Comment

comic book cover

Today is “Peace Memorial Day,” a national holiday in Taiwan. Though every other national holiday I can think of in Taiwan is also celebrated in other parts of the Chinese-speaking world (even Double-Tens day is somewhat recognized in China), “Peace Memorial Day” is Taiwan’s and Taiwan’s alone. It is a memorial to the “2/28 Incident” (AKA “2/28 Massacre”) which happened in 1947.

In the Fires of 2/28 is a manhua by Du Fu-ann published last year which describes the events which led to the “2/28 Incident,” the “incident” itself, and the aftermath.

TRIGGER WARNING: This manhua describes violent conflict, including sexual assault, and I have decided to include some graphic imagery. Also, because of the graphic imagery, this post is NSFW.

So, What Happened?

Here is a summary of what happened, as told by the manhua.

After WWII, Japan had to cede control of all overseas territories, including Taiwan. Whereas many Asian countries (such as India, Korea, and the Philippines) got independence after WWII, The Allies decided to transfer Taiwan to the administration of the Republic of China. At first, the Taiwanese people were really happy about this, since China was their ancestral land and they considered this to be the equivalent of independence. It would be a little as if world leaders had decided make Quebec a part of France.

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However, once the Republic of China actually took control of Taiwan, the people were bitterly disillusioned. The Chinese soldiers were poor, shabby, and greedy. The economy went down the tank, with rapidly rising unemployment, hyperinflation, and grain shortages. The Kuomintang (KMT), who controlled the Republic of China government, was far more corrupt and discriminatory than the Japanese administration, promoting Chinese people without qualifications to well-paid positions while forcing qualified Taiwanese people to do low-paid work, looting left and right, and sexually assaulting people with impunity. By 1947, the Taiwanese people were seething with fury, and all that was needed was a match.

The match was lit on February 27, 1947, when government agents hit a woman selling tobacco on the street on the head with a pistol. Other people in the street came to the woman’s support, and then one of the government agents fired a gun and killed somebody in the crowd. This sparked a huge spontaneous protest, which the government did not respond to.

The tobacco seller is hit with the pistol

The next day, Feburary 28, was the beginning of a violent uprising by people all over Taiwan. In some places, the Taiwanese stole weapons and formed their own armies to drive out the Chinese, and many Taiwanese people were organizing to form their own government, independent of the Republic of China.

The army of the Republic of China brutally repressed this uprising. After they took back control of Kaohsiung (Taiwan’s second largest city), they brutally punished the residents. The KMT also rounded up many intellectuals, even ones who were not part of the uprisings, and executed them, lest they form an independent government. Tens of thousands of people were murdered this way. The forces of the uprising were driven deeper and deeper into the mountains, until finally, they were defeated. After this, the KMT imposed martial law on Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the KMT was losing the Chinese Civil War, and eventually their army (as well as well as many Chinese citizens) had to retreat to the islands of Hainan, Kinmen, Matsu, Zhoushan, and Taiwan. Then the islands of Hainan and Zhoushan also fell to Chinese Communist control, leaving only Kinmen, Matsu, and Taiwan under the control of the Republic of China.

In the epilogue, the manhua mentions that martial law was finally lifted in 1987, and ends with an image of Lee Teng-hui, then president of the Republic of China and leader of the KMT, officially apologizing in 1995 for the 2/28 incident and offering compensation to the victims’ families.

So, how does this work as a comic book?

This manhua is only about 150 pages long, so it has to simplify things and leave some aspects of the “2/28 Incident” unexplored. I’m okay with that, since it’s intended to be an accessible introduction, not a thorough account.

In my first draft, I expressed my discomfort with the way the Chinese are depicted as two-dimensional villainous caricatures, not because I excuse their crimes (the looting, corruption, rape, and murder are inexcusable), but because it rings false—all of those heinous crimes were committed by people. However, upon reflection, I realize that from the victims’ point of view, they may very well have been caricature villains, and the manhua is primarily interested in the victims’ perspective.

However, I still think the lack of personalization of the Taiwanese people makes the story feel too dry and didactic. Since this is a story of many people, focusing on a few characters would also be artificial on its own way, but I think the manhua would have benefited from putting a little more emphasis on individual stories instead of mostly telling the story from the point of view of the masses. Comic books draw strength by appealing to feeling, and the best way to draw feeling is to tell stories of individual people.

There is a Taiwanese family which plays the role of Greek chorus but … something about them feels too didactic to me.

The closest the manhua comes to showing the Chinese point of view is the inclusion of a political cartoon from a Shanghai newspaper.

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In this cartoon, the Republic of China/KMT are worms which have infested the big apple (China) for a long time, and have just started infesting the small apple (Taiwan). It shows that, as intense as the suffering of the Taiwanese people under the KMT was, the Chinese had been suffering worse for a longer period of time. I think this is a really important point. Even though the poor Chinese soldiers did commit a lot of crimes too, it was the KMT elite, not the non-elite Chinese, who were ultimately responsible. And, in some ways, the suffering that the KMT imposed on the poor Chinese soldiers was worse than what they imposed on the Taiwanese.

What makes the manhua work, however, is the artwork.

The Artwork

While I criticize the narrative for not being sufficiently personalized, the artwork does partially make up for this by making the events come alive through is lively movement, such as in this page where a soldier breaks in and shoots an older man:

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However, I also think the artwork is the main reason I’m uncomfortable with the depiction o the Chinese. Looking carefully at it again, there’s not much in the text which dehumanizes the Chinese. It’s mainly the artwork which makes the Chinese look like caricatures.

Truman makes the KMT cry.

Truman makes the KMT cry.

On the one hand, I recognize this may represent the victims’ point of view. However, I am especially bothered by the way the Chinese, particularly the KMT, are depicted as being humorous. I know that it’s artistically a good idea to balance tragedy wit humor, but even with my warped sense of humor I don’t think any part of this story is remotely funny, and making the criminals look funny just feels … wrong.

The Chinese are stealing everything they can, how funny ... not.

The Chinese are stealing everything they can, how funny … not.

The manhua also makes use of various metaphorical imagery. One image which is repeated again and again is this flower … I’ll be honest, I don’t know what the flower’s significance is, by it generally accompanies a block of text describing historical details.

The flower above KMT leaders acting like spoiled brats.

The flower above KMT leaders acting like spoiled brats.

Some of the imagery works very well, such as this image of the Republic of China (represented by the hands) wringing Taiwan dry.

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I do applaud the manhua from not shying away from gruesome imagery. It doesn’t dwell on the graphic stuff too much—the purpose is to tell a story, not to revel in violence—but I think drawing out some of the horrors is necessary for the reader to feel a tiny bit of how terrifying the “incident” was.

The Republic of China forces round up, shoot, and rape the people of Kaohsiung.

The Republic of China forces round up, shoot, and rape the people of Kaohsiung.

Students are rounded up, blindfolded, shot, and their bodies are thrown into the sea.

Students are rounded up, blindfolded, shot, and their bodies are thrown into the sea.

The Republic of China forces gouge students' eyes, castrate them, and then behead them.

The Republic of China forces gouge students’ eyes, castrate them, and then behead them.

There are some drawings which are beautiful in a horrifying way, such as this scene:

Dead bodies lie across a blank page.

Dead bodies lie across a blank page.

These gruesome images make a stark contrast to the almost expressionless “leaders” who seem oblivious to the horrors around them.

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This, in my opinion, is a more powerful way to show how monsterous the KMT elite were than making them look like cartoon villains.

The Slant

This is one of the most politically charged sections of Taiwanese history, and as such, people have very passionate views on this story. Just as black people, southern whites, and non-southern whites tend to have different interpretations of the U.S. Civil War, so do different groups in Taiwan tend to have different interpretations of the 2/28 “incident,” and it tends to reveal one’s political bias.

The slant taken by this manhua is that General Chen Yi, who was put in charge of Taiwan immediately after Taiwan passed into Republic of China control, is the big bad guy. This is a relatively non-controversial position to take, since almost everybody agrees that he was horrible. Not much is said about Chiang Kai-shek, though the manhua does compare him to Koxinga (the Ming dynasty general who fled to and took over part of Taiwan after the Ming dynasty was driven out of China).

Of course, the very act of making a manhua about this at all is a political statement. For decades, anything referring to the “incident” was heavily censored, and one of the big fights of the Taiwanese democracy movement was making it possible to discuss the “incident” in public. This manhua is exercising the freedom won by the democracy activists.

Availability in English

As far as I know, this manhua is totally unavailable in English.

While it is primarily targeted at a young Taiwanese audience, I think people all over the world have something to learn from the “2/28 Incident,” and this is an accessible introduction. However, I have no idea who would translate this into English.

For those who want to know more about the “2/28 Incident,” Formosa Betrayed by George H. Kerr (who appears in the manhua) is available online for free.

I do wish the people who put the manhua together had consulted an English editor.

I think the real George Kerr spoke grammatically correct English.

I think the real George Kerr spoke grammatically correct English.

Conclusion

This “incident” was so formative of Taiwanese politics and identity that I don’t think it’s possible to have a deep understanding of Taiwanese society without knowing what happened.

I think it’s also helpful for getting a better understanding of Taiwanese media. For example, in Fated to Love You, Xinyi (the lead female character) comes from a family which was on the victims’ side in the 2/28 “incident,” whereas Cunxi (the lead male character) comes from a family which was on the aggressors’ side. I don’t think the audience needs to know this to appreciate and enjoy the drama … but this is a fact which is very apparent to Taiwanese audiences.


Sara K.’s grandfather was actually in China when World War II officially ended. According to her father, when WWII was declared over, from her grandfather’s point of view, that was the end of the war. But for his companions, who were in the Republic of China army, the war was not over—they knew that the Chinese civil war was going to restart almost as soon as Japan was defeated. Sara K. does not know what happened to her grandfather’s companions, but most likely they switched sides to the Communists, fled to Taiwan, or were killed.

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: 2/28 Incident, 2/28 Massacre, manhua, taiwan

It Came from the Sinosphere: North City, Book of a Hundred Drawings

November 27, 2012 by Sara K. 4 Comments

The cover of 'North City, Book of a Hundred Drawings'

Would you like to sit down for coffee? Actually, I prefer tea myself. Let’s compromise and order a manhua instead.

The Stories

This manhua is a collection of three short stories, all of which are set in the year 1935. Each story include a young Japanese man who owns a cafe, “Hall of a Hundred Drawings,” in the heart of Taipei. He can detect the supernatural, and has a crow as a companion, called Ian.

The first story, “Soaring Boy,” is about the little brother of a waitress who comes to Taipei to visit her. At first he doesn’t understand why his sister wanted to leave their hometown to work in the city … but in the city, he sees an airplane for the first time.

In the second story, “Pantomime and Song,” the cafe owner encounters the ghost of an Atayal girl (the Atayal are one of the indigenous peoples of northern Taiwan). I’ve mentioned the Atayal before, and Vic Chou, one of the stars of Black & White, has Atayal heritage.

The third story, “Room of Memories,” describes how the young Japanese man acquired the building where he set up his cafe (hint: the building was haunted).

Background

This is a color illustration for the story ‘Soaring Boy’.

All of the stories in this collection were originally published in Creative Comics Collection, which I have previously discussed.

Akru is a regular contributor to Creative Comics Collection, and is one of my favorites. This is her second published manhua (and the first one collecting her work in Creative Comics Collection).

History

Taiwan was ruled by the Japanese for 50 years. Taiwanese people have mixed feelings about this period.

On the one hand, the Japanese did a great deal to improve Taiwan’s infrastructure, which was the foundation for Taiwan’s later prosperity. The train system was practically built by the Japanese, and more of Taiwan first became electrified under the Japanese. The Japanese spread modern medicine through Taiwan and greatly improved public health (a big deal in a densely populated tropical island). Many advances in gender equality also happened under the Japanese—they banned the practice of footbinding (even though their purpose was to suppress Chinese culture, it was still a plus for women), and the Japanese era was the first time it was feasible for a girl who was not from a rich family to get an education. Overall, governance under Japanese rule was considered quite good.

The problem was the inequality.

There were two education systems in Taiwan—one for Japanese people, and one for everyone else (guess which one got more and better resources). Japanese people were preferred for government jobs, particularly well-paying government jobs, etc. Though there were Taiwanese people who wanted independence, based on the histories I’ve read, most of the population would have been okay with Japanese rule if they had been treated as equal citizens.

Though the manhua doesn’t directly address the equality, it makes references to it. For example, it mentions the segregation of Taipei into Japanese and Taiwanese districts, and it’s worth noting that the owner of the cafe is Japanese, not Taiwanese.

Another legacy of Japanese rule was increased contact with the outside world, particularly the world beyond East Asia. While various European powers had colonized parts of Taiwan, none ever got deep control over the island, and it was actually Japan which spread many European and American ideas in Taiwan (baseball, for example).

1935 was probably the peak of the Japanese era in Taiwan. It was the year that the exhibition to celebrate 40 years of Japanese rule was held (which is featured in “Soaring Boy”). Taiwan had already become much more developed and wealthier, and was relatively peaceful. Yet that was before World War II make things turn for the worse.

Anyway, here is some footage of Taipei in the Japanese era.

Fashion

When it comes to 20th century fashion, the 1930s is definitely my favourite decade. What I like about 30s fashion is that it is so mature. It can be simple, severe, and practical, and still look great (little black dress FOR THE WIN). 1930s fashion can also look stunningly gorgeous … without losing its sense of proportion.

Taiwanese fashion in the 1930s has the distinction of blending Chinese, Japanese, and European influences.

Akru researched specifically how waitresses dressed in 1930s Taipei. Notice that it looks both a little Japanese and a little European.

Akru clearly loves 1930s Taiwanese fashion, as she features clothing very heavily in most of her stories for Creative Comics Collection. She says that one reason she is so interested in fashion from the Japanese era is that there are so many historical TV shows set in the Ming and Qing dynasties that everybody is familiar with the clothing from those eras … but most people are not familiar with the clothing of the Japanese era.

The Japanese man is bargaining for the building ... in a nice-looking coat.

And it’s not just Akru. Dihua street, which was a key commercial street in the Japanese era (specifically, it was the main commercial of Dadaocheng, which some of the characters visit in “Soaring Boy”) is now turning in a hub for young Taiwanese fashion designers. I’ve seen some of their exhibitions, and they certainly seem to be drawing from the neighborhood’s historic roots.

Artwork

Akru’s artwork is like good Chinese calligraphy – elegant, yet vigorous, yet balanced lines.

a demonstration of the linework

A girl standing with the city in the background

Let’s look at this picture. First of all, it’s got a nice hint of sepia while still being in color (this looks better when my cheap camera is not involved). And is has nice composition. We have the girl on the left as the focus. The round circle featuring the city makes a nice background—it adds “weight” to the right side of the picture, making it feel balanced, but without any object standing out it doesn’t take focus from the girl (it’s a good background, heh heh). There are some nice electric poles on the right adding more vertical lines to balance out the girl’s “weight,” but since they are nice and black, they don’t take away focus.

A pilot looks up from his cockpit on the right; a boy looks up into the sky on the left.

I like this composition too. The lack of objects in the center really conveys the openness of the sky.

The waittress and her kid brother are seeing the aquarium exhibit

Notice how on the right the swimmers seem to dive down on to the page. Notice on the center left how there is that panel (or un-panel?) which shows just the sister, brother, and white space. If that’s not a visual pause, I don’t know what is.

But I think one of the things I like most about Akru’s artwork is that she can make the ordinary seem wonderous. For example, the act of reading:

The Atayal Ghost is reading

Availability in English

Well, it’s not available in English. I think that’s too bad. I think that if any digital comics publisher showed an interest in licensing manhua, this would be a good choice—since it’s just one volume, it can’t be that great of an economic risk. Alternatively, since Creative Comics Collection is partially non-profit, it might be nice if they put forth a free English version online to promote Taiwanese culture.

Conclusion

The theme which binds all of these stories is that one has to step outside one’s comfort zone to really get to know the world. It might mean a boy from a rural town who visits the big city for the time, it might mean an Atayal girl who leaves her village to learn reading, writing, and Japanese, is might mean a young man from Japan who comes to Taiwan to open a cafe … and it just might mean a Manga Bookshelf reader moving from the city where she grew up to the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

This building is still around, in fact, I have spent a *lot* of time around this building.

No, seriously. The first and the last stories are set in they very same neighborhood that I lived in when I first moved to Taiwan. Okay, so I was there more than 70 years later, but still. I lived in a Japanese era building. I wandered the same streets the characters wandered, and the Japanese era left a very strong mark on the area. In fact, the same neighborhood is shown in Cheerful Wind.

I love this manhua because it taught me some news things about Taipei history. I love this manhua because it brings back memories. But most of all, I love it because, even across the gulf of time, I can identify with the characters.

Next Time: A Deadly Secret (TV series)


Sara K. is participating in this month’s Carnival of Aces. You can find her first post here … and yes, it just happens to be about a certain Chinese-language novel which she has previously discussed at Manga Bookshelf.

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: Akru, Creative Comics Collection, manhua, Taipei, taiwan

It Came from the Sinosphere: Ài Shā 17

November 6, 2012 by Sara K. 8 Comments

A picture of Zou Kejia, one of the characters of this drama

So, the official English title of this drama is Bump Off Lover, but I dislike it so much that I am just going to use the Mandarin title Ài Shā 17 (Love Murder 17) instead.

Many people comment that Taiwanese idol dramas are always cheery, always romantic, always upbeat, and are overall a light-hearted, bubbly, pop (junk) culture genre. First of all, I’m very wary of make distinctions between “junk” culture and “high” culture. And it also turns out that there are quite a few rather dark idol drams out there. I’ve even discussed one previously—The Outsiders. But the darkest, most disturbing idol drama I’ve ever seen is, without question, Ài Shā 17.

TRIGGER WARNING: This TV drama presents stalking, sexual bullying (including a male victim), under-age prostitution, rape with drugs, child-kidnapping, victim-blaming, people defending the perpetrators, suicide, and other disturbing topics. Consequently, these topics are also come up in this post.

Now, in order to set the mood for this post, I suggest watching the opening song before continuing.

The Story

The story starts with two 17-year old twin sisters, Yizhen and Yijing.

Yijing (left) and Yizhen (right)

Yizhen’s high school teacher, Yang Renyou, had tried to rape her, which is why the school fired him. However, Yang Renyou is apparently now stalking Yizhen.

Yang Renyou is watching Yizhen’s family

Meanwhile Zou Kejie, another student at their school, is being bullied. Because of this pressure, Zou Kejie joins a mysterious BBS called “Heart of Darkness” for social support. He also becomes good friends with Yijing (actually, he has a crush on her).

Kejia and Yijing having a good time together

One evening after school, Yizhen spots Yang Renyou running around the school grounds. Later that evening, she hears her sister Yijing cry out for help. While running towards her sister’s voice, somebody pushes Yizhen into a swimming pool—and she can’t swim. She is rescued by her boyfriend, Jiawei, but it’s too late; by the time they find Yijing, she’s already dead.

Jiawei pulls Yizhen out of the swimming pool

In the trial by media, Zou Kejie is presented as being Yijing’s murderer. While he professes his innocence, he refuses to cooperate with the police. Even his own brother, Zou Kejiang, begins to suspect that he is the culprit. Eventually Zou Kejie cannot handle the pressure of everybody and the media accusing him of being Yijing’s murderer, and commits suicide.

Kejia (left) and his brother Kejiang (right)

After the suicide, Zou Kejiang regrets not believing his brother, and is determined to find the true murderer in order to clear his brother’s name. Meanwhile, Yizhen suspects that Yang Renyou did it. Yizhen, Kejiang, and Jiawei work together to solve the mystery … and what Yizhen learns is more disturbing than anything she imagined.

Jiawei, Yizhen, and Kejiang in a hospital

Taiwanese Online Culture

Last week, I discussed Taiwanese online culture a bit. This idol drama depicts it too. In 2007, it would not be very credible if a bunch of ordinary (as in non-geeky) people in the United States decided to casually join a BBS, but in Taiwan BBS are still a dominant way to socialize online. They’ve even survived the popularity of Facebook.

Angela Chang and Shen Shihua

Idol dramas are called “idol dramas” because they present “idols” (usually music idols) in “dramas.” The “idol” of this drama is clearly Angela Chang, the popular Taiwanese singer who plays both Yizhen and Yijing.

First of all, I must give some credit to the hair-and-makeup people, who did a really good job of distinguishing Yizhen and Yijing.

Angela Chang as Yizhen and Yijing

Of course the bulk of the credit goes to Angela Chang and the scriptwriters. This was an excellent way to demonstrate Angela Chang’s acting skills—there is nothing which proves that somebody can act better than casting them as two different characters in the same story. I ought to watch another Angela Chang drama.

Angela Chang, in addition to playing both of the main characters, also sings the opening and ending songs for the drama.

For an example of an Angela Chang song not directly related to Ài Shā 17, check out Bu Tong (No Pain). The pinyin lyrics with an English gloss can be found at Chinese Tools.

Shen Shihua as Liang Yajuan

Yet I think the very best acting performance in this drama was given by Shen Shihua, who played Liang Yajuan, the mother of Yizhen and Yijing. She even won the 2006 Golden Bell Best Supporting Actress award for this performance. In some ways, Liang Yajuan is a more difficult character to play than Yizhen or Yijing. Liang Yajuan actually grows more as a character than either of her daughters, and has to convey more subtlety. She just doesn’t get as much screentime.

The Whodunit Murder Mystery

The whodunit murder mystery is one of my least favorite genres of fiction. I only watched this drama because I received multiple recommendations. So how does it hold up as a murder mystery from a non-fan’s perspective?

Yizhen in an alleyway

I generally was less interested in the story when it was more purely a whodunit, and more interested when it was focusing on something else (like the relationship between Yizhen and Yijing). This probably says more about me than the drama itself. And of course, much of the story seems contrived. I find that is almost always the case with whodunits (then again, a fan of whodunits could probably point out the many ways the fiction I love seems contrived too).

A shot from one of the interrogation scenes

However, even I can recognize that this is a very well-crafted whodunit. There are several likely suspects, it’s very well set up, and plenty of surprises for the viewers. I had predicted one of the “shocking” plot twists pretty early, which made me cocky. The denouement, however, caught me completely off-guard. At first I was so shocked that I thought I had misheard something … yet looking back on the drama, it made so much sense, and even explained some things about the story which had seemed a bit odd. That is good writing.

Rape Culture

If you don’t know what “rape culture” is, this is a good introduction.

A 17-year old prostitute prepares to jump off a balcony

Unfortunately, this drama is a reflection of reality in Taiwan. Older men really do prey on teenage girls and child prostitution really does happen online in Taiwan. Of course, these atrocities also happen in the United States. It’s hard to tell whether this is really more prevalent in Taiwan, or whether Taiwanese people (or more specifically, the Taiwanese people I encounter, which is not a random sample of the population) are just more willing to talk about it. It is worth noting that there was a drastic reduction in child prostitution in Taiwan in the 1990s when the government started to actually enforce the anti-child-prostitution laws … and it was not a coincidence that the government cracked down on child prostitution at the same time that Taiwan transitioned to democracy.

The police arrest a client of an under-age prostitute

I, luckily, have yet to be directly threatened, and I think I am actually at much less risk of being sexually assaulted here than when I was living in San Francisco. Nonetheless, the local rape culture does affect my life in Taiwan too, just as it affects everybody else’s lives. I don’t think this is the place to discuss that, though that might be a good topic for my personal blog.

a woman is very upset

In some ways, this drama gets things very right. Most rapes are not committed by strangers, and none of the crimes in this drama are committed by strangers (the only crime which seems to have been committed by a stranger turns out to have been perpetrated by someone who is not). The drama also clearly shows how many people are ready to defend rapists, which unfortunately is very realistic. The drama also makes clear that in a society where saving face is more important than stopping abuse, abuse will flourish.

A man solicits sex from Yizhen, and Yizhen clearly does not consent

Now, I am uncomfortable with the way the drama depicts some things [SPOILER WARNING FOR THIS PARAGRAPH]. For example, I think the drama shows just a little too much sympathy for Yang Renyou. Sure, he was tricked, and he was lied to … but you know what? He also tried to have sex with one of his teenage students—multiple times—and when she was obviously not-consenting, he still continued. That is 100% Yang Renyou’s fault, and nobody else’s. The drama doesn’t exactly try to defend Yang Renyou—it presents the “facts” pretty clearly and he does die a horrible death—but I think the drama should have made it clearer that, regardless of the circumstances, Yang Renyou’s acts were utterly despicable and totally his responsibility. Also, I don’t like that Yijing, the victim of the most abuse (kidnapped as a child, drugged and raped, and finally, murdered) is also the main villain. In the context of a society without rape culture, this wouldn’t bother me … but victim blaming is so virulent in both Taiwan and the United States that it makes me very uneasy when the kidnapping/rape/murder victim just happens to be the Big Bad.

Availability in English

This drama is not legally available in English. That’s too bad. This would make a great addition to Dramafever’s line-up *hint hint*. That said, the first episode is crafted in such a way that I would have been able to follow the story even if the dialogue had been exclusively in Old Church Slavonic.

Conclusion

As I said before, this isn’t really my kind of thing. Therefore, it is not a personal favorite. But, in spite of all of the contrived stuff, I can’t deny that this is one of the best-written idol dramas I have ever seen. The mere fact that I watched the whole thing is a testament to its quality.

Yizhen and Jiawei in the special school assembly announcing Yijing's death

And while many people dismiss idol dramas as “junk culture,” I have found that the better idol dramas discuss some very important issues—in this case, rape culture. While I have my reservations about the way it’s handled in this drama, I still think it is a worthwhile addition to the conversation. The very fact that these dramas can make these important conversations accessible to a wide audience, in my opinion, makes them more valuable than works of high-falutin’ culture which are only accessible to an elite group.

Next Time: Princess Pearl (novel)


Sara K’s life is returning to “normal.” Of course, her “normal” life is not necessarily very normal at all and, much as she appreciates the opportunity to rest, she looks forward to the next time that her life will stop being “normal.”

Filed Under: Dramas, It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: Angela Chang, idol drama, rape culture, taiwan

It Came From the Sinosphere: The City and the Drama (part two)

September 25, 2012 by Sara K. 3 Comments

One of the main characters is making a funny face.

So last week, I introduced Black & White, one of the few idol dramas set in southern Taiwan, and the idol drama most closely associated with the city of Kaohsiung. This is a continuation of that discussion … starting with certain personal observations.

The Taiwanese Pride/Shame Complex

Two characters from the drama are laughing and embracing each other.

You all probably know this about the culture of the United States, but I’m going to spell it out to make the contrast with Taiwanese culture clearer.

The society of the United States is very proud. Proud to the point that it is unwilling to accept criticism, especially from outsiders. The United States is #1, regardless of objective evidence. It is difficult for the United States to pick up lessons from other societies. In other words, the United States goes beyond pride into the territory of arrogance.

Even in pockets of the United States such as, oh, San Francisco and Berkeley, which openly criticize “mainstream” American culture, getting people to accept criticism aimed at them is pretty tough. People in San Francisco and Berkeley are just as assured that they are #1 as anyone else in the United States, and I say that as someone born in Berkeley and raised in San Francisco.

Taiwan is different. In this respect, Taiwan is very different.

Taiwanese people are certainly proud of some parts of their society. They are generally proud of the local tea, for example. Many are also proud of how they have preserved “Chinese” culture (though how they define “Chinese” varies from person to person—some are proud of the continued use of traditional characters, whereas others are proud of the preservation of, say, Hakka culture, so one also has to be careful of what someone means when they say “Chinese”). Many are also proud of the beautiful local scenery, such as Yushan, the highest mountain in East Asia.

However, the two things which are most apparently successful to a casual outsider—the technology industry, and the development of democracy —tend to elicit more mixed feelings from the Taiwanese. It’s not that they aren’t proud of their achievements in technology and democracy (they are) but their awareness of the continuing problems in both tempers their attitude. Perhaps this is wise.

But when I bring up many aspects of their society—education, comics (manhua), child care, fashion, once in a while even the food (which mystifies me, as someone who prefers Taiwanese food to “mainstream” American food), Taiwanese people tell me that Taiwan is not [as good] as [some other society, particularly Japan, the United States, western Europe and, sometimes, South Korea or even China].

I think some of this is just being polite. In Taiwan, being boastful is considered rude, and the proper way to respond to praise is to claim that one does not deserve such praise.

On the other hand, Taiwanese often seem to feel they have been abandoned by the world. They aren’t a part of the UN; many people don’t know the difference between Taiwan and Thailand; and when they see media from the outside world (and they see a lot—the movies come from United States, the comics come from Japan, the TV dramas come from South Korea, etc.) they rarely see/hear Taiwan being mentioned. So when some Taiwanese people claim that Taiwan is not such a good place, I think I sometimes do perceive a lack of confidence which goes a bit deeper than common etiquette.

I think that this humility has its positive side. Taiwan the most gender-equal, queer-friendly, and religiously tolerant society in Asia, as well as having one of the lowest levels of inter-ethnic strife among multi-ethnic Asian societies. I think this can largely be attributed to the Taiwanese people’s willingness to admit that their society has problems (I don’t think it can be explained by democracy, since South Korea and Japan are also democracies yet are further behind Taiwan when it comes to gender equality and the treatment of queer people).

But just as having low self-esteem in oneself takes a psychological toll, having low esteem in one’s own society also takes its toll.

And for Taiwanese people who come from less privileged regions (in simplistic terms, anywhere outside of Taipei), the sense of shame seems to go just a little deeper.

Which Kaohsiung Is In the Drama?

The Kaohsiung featured in Black & White is the newly cleaned-up Kaohsiung, beautified by international designers, with trendy cafes, contemporary art, good public transit, and plenty of space for recreation. As the story progresses, the drama also addresses some of the less glamorous aspects of the city, such as homelessness and corruption. ‘

Pizi and Yingxiong outside a trendy cafe.

But what I found particularly striking was what was not shown in the drama.

In The Outsiders 2, there is a character from Kaohsiung, and the way they rub in that the character is from Kaohsiung is that all of his dialogue is in Taiwanese. It is part of idol drama logic that everyone from the south speaks Taiwanese. And when I ask (northern) Taiwanese people to describe southern Taiwan, one of the most common things they say is ‘everyone speaks Taiwanese’ or ‘Taiwanese is the main language’ or something along those lines.

Yet, in all of Black & White I don’t recall a single dialogue in Taiwanese.

I’m not saying there was zero Taiwanese in Black & White—most Taiwanese people put some Taiwanese words in their Mandarin speech—and there could have been some dialogue in Taiwanese which I simply missed. But I am confident that more English than Taiwanese was spoken in the drama.

And for a TV series which so prominently features southern Taiwan, that seems wrong.

Or is it?

I was just a visitor in Kaohsiung, so I didn’t get to observe the city in a deep way. I did notice that people in my age group would usually talk to each other in Mandarin—even if they had spent their entire lives in Kaohsiung, and they weren’t talking to me (I don’t speak Taiwanese). I needed interpretation into Taiwanese only once during my entire trip … and generally, I heard a lot more Mandarin than Taiwanese spoken (this may reflect the fact that I was mostly hanging around people in my own age group. When observing older people, I heard a lot more Taiwanese).

some people are playing some game on a table

This is a picture I took in Kaohsiung. I don’t remember what language they were speaking in, but they look like the kind of people who would speak in Taiwanese.

This drama is clearly aimed at the younger generation, as opposed to dramas such as Fated to Love You which are made for a wider age range. As such, I have to say that the choice of using Mandarin almost exclusively was appropriate.

Yet there is a broader issue at hand.

Sure, in Kaohsiung, I saw the shiny new stuff, including the cleaned-up Love river, the MRT system, the renewed harbor-side area, the parks, other recreation areas, etc. But I also saw some of the interesting old stuff. I stayed in Fengshan, an older area, and visited Cijin Island, a historic district, and the Zuoying district, which, aside from the shiny new HSR station, has the highest number of temples per squre kilometer of anywhere in Taiwan. These are all tourist draws (even Fengshan gets some tourist action because of the night market) … yet I don’t recall seeing any of it reflected in Black & White.

A Taiwanese deity walks in the street

This is a picture I took in the Cijin district.

Indeed, it seems that Black & White doesn’t show any aspect of Kaohsiung which is older than the Tuntex Sky Tower (completed in 1997). No historic districts, no Taiwanese language, no sign of heavy industry (Kaohsiung was once the center of heavy industry in Taiwan).

A picture of a temple

This is a picture I took in the Zuoying district.

Again, I must stress that I was just a visitor in Kaohsiung, I am not deeply familiar with the city, and that my thoughts are based on what I saw and heard. I’m sure I missed a lot.

To me, Black & White‘s depiction of Kaohsiung seems shallow. While it thoroughly explores the new Kaohsiung, it shows almost nothing of the old Kaohsiung. And since, as a causal visitor, I still managed to see some of the old Kaohsiung (and not necessarily on purpose), the makers of Black & White must have made an effort not to show any of that. And that absense sticks out to me.

It’s almost as if they are trying to hide the old Kaohsiung.

The Effect on the City … and the People

So far, I have been talking about how the city has influenced the drama. But how has the drama influenced the city?

Based on my observation, quite a bit.

While more people have seen Fated to Love You, I have seen Taiwanese people express much more enthusiasm for Black & White. And I think it’s because it’s helped fill in a hole in their psyche.

I don’t want to spoil the story but, so I’ll just say that, even though Pizi and Yingxiong are now star cops in the Kaohsiung police force, they had previously suffered neglect. Their confident exteriors cover up psychological wounds which haven’t fully healed. This can be interpreted as a metaphor for Taiwan as a whole, and southern Taiwan more specifically. Taiwan now has shiny tall buildings, sophisticated electronics manufacturing, and is a cultural exporter (Ang Lee is the best known cultural export in the United States, but there are many others who are well known, in one way or another, in many Asian countries). Yet in spite of all of the smartphones, DSL lines, and other high tech, many places still don’t have a modern sewer system. This kind of juxtaposition feeds into the pride/shame complex I have observed in Taiwanese people.

I think, by validating their experiences, this drama resonates with Taiwanese people who had to leave their hometowns for economic reasons, as well as the people who stayed behind and directly suffered from this neglect. In other words, it resonates with the majority of the (younger) Taiwanese population.

And the city itself has taken the drama and run with it. I could see Black & White paraphernalia all over the place, including stuff produced directly by the city government.

Availability in English

The DVD set has English subtitles, and is available for sale at YesAsia.com (among other places). It’s a bit pricey, but then again, it is cheaper than a round-trip full-fare high-speed train ticket between Taipei and Zuoying.

Conclusion

I travelled to Kaohsiung with friends who live in Taipei, but who have family ties to Kaohsiung. When they got their Kaohsiung transit cards, they were excited to see that all transit cards had a Black & White theme. They visited some places specifically because some scene from Black & White had been filmed there (whereas I generally had to see the interesting old traditional stuff on my own). Being with them shaped the way I viewed the city … and the way I view this drama.

Indeed, I think the fact that, not only was their city featured in an idol drama, but in one of the highest-quality idol dramas every made, means more to the people of Kaohsiung than all of trendy cafes and public art spaces.

This drama has helped lower the shame and increase the pride Taiwanese people feel towards their society and, by extension, themselves. And that is why it is important.

Next Week: Fluffy Fluff Fluff


This was the hardest post yet for this column. Sara K. simply must write something very fluffy for next week (otherwise, she would have to go on hiatus). She is also afraid that she has grossly misinterpreted Taiwanese culture, and that this post will haunt her forever. On the other hand, if she never said anything at all due to fear of exposing her misinterpretations, she would never blog. On a completely different note, she saw monkeys today. Wild monkeys. In the wild. That happens once in a while in Taiwan.

Filed Under: Dramas, It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: Black & White, idol drama, Kaohsiung, Mark Chao, taiwan, Vic Chou

It Came From the Sinosphere: The City and the Drama (part one)

September 18, 2012 by Sara K. 2 Comments

The promotional post for Black & White, featuring all of the main characters

If you asked me what the most important idol dramas ever made are, I would answer Meteor Garden (adapted from Hana Yori Dango) and Black & White. Meteor Garden, of course, as the first idol drama ever made, defined the entire genre, and was extremely influential not only in Taiwan, but also Japan, South Korea, China, the Philipines, Thailand, and beyond. However, while Black & White has not had Meteor Garden‘s international reach, its effect on Taiwan itself, based on my subjective observation, has been deeper. Most of this post is about this effect, rather than reviewing the drama itself.

Quick Story Overview

Kaohsiung Police Department’s top two crime solvers are Chen Zaitian (nicknamed Pǐzi – “Ruffian”) and Wu Yingxiong (Yīngxióng means “Hero”). Pizi goes around wearing snazzy white suits, hanging out at trendy cafes, sleeping with women, and working the sleaze circuit in ordet to ferret out clues. On the other hand, Yingxiong, who usually is wearing black, is brave, has a very strong sense of justice, personally sets out to right wrongs and, well, he generally acts like a hero. Unfortunately, he’s not very patient or subtle.

The Kaohsiung Police Department assigns these two to work on a case together. Oh dear.

Actually, this description makes this story sound a bit like something else I’ve discussed in this column. I guess there are no new plots.

About the Main Actors

The main actors, of course, are Vic Chou as Chen Zaitian, and Mark Chao as Wu Yingxiong.

Vic Chou as Chen Zaitian (Pizi) and Mark Chao as Wu Yingxiong

Vic Chou is one of the top idol drama actors ever. He debuted in Meteor Garden as Huazelei (Hanazawa Rui). However, he didn’t really show his full potential until he was cast as Ling (Rei) in Mars. I think his popularity is justified, and I have a lot of respect for him as an actor. While he needs a good script to show his talent (most actors do), his performances in both Mars and Black & White are excellent.

Vic Chou as Ling in Mars

Mark Chao, on the other hand, is better known as a singer than as an actor. This is the only time he has ever appeared in a TV drama … yet he won the Golden Bell Award (the Taiwanese equivalent of the Emmy Award) for Best Leading Actor. His other notable acting performance is as Wenzi (the main character) in the blockbuster film Monga. When I say Monga was a blockbuster, I mean that it was the #1 film in the Taiwanese box office during its run in theaters … and it ran in theaters at the same time as James Cameron’s Avatar. Mark Chao also sings the opening song for Black & White.

Mark Chao as Wenzi in Monga

But, while Vic Chou and Mark Chao are both celebrities and play the main characters, neither is the true star of the drama. The true star, of course, is Kaohsiung.

The City

Kaohsiung is Taiwan’s second-largest city, Taiwan’s largest port, and the largest city in southern Taiwan. Over the last ten years, Kaohsiung has gone through a great transformation.

In older accounts, Kaohsiung is called an ugly, highly-polluted, boring hellhole where the tap water is laced with heavy metals (including lead and arsenic), and which should be avoided unless one must be there for economic reasons. However, nowadays people are always telling me about how nice Kaohsiung is.

What changed? Mostly, government policy.

For a long time, Kaohsiung, aside from some key business interests, had been neglected by the government, which is one reasons why the city had such severe problems.

Then a funny thing called democracy appeared in Taiwan. In fact, most historians say that the ‘Kaohsiung Incident’ was a turning point for the Taiwanese democracy movement. It is worth noting that Kaohsiung suffered more under authoritarian rule than Taipei did, so it was not a coincidence the human rights activists were organizing there.

Of course, governmental reform took decades – Taiwan didn’t have its first free and fair presidential election until 1996. And even then, it took time to shift policies. But shift they did (to what extent, of course, is a subject of heated debate).

The major changes to Kaohsiung happened under the leadership of Mayor Frank Hsieh, and continued under Kaohsiung’s current mayor, Chen Chu (Chen Chu was one of the “Kaohsiung Eight,” and is the only woman to have ever been mayor of a major Taiwanese city). The government reduced pollution, improved the sewage system, built an MRT system, created many parks and recreation areas, hired international designers to beautify the city, and otherwise turned Kaohsiung into a much more livable place.

Of course, it wasn’t only the government that was neglecting Kaohsiung. It was also the cultural media. The vast majority of Mandarin-language dramas are filmed in northern Taiwan – either in Taipei itself, or, if they want to have a more rustic feel and/or reduce filming costs, neighboring areas such as Taoyuan or Yilan county (I do not know enough about Taiwanese (Hokkien) language dramas to comment on them, but most younger people in Taiwan don’t watch them anyway). I think this type of cultural neglect has a psychological effect on people.

North vs. South

Like almost every inhabited place on Earth, Taiwan has regional divisions, and the big one is north vs. south. In Taiwan, the north is definitely richer, more powerful, more economically robust, better infrastructure, etc. It is telling that when many people think of Taiwan, they think of Taipei, Taiwan’s northernmost major city. And Taipei also happens to be the capital (political power).

Northern Taiwan is also the center of ‘Chinese’ culture in Taiwan. When I say “Chinese,” I mean the culture of the people who moved from China to Taiwan in the middle of the 20th century. For example, Mandarin is spoken more in northern Taiwan (ex-Yilan) than anywhere else in Taiwan. Likewise, Taiwanese/Hokkien is less spoken in northern Taiwan (again, ex-Yilan) than anywhere else in Taiwan.

However, southern Taiwan is the center of Taiwanese/Hoklo culture (note: some people prefer to refer to it as “Taiwanese” culture because they consider it to be the true heritage of Taiwanese society, whereas other people prefer to refer to it as “Hoklo” to emphasize that it is only one of Taiwan’s traditions, and that the other cultural traditions are just as ‘Taiwanese’ as the Hoklo one – I am trying to be neutral, so I will use both terms). In particular, Tainan, Taiwan’s oldest city and former capital, is considered the heart of traditional Taiwanese/Hoklo culture.

A further wrinkle is that many residents of nothern Taiwan are originally from southern Taiwan. Due to the better economic and educational opportunities, many people from other regions of Taiwan move to the north, but still have family and cultural connections to their native region. And many have moved from Kaohsiung to the north (especially Taipei). The reverse is a lot less common. Thus many people in northern Taiwan actually identify with the south on some level.

While Kaohsiung does not carry the historical and cultural weight of Tainan, it is also a symbol of the south, and for many Taiwanese people, arguably a majority of Taiwanese people, the south is their ‘native’ land.

Kaohsiung’s Own Idol Drama

Black & White is not the first idol drama set in Kaohsiung. For example, Prince Turns into Frog, another popular idol drama, is also set in Kaohsiung. However, in Prince Turns into Frog, the setting seemed incidentle – though they occasionally included shots of Kaohsiung’s landmarks, it could have just as easily been filmed in northern Taiwan.

That most certainly is not the case of Black & White. It has Kaohsiung all over it. The opening song features Kaohsiung prominently; the ending song also features the city prominently. The first episode features Formosa Boulevard Station, Kaohsiung’s most notable MRT station. There are some scenes in the Yuansu Yujhu fashion area, which is Kaohsiung’s equivalent of Taipei’s Ximending and Tokyo’s Harajuku. The climax of the story takes place in the middle of Kaohsiung’s most famous feature, it’s harbor. The city is clearly featured in every single episode. I have seen no other idol drama which puts as much emphasis on place as Black & White.

In fact, I wonder if the MRT system was featured so prominently in the drama to encourage people to ride it. I know that it has been a disappointment due to the low ridership. People (both Taiwanese and foreign) have told me that the Kaohsiung MRT ‘sucks’, but I found it very useful. If I had spent more time in Kaohsiung, I might have figured out why it ‘sucks’, but for now it seems to me that the problem lies in people’s attitudes rather than the MRT system itself (granted, there are also claims of corruption in the construction of the MRT system, which is a totally different issue).

This has very high production values for a idol drama. I don’t just mean the special effects and cinematography; the producers pulled in top acting talent (see above), got really good writers on the project, and had a very clear commitment to quality across the board.

It’s as if Black & White tried to compensate for decades of media neglect in one fell swoop.

So, What’s Next

This is one of those posts which ended up being a bit long, so I’ve broken it into two parts. Normally, I try to post two-parters in the same week … but this week I’m really busy, so part two will be posted next week. In part two, I discuss, among other things, how the drama depicts the city, how the city depicts the drama, how to get this drama in English (hint: it can be done legally), and some personal observations.

See you next week…


Sara K. spend a couple years living in Oakland, California. When she thinks of Oakland, she thinks of the majestic cranes at the port (when she was a kid, she thought they were dinosaurs). So when she sees the cranes of any port city, she always feels a tinge of childhood wonder, as will as a light, wispy, fleeting sense of home.

Filed Under: Dramas, It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: Black & White, idol drama, Kaohsiung, Mark Chao, taiwan, Vic Chou

It Came from the Sinosphere: The One

September 11, 2012 by Sara K. 3 Comments

A picture featuring Lele in a fancy dress with Eros Lanson in the background.

I have a recipe for you.

Ingredient List:

1/2 cup of Paradise Kiss by Ai Yazawa
1/2 cup of a BL comic (the more cliched and/or melodramatic, the better)
1/2 cup of Mars by Fuyumi Soryo
1 cup of a shoujo manga so trashy you are a little embarrassed to admit that you like it
1 tablespoon of Taiwanese culture

1. Put all ingredients in a food processor.
2. Set the machine to “Chinese language”
3. Blend thoroughly.

Voila! You have The One, a manhua by Nicky Lee.

I think there isn’t much point to trying to describe the plot, since it’s mostly ridiculous, but I’ll try anyway.

The Story

Lele’s parents were both fashion models, but they died when she was young, so she was raised by her grandmother and aunt. Her aunt, a modeling agent, is keen to get Lele into the business as soon as she is old enough, but Lele hates the idea of becoming a model. Then she sees photos featuring Angus Lanson, the Chinese-European-American model who is taking the world by storm. Lele then recognizes that modeling can be an art form. Oh, and Angus has a twin brother, Eros Lanson (you read that right, his name is “Eros”).

I don’t think that’s enough to convey the true ridiculousness of the story, so here’s what happened in volume 14 (spoiler warning). Another model, Feidna, had taken Lele’s place in the modeling world to get revenge for Lele taking Eros from her. Eros says he will break up with Lele if she doesn’t take her place in the modeling world back, so Lele goes to Paris. In order to get back her position. she has to work with a very feminine male model, and she has to become very masculine in order to accompany him. Oh, and they have to spend a couple of weeks together as “girlfriend and boyfriend” (he is the girlfriend, she is the boyfriend).

Background

The One is a Star Girls title (I have discussed Star Girls previously). Specifically, it’s currently the best selling Star Girls title. In fact, it currently the best-selling Taiwanese manhua aimed specifically at a female audience, period.

Nicky Lee has been making manhua for about 20 years. Aside from The One, her best-known work is Youth Gone Wild, which is 14 volumes long.

The Surfacing of Taiwanese Culture

I’ve said before that Star Girls manhua tends to follow Japanese shoujo very closely, but Taiwanese culture can surface in interesting ways.

For example, the super-gorgeous twins have both Chinese and European ancestry. In Taiwan, people of mixed Chinese and European ancestry are considered to be more beautiful than people of purely Chinese or purely European ancestry.

Also, though I can’t find it right now, there’s a reference to how scary Taiwan is due to all the stray dogs (something that is also noted in Pinoy Sunday). It is true that Taiwan has lots of stray dogs, and they used to scare me a lot before I got used to them. Supposedly the only place with even more stray dogs is Thailand (at least, that seems to be the only place with more complaints about stray dogs than Taiwan).

There are enough Taiwanisms in this manhua that I don’t think anyone who hadn’t lived in Taiwan could have written it.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a manhua with a bunch of subtle Taiwanisms is also one of the best-selling manhua in Taiwan. In the Taiwan market, being able to feature Taiwanese culture is one of the clearest advantages local manhua artists have over Japanese artists.

Art

I think Nicky Lee has read something by Ai Yazawa.

Some pages showing the Ai Yazawa influence.

However, the Ai Yazawa influence is most apparent in the early volumes, and less apparent later on. In fact, in the most recent volumes, the Fuyumi Soryo influence is much more apparent, at least to me.

Some pages from volume 14, the most recent volume

My favorite parts, art-wise, are the cinematic sections without dialogue. They really show that Nicky Lee can tell a story visually. For example, there is a beautiful sequence (which, due to technical difficulties, I cannot get pictures of – sorry!) in which Lele leaves Eros. In the rain. In the heart of New York City. And not a word is said. Both the composition and the way the characters’ expressions are drawn in that scene are exquisite.

On Queerness

The way queerness is depicted in this story is a mixed bag.

On the one hand, there are queer characters. And, unlike some BL, homosexual identity is acknowledged – some characters actually do identify as gay.

On the other hand, pansexual/bisexual identity is NOT acknowledged. There are some characters who, to me, are clearly behaving in a bisexual/pansexual way … but nobody identifies as pansexual or bisexual. Instead, they are straight, or gay, or a gay going straight, or a straight going gay. Argh.

One of my favorite characters, Leo, actually identifies as gay. He is a bit of a stereotypical gay man … on the other hand he is also black (in my experience of mainstream American media, the vast majority of gay men depicted are white). He is also one of the most likeable characters in the entire story.

What bugs me most, however, is a story arc in which a woman woos away a man from his boyfriend. As far as I could tell, these two guys were not in an open relationship, therefore I think trying to woo one of them away is, at best, extremely questionable behavior. But Nicky Lee tells the story as if there is nothing questionable about this. I cannot imagine Nicky Lee telling this story the same way if the relationship involved were a heterosexual one. The only explanation I can think of is that Nicky Lee thinks that homosexual relationships are not as worthy of respect as heterosexual ones. And I strongly disagree with that.

My Take on the Story

I think the story is too ridiculous to take seriously. Okay, occasionally I can take it seriously but … not often.

Nonetheless, I have read all 14 volumes, and I enjoyed it. What gives?

Well, first of all, the story is not boring. The breezy style keeps things moving along.

In spite of all the cliches, I don’t know what is going to happen next, because the cliches are deployed in an unpredictable way.

The Lanson twins—they are so over the top it’s funny. For example (spoiler warning), in order to rescue Eros, who basically being kept prisoner by their father in Europe, Angus sells himself to another male model, agreeing to be his sex slave for two years. Months later the male model complains that Angus hasn’t given himself to him, and Angus answers that he’s fulfilled his every request and had lots of sex with him, and the male model replies that what he really wants is Angus’ heart. Just thinking about that arc makes me giggle.

There are also some moments which are just plain fun. For example, at one point during a shoot, Lele imagines tormenting Eros Lanson in a BDSM fashion (whip included) … and her feelings come out in the way that she touches the other models in the shoot. The director of the shoot finds Lele’s attitude incredibly hot.

And, as someone who has read more than a few shoujo manga, I am actually impressed by Nicky Lee’s ability to use so many melodramatic shoujo/BL tropes while keeping the story comprehensible.

Availability

This manhua has never been licensed in English, or any other European language.

Conclusion

Since I figured the most popular Taiwanese manhua aimed at a female audience couldn’t be the worst place to start, this was actually the first manhua I ever read. So it will always have some nostalgic value for me.

I think it’s a pity it hasn’t been licensed in English because, even though it’s not a masterpiece, I think hard-core shoujo fans might appreciate something like this. It’s strangely appealing in its own way.

Next Time: Black & White (idol drama)


Sara K. is going to be quite busy in the next month, so her posts might become fluffier than usual (though the next post will definitely not be fluffy). Nonetheless, she hope readers will enjoy them.

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: manhua, nicky lee, star girls, taiwan, the one

Fated to Love You (Special Post)

August 24, 2012 by Sara K. 7 Comments

Cunxi draws a family in a sandbox.

So, on Tuesday I made the case for why people should watch Fated to Love You. In this post, I assume you are already in bed … er … on board with the idea that this show is worth watching, so instead I am going to explain things which would not be apparent to viewers who are not familiar with the Chinese language and/or Taiwan.

Let’s start with that pun, in bed vs. on board.

Fun with Language

Fated to Love You is very playful with its language. The most commonly used pun on the show is shàng chuán (board a boat / on a boat) vs. shàng chuáng (get in bed / in bed). Some of the significant events in the story happens on boats (and in beds). I don’t think you need to know anything about Taiwanese culture to appreciate the comedic value.

There’s also a pun on Paris vs. Bali. In Mandarin, “Paris” is pronounced as “Bālí,” and “Bālǐ” is a district of New Taipei City (I talk more about “Bālǐ” below).

Fun with language can be difficult to translate. Take this scene for example:

A picture of Anson

Pinyin:

Anson: Wǒ dǒng le.
Cunxi: Dǒng shénme a!
Anson: Zhè jiù shì jiānghú shàng liúchuán yĭjiŭ de “mŭzhū sài Diāo Chán.”
Cunxi: “Mŭzhū sài Diāo Chán?”
Anson: Hĕn jiăndān de luóji, jiăndān de dàolĭ ma.

Translation:

Anson: I understand.
Cunxi: Understand what?
Anson: This is [a saying] that has been passed down for a long time in jianghu “the female pig overtakes Diao Chan.”
Cunxi: “The female pig overtakes Diao Chan”?
Anson: The logic is simple, the reasoning is quite simple.

Anson then goes on to explain that “the female pig overtakes Diao Chan” means that when a man hasn’t been around beautiful women for a long time, but he is around a plain-looking woman, he will start finding the plain-looking woman more attractive than the beautiful women he saw a long time ago.

First of all, what is jianghu? It is usually used to refer to the world where wuxia stories take place, but it also sometimes used to refer to the gangster underworld (for example, The Outsiders 1 & 2 are set in “jianghu”). It is a bit like the concept of “the wild west” in American culture—a place of adventure where laws aren’t exactly obeyed and people must struggle for their personal honor.

Now, who is Diao Chan? She’s is one of the Four Great Beauties of ancient China (yes, there is an official list of the great beauties of ancient China).

Now, for those who are not familiar with Chinese, the language is full of chengyu—sayings (usually of four characters) often based on allusions to classical Chinese literature. If you’ve ever seen the Star Trek: Next Generation episode “Darmok,” think of Chinese as being a bit like that language. Good and frequent usage of chengyu demonstrates that one is well-educated, so some Chinese-speakers (both native and non-native) put a lot of effort into mastering them. What Anson is doing is that he is making up his own chengyu (at least I think it’s made up—I was not able to find it in any of my references), and since Cunxi doesn’t know it, he’s asking for an explanation.

So yes, this show has lots of fun with words. But so far I have been dealing with pure Mandarin (or Mandarin peppered with Classical Chinese). This show also uses quite a bit of Taiwanese, as well as a little English, and even a teensy bit of Cantonese.

Mandarin vs. Taiwanese

I think it would be fair to call Taiwan the “island of Babel.” Nonetheless, there are two dominant languages: Mandarin and Taiwanese. While there is a significant portion of the population that is not fluent in Mandarin and there is a significant portion of the population that is not fluent in Taiwanese, the vast majority of Taiwanese are fluent in at least one of those two languages. The choice of which language is used has serious social and political implications (high-profile Taiwanese politicians generally have to know both languages lest they offend voters) which I cannot explain here.

Most characters in Fated to Love You speak Mandarin. The most significant Taiwanese-speaking character is Chen-Lin Xishi.

Chen-Lin Xishi and one of her daughters.

The fact that most of her dialogue is in Taiwanese communicates that she is an older, rural woman. In Taiwan, Taiwanese tends to be the language of older people, and Mandarin tends to be the language of younger people. Furthermore, Mandarin tends to be an urban language, whereas Taiwanese tends to be a rural language. Mandarin is also associated with the elite, whereas Taiwanese is associated with the working class. There are significant exceptions, of course.

Chen-Lin Xishi also occasionally speaks in Mandarin. She speaks Mandarin with a heavy accent (coming from me, that’s the lump of coal calling the kettle black), but doesn’t seem to have any problem with conversational Mandarin. However, there’s one scene where she tries to speak in very formal Mandarin, and she trips over words so much that she needs her daughter’s help to complete sentences. It’s quite funny.

And then there’s Ji-Wang Zhenzhu, who happens to be one of my favorite characters.

A picture of Ji-Wang Zhenzhu

It’s obvious from the way Ji-Wang Zhenzhu speaks that she grew up in China, not Taiwan. The biggest giveaway is that she speaks with an “erhua.” “Erhua” is a certain style of speaking Mandarin in which it seems that every other word ends with an “r” sound. “Erhua” is strongly associated with the Beijing area. In Taiwan, if someone speaks with an “erhua” it’s generally assumed that they came from China.

Now, as someone who grew up in a region of China where people speak with an “erhua,” Ji-Wang Zhenzhu would not be expected to speak Taiwanese (Taiwanese is actually a dialect of Hokkien, and Hokkien is spoken in Fujian province, but Fujianese people generally do not speak with an “erhua”). However, when talking to Chen-Lin Xishi, who was failing at formal Mandarin, Ji-Wang Zhenzhu does sometimes use some Taiwanese. I know very little Taiwanese … but the way Ji-Wang Zhenzhu uses Taiwanese seems a bit awkward to me. It was clearly a move to save Chen-Lin Xishi’s face, as well as to show respect to her.

In a later scene, Chen-Lin Xishi tries to show her respect for Ji-Wang Zhenzhu … by speaking with an “erhua.” Even to me, Chen-Lin Xishi’s “erhua” sounds really artificial (Ji-Wang Zhenzhu’s “erhua,” on the other hand, sounds quite natural). And it’s funny because Chen-Lin Xishi is the last person in the drama who would have a genuine “erhua.”

Indeed, one of the many wonderful things about the drama is subtle development of the relationship between Chen-Lin Xishi and Ji-Wang Zhenzhu, two older women who come from very different walks of life. I’m afraid there’s no way to prevent a little of that from being lost in translation.

Music

The characters will occasionally burst into song spontaneously. No, Fated to Love You is not a musical. Instead, the characters burst into song the same way that people might start singing the George Harrison song “Something” if someone said “I don’t know why I like her, there’s something about her.”

I admit, I don’t recognize all of the songs. But I recognize some. For example, one song that gets referenced a couple times is “Ní Wáwa” (“Clay Baby”), which is a traditional children’s song that has been covered by many artists. It’s basically a child singing about their own clay doll, saying that since it’s not a real baby and doesn’t have a mommy or daddy, the child will have to be the mommy and daddy. Here is a really slow version of the song on YouTube.

Does Jiangmu Dao (Ginger Island) Exist?

Much of this drama is set in a place called Jiangmu Dao (Ginger Island). Does Jiangmu Dao exist?

The answer is: yes and no.

A view of Zhentoushan from the drama

Some of the Jiangmu Dao scenes were filmed at Zhentoushan. Zhentoushan is a peninsula (not an island) in Shimen resevoir in … Taoyuan county. I live in Taoyuan county, and my tap water comes from Shimen resevoir.

Cunxi swims in Shimen resevoir.

Hey dude, get out of my drinking water!

Even though it is technically a peninsula, there is no road to Zhentoushan, so the only way to get there is by boat (in other words, it practically is an island). About 50 households live in Zhentoushan.

Zhentoushan has an interesting place in Taiwanese history. If I remember correctly, it was a site of Atayal resistance against the Japanese (actually, that might have been Jiaobanshan, but Jiaobanshan is really close to Zhentoushan). Later, Chiang Kai-Shek (who was at the time the de-facto dictator of Taiwan) decided to build a villa in the area with views over Zhentoushan. The villa no longer exists, but I have visited the site and have verified that the view of Zhentoushan is indeed spectacular.

After the success of the drama, the residents of Zhentoushan have even gone so far as to rename their home “Jiangmu Dao” in order to draw in tourists. And the drama has increased tourism in this specific area a lot. There are tours from Amuping (another settlement next to Shimen resevoir) to Zhentoushan which have the name of the drama written on the boats. While riding the boat, they even show clips from the drama.

However, the thing is, most of the scenes supposedly set on “Jiangmu Dao” were not filmed in Zhentoushan.

First of all, some of the scenes which were supposed to be “Jiangmu Dao” were actually filmed in Amuping. If you actually know the area, the drama can sometimes be confusing, because the characters will say that they are leaving Jiangmu Dao, when in fact they are clearly leaving Amuping and going towards Zhentoushan.

Also, I don’t know where this boat terminal is, but it’s not in Amuping or Zhentoushan.

The mysterious boat terminal

This is the dock at Amuping.

The dock at Amuping

And there is no factory in Zhentoushan (the place has no road access, no one would put a factory there).

A warehouse shown in the drama.

This temple is not in Zhentoushan (there is only one temple in Zhentoushan, which is really a shrine and not a temple, and it’s much smaller).

A picture of a temple from the drama

There is no school in Zhentoushan (I’ve been told that the children have to take the boat to get to school).

a picture of a classroom from the drama

There are no rice fields in Zhentoushan (Zhentoushan doesn’t have much flat ground, though there are some rice fields on a terrace on the other side of Shimen resevoir.

Zhentoushan does have running water and electricity (the electric wires cross the water), but it’s not much more developed than that (again, there is no road access). It’s certainly not as developed at the Jiangmu Dao depicted in Fated to Love You.

In fact, most of the Jiangmu Dao scenes look like they were filmed in a lowland town (albeit spiffed up—this is an idol drama after all). It seems they used Amuping / Zhentoushan mainly because a) so they should show the characters travelling by boat to and from an “island” and b) because the scenery is nice. Otherwise, they are depicting a lowland town, not the backwaters of Taoyuan county.

It’s worth noting that this is not the only idol drama filmed in the rural areas of Taoyuan county. In fact Ethan Ruan, who is the male lead in Fated to Love You, also acted in an idol drama Green Forest, My Home which it set even deeper in the backwoods of Taoyuan County.

Environmental Injustice for Profit

One of the themes in Fated to Love You is a greedy businessperson trying to take over a rural area against the inhabitants’ will so his company can poison the environment with impunity. This is also a theme in Autumn’s Concerto. In fact, it’s a common theme in idol dramas.

Unfortunately, this is a reflection of reality. There are many examples of this kind of thing happening in Taiwan. Some examples: the naphtha cracker plant in Yunlin (that naphtha cracker plant was originally supposed to be built in a small town in Yilan—I know someone from that small town, and she says she’s very grateful that the government in Yilan rejected the plant), the destruction of the Alangyi trail, and the nuclear waste in Lanyu.

Then again, considering how much water is being poisoned by fracking, not to mention countless other examples, this is an issue in the United States too…

Star Cruises

A picture of a star cruises boat from the drama.

Star Cruises, which is featured in the first episode, is *the* cruise line in East Asia. In addition to their Taiwan-Hong Kong cruises, they also offer cruises from Taiwan to the Yaeyama islands. Even though the Yaeyama islands are governed by Japan, they are closer to Taipei than Tokyo. If it weren’t so astronomically expensive, I might be interested in taking a trip to the Yaeyama islands. Why? Among other reasons, part of Basara, one of my favorite manga, is set in the Yaeyama islands.

Museums!

Inside the Yingge Ceramics Museum

One of the museums featured in this drama is the Yingge Ceramics Museum. Some of Mars was also shot in the Yingge Ceramics Museum, but it makes much more sense in Fated to Love You. Yingge is one of the three or so centers of ceramics production in Taiwan, and is the most famous. After visiting the museum, my brain was crammed with more facts about pottery and ceramics than I thought I would ever know in my lifetime. Yingge is very close to Taoyuan city, where I live.

A shot filmed at the Shihsanhang museum.

There is also a scene set at the Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology in Bali (I told you I would mention Bali again). It is next to the Shihsanhang site, where archaeologists have found some of the earliest evidence of human habitation in Taiwan.

This shot gives a nice view of the hills of Bali.

Shanghai

Chen Xinyi and Dylan in Shanghai

I have never been to Shanghai, and quite frankly I know very little about the city. I do know there is an exhibit at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum of paintings and sculptures from Shanghai artists, so there are certainly attempts to cross the strait with fine art.

The Thirteen Levels

A picture of the Thirteen Levels

The Thirteen Levels, in Shuinandong, is one of the most iconic buildings on Taiwan’s north coast. There is another idol drama I plan to discuss which features Shuinandong, so for now I will just say that Shuinandong is just below Jinguashi, which is next to Jiufen, an important town in Taiwanese culture which I have mentioned previously.

Conclusion

The point of this post is not to point out every clever use of language, explain every cultural reference, and to discuss every location. First of all, I did not catch every clever use of language, understand every cultural reference, or recognize every location. And I did not discuss everything I did recognize because this post is already long enough as it is.

What I want to do is give readers the sense that, behind this drama, there stands an entire culture and society. I think it’s entirely possible to enjoy Fated to Love You without understanding any of this. I also think that being aware of these extra layers deepens one’s experience of the drama.


Sara K. likes see how various things connect together. It is one of the finest pleasures in her life. She is also happy to squeeze a Basara reference into a post about a Taiwanese idol drama.

Filed Under: It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: Fated to Love You, Mandarin, Shanghai, taiwan, Taiwanese, Taoyuan

It Came From the Sinosphere: Fated to Love You

August 21, 2012 by Sara K. 11 Comments

This drama has the distinction of having the highest TV ratings of any idol drama ever. Every Taiwanese person I have asked has seen at least part of this drama. I have gotten middle-aged Taiwanese men who claim that K-dramas are too feminine for them to admit that a) they have seen Fated to Love You and b) that it’s good.

Why is this drama so popular? Maybe this (abridged) scene will give you a clue…

Example Scene

Dylan is playing hide-and-seek with the kids at the church. He decides to hide in the confessional booth.

Chen Xinyi walks in to make a confession. She tells Dylan that she had sex with a stranger … and that it was the first time she ever had sex.

Dylan tells her to go home and tell God “sorry.”

Chen Xinyi then tells her about how she’s been throwing up a lot in the past few days.

Hearing this, Dylan urges her to go buy a pregnancy test – but to do it on the sly.

Chen Xinyi takes his suggestion to heart, and disguises herself so no one will recognize her when she buys the pregnancy test.

By sheer coincidence, there is a robber who disguises herself just like Xinyi, and appears on the news right before Xinyi walks into the store.

The store clerk tells her she doesn’t need to pay. As soon as she leaves, he calls the police.

The police corner her in the bathroom. There’s also a TV news reporter with them.

Right after Chen Xinyi has used the pregnancy test, the police open up the bathroom stall and point guns at her.

She is so startled that she loses hold of the pregnancy test-stick.

The TV news reporter picks up the pregnancy test-stick … and congratulates her. It is announced on television that Chen Xinyi in pregnant. So much for doing things on the sly.

Chen Xinyi’s mother just happens to be watching the news at that moment…

… and the stranger she had sex with notices the news on TV too.

Sara K. Loves Joe Chen

Joe Chen in my favorite actress working in Taiwanese idol dramas.

First of all, she’s versatile. For example, in Prince Turns Into Frog, she plays a girl from a poor fishing village, whereas in My Best Pals she plays a hip teenager from Ximending who jumps off buildings into cars (I am not kidding). Whereas her character in Prince Turns Into Frog dreams of gold-digging her way out of the boondocks, her character in My Best Pals would rather kick than kiss a rich guy’s ass. Joe Chen plays both roles very well.

Obviously, you can’t judge her acting based on the theme songs, but the theme songs of Prince Turns Into Frog and My Best Pals do offer a sense of how the two dramas feel different—and I assure you the characters Joe Chen plays in those dramas are just as different as the theme songs. In addition, Joe Chen has been cast as Dongfang Bubai in the new The Laughing Proud Wanderer TV series, which is a really different role from the others I have see her play (for starters, Dongfang Bubai, having been born with testicles, is not a cis female).

Her role as Chen Xinyi in Fated to Love You is quite different from all of the roles I mentioned above. Chen Xinyi is an office worker with low self-esteem. She is completely convincing in the role. She is extremely true to what Chen Xinyi is feeling, and skillfully demonstrates how Chen Xinyi changes during the course of the story. I think Fated to Love You would have moved me to tears a lot less if they had cast a lesser actress.

Messing With Idol Drama Tropes

If you have seen several other Taiwanese idol dramas, you already know what the story is because it’s the same as 90% of idol drama stories, and just when you are sure what’s going to happen next … Fated to Love You goes in the other direction.

Ha ha ha.

Sure, yes, it does follow the standard idol drama plot. It does so with irreverence. Sometimes it uses the standard tropes, but in a totally silly way. Sometimes it uses the standard tropes, but with a wink in its eye, telling the viewers “Yes, we know you have seen this in five other dramas, but we do it with more flair.” Sometimes it makes the viewers think it’s going to use the standard tropes, but pulls a fast one and does something completely different. And sometimes it uses the standard tropes in a totally straight way, so the viewer doesn’t get too used to the twists.

This is actually why, much as I love this drama, I’m not sure this should be somebody’s first Taiwanese idol drama. If you haven’t seen other Taiwanese idol dramas, you might not always notice it when Fated to Love You sticks out its tongue and makes funny faces. On the other hand, this is one of the best idol dramas ever made, so if you are only going to see one Taiwanese idol drama ever, this might be a good choice.

Let’s Get Serious

Before you get the idea that Fated to Love You is a spoof or a comedy (well, it is a comedy, yet it’s more than that…), I assure you that there is a totally serious story being told here. I probably cry as much laugh when I watch it (notice that I’m using present tense—I’ve seen this drama twice, and I am sure I will watch it again).

In particular, this is a story about Chen Xinyi, who has spent her entire life helping other people instead of herself. During the course of the story she discovers that she has her own distinctive artistic voice.

Actually, all of my favorite idol dramas are about women who are discovering their artistic voice. Maybe that’s a coincidence, or maybe that’s a reflection of my personal tastes, or maybe idol dramas about women discovering their artistic voice are inherently more awesome.

In fact, this is why I consider this idol drama to be feminist. Just as sexism says women are not as important as men, everybody (except her father, who is dead) says that Chen Xinyi is not important. After going through a lot of suffering, it is demonstrated that Chen Xinyi is just as important as every other character in the drama, and that she important purely on the basis of being herself.

Location, Location, Location

I realize that there is so much I want to say about the locations in this drama that it’s better off in a separate post.

Fun with Language

Once again, I realized there is so much I want to say about this that it’s better off in a separate post. (Read Fated to Love You -Special Post.)

Chen Xinyi Talks to Joe Chen

There are a couple scenes where Chen Xinyi talks to Joe Chen.

Wait a minute … isn’t Chen Xinyi played by Joe Chen?

In addition to being an actress, TV host, and writer, Joe Chen is also a model. In fact, right now there are ads featuring her in Taipei train station which say (in Chinese) “[brand name] loves Joe Chen”. Thus it is entirely believable that Chen Xinyi would encounter ads featuring Joe Chen in the hip Xinyi district (note: the “Xinyi” in “Xinyi district” uses different Chinese characters than the “Xinyi” in “Chen Xinyi”). However, the ads featuring Joe Chen have never talked to me.

Music

I generally don’t find the music created specifically for this drama that interesting, but the exception is the song “Wǒ de Kuài​lè​​” (My Happiness). In particular, I appreciate when they play the piano score without the singing. The song is played so much that, even without the singing, the viewer (at least a viewer who can understand Mandarin) can hear the words of the song. It contributes to the mood of the series, and the sadness of the song often counterbalances the sillier scenes.

Availability in English

The good news:

DRAMAFEVER HAS LICENSED FATED TO LOVE YOU.

The bad news:

None of the episodes are available yet. Also, this only helps people who are in North or South America.

Conclusion

Fated to Love You is one of my favorites. Just when I’m wondering why I keep on watching idol dramas, I stumble on a drama like Fated to Love You, and my interest in idol dramas is revived. Finding these dramas makes watching the mediocre ones worth it (and I’ve noticed that even the mediocre dramas are generally improved by the presence of Joe Chen).

I love Fated to Love You so much that there is going to be a special post about it, hopefully on Friday. The purpose of this post is to convince you all (in North and South America) to watch it (when Dramafever makes it available). The purpose of the next post will be to offer commentary for people who are not too familiar with Taiwan and/or the Chinese language. In fact, I suspect one reason why Dramafever is taking so long to release episodes is that some of the things the characters say are really difficult to translate into English. Hopefully, that means that when the episodes are available, the translation will be really good.

Read Fated to Love You (Special Post).

Next regular post: Xuanji Tu (novel)


Sara K. wishes to give whoever is translating Fated to Love You for Dramafever a pat on the back. She understands how frustrating it probably is. She would also like to see Dramafever (or somebody else) legally bring out some of her other favorite idol dramas into English.

Filed Under: Dramas, It Came From the Sinosphere Tagged With: Ethan Ruan, Fated to Love You, idol drama, Joe Chen, taiwan

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