#Shang Xirui

[sanch0us]

so let the show begin

[palehorsemen]

Little illustrations to Winter Begonia

[atelier-joan]

A study. Shang Xirui from Winter Begonia (鬓边不是海棠红)

[shelfperson]

winter begonia peoples PLEASE hmu i’m halfway through the show it’s skyrocketed to my favorite ever and i don’t know what i’m gonna do when i finish it. like?? please tell me we have a discord server???? even an inactive dead one will do

[jianghushenanigans]

A sequel to the ‘most annoying guy TM in the Jianghu’ and ‘most annoying guy TM in the cdrama capital’ poll because I was specifically asked to include Ming Tai and honestly he deserves it

Propaganda of a sort under cut - also feel free to provide your own

Ming Tai: as a teenager (early 20s? unclear: Hu Ge is blatantly in his mid 30s but we're ignoring this because he's a good actor) and a baby brother raised by significantly older siblings, Ming Tai is the spoiled brat. He's also very good at being a competent spy when he needs to be, but that doesn't make him less annoying when he wants to be, which is always

Shang Xirui: of all the characters on here he's the only one I actually personally cannot stand, but that's partly because he sings opera and I have discovered through watching Winter Begonia that I do not like opera of any kind. But also he's insufferable and needs to get a grip on reality. Some things are more important than the show! Like FOOD! And the WAR!

Zhao Yunlan: SUCKING TOO HARD ON YOUR LOLLIPOP OH LOVE'S GONNA GET YA DOWN. Guardian was the first CDrama I saw and I actually don't remember what he did but I do remember that he liked to cause problems

Wen Kexing: Winner of the 'most annoying guy in the jianghu' poll, I don't think I really need to write propaganda about him but like. Has he considered a method of flirting that does not consist of stalking a random homeless man?

Wei Wuxian: 2nd in the jianghu poll. Everyone knows why he's annoying, I won't go into this any more than to say in the Cloud Recesses arc he distinctly reminds me of one of the most annoying people I have ever met in real life

Lin Chen: 3rd in the jianghu poll and my personal Favourite Guy. To paraphrase @nemainofthewater: 'if he was in it for any longer I wouldn't be able to stand him, but he's only there for long enough that it's actually charming'. Enjoys the fact that he's smarter than (almost) everyone else and likes to be obnoxious about it

Mei Changsu: came joint 1st in the 'most annoying guy in the cdrama capital' poll. Professional party ruiner, but he does try to only enjoy it when his political enemies are suffering. Gets to tag team with Lin Chen bc I don’t want them to split votes and also because between them they manage to annoy literally every character in the whole show

Fan Xian: joint 1st in the capital poll AND 4th in the jianghu poll because he is annoying all the time and everywhere. As a transmigrator he is (unfortunately) aware that he is the main character, causes problems on purpose

Zhao Yujin: 3rd the capital poll. I won't lie that this surprised me because I have seen one gifset total for this show on tumblr (the one that persuaded us to watch), but I guess for those who have seen it it is a legal requirement to vote for him because of literally everything he does ever. In his defence he fell in a pond as a child and then his overbearing mother babied him. That being said, he is an adult now

Huang Yaoshi: included because of @tavina-writes's extensive propaganda in the jianghu poll: my favourite part of it was "the OG torture flute soloist; his flute solo canonically sounds like sex, x-rated porn sounds"

Wu Xin: I missed him off the original jianghu poll, and also the whole point of the polls is for me to try and get people to watch my shows so there’s more fic and I’m not just here crying on my own. An overpowered gremlin boy. 'Would you like to get kidnapped?' 'no??' 'ok that's cool I'm kidnapping you anyway!'

[bl-is-totes-my-jam]

The MingZheng Gods have blessed 2024!

Yin Zheng and Huang Xiaoming were filmed recording a new variety show together and there are leaks and rumors indicating that Yin Zheng will join Chinese Restaurant season 8 (I really hope it's true). I love these two so much!!!!

[naphyla]

Did another 6 (more like 7) fanart challenge!

Asked folks on twitter to pick a character, a palette and (optional) a style (or it was gonna be a dice roll!)

This exercise made me realize 2 things: (1) people weren’t lying when they told me I had a “palette” because (2) every palette that wasn’t my palette (all of the above really) caused me varying degrees of pain when I tried to think of how I’d use them 😂😂😂 Still, it was a good challenge!

[mingjue]

On a fucking mission

[greediladyfoxie]

Hello my fellow drama lovers!!

I know, that in a world of funfiction there are really little works in english from this show, so I put it on myself to write one more for You to enjoy <3

[jaimebluesq]

Finally finished watching the last episodes of Winter Begonia, and...

[jaimebluesq]

My Shang Xirui got nominated!!! Vote for the ass-kicking opera singer!!! He's pretty and will beat you up if you wrong someone he loves! He will stand on a roof singing for hours on end to plead the gods to heal his boyfriend! Okay, they weren't allowed to say he and Cheng Fentai were lovers in the drama but they were in the book, and even the drama made it sooooo obvious!!! He's just a funny little guy who will eat up your pig trotters and change your life!

Best Character surnamed: Shang

Come and vote for the best characters with the same surname!*

What does best mean? It's up to you! Whether you love them, are intrigued by their characters, love to hate them, or they're your '2 second blorbos whose personality you made up wholesale', these are all reasons for you to vote for your favs!

*note, the surnames are not exactly the same in all the cases, as often there will be a different character. I am, however, grouping them all together otherwise things got more complicated.

Propaganda is very welcome! If I’ve forgot anyone, let me know in the notes.

This is part of a larger series of ‘best character with X surname’ polls’. The overview with ongoing polls, winners, and future polls can be found here

[endof-vanity]

winter begonia never fails to surprise and delight me in how explicit they are in their devotion to each other i think this is why i love "bromance" so much. writers so much more deliberate and creative in how characters express love for each other when they arent able to simply say 'i love you' or show affections traditionally percieved as romantic. i think that to me something like winter begonia will always be more romantic than most explicitly queer shows

[tytangfei]

du luo cheng is ride or die, I love him so much

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 鬓边不是海棠红/Winter Begonia

Winter Begonia is the tale of the intertwined lives of a wealthy, westernized businessman and a bratty, dramatic Peking Opera performer as they navigate the historical landscape of 1930s China.

It is a slow historical ramble of a show, to the point where I couldn't really say it has a single plot. Events just happen in their lives, and the show follows them with a pleasant steadiness. Characters go away, and sometimes they come back. Interpersonal conflicts rise and then get resolved. Sometimes you just get to sit and watch part of an opera happen. The last third of the show develops a slightly more cohesive narrative, but even then, it's still mostly a loose constellation of events related to larger goings-on in the culture.

So if you're looking for tight plots and fast-paced action, you'll want to look somewhere else. But if you're the kind of person who likes to wrap up sometimes in a gentle warm blanket of a beautiful show, I have five reasons you should give this one a try.

1. Oh, they're in love

Perhaps the most notable thing about Cheng Fengtai and Shang Xirui is that they spend the entire show smiling at one another, staring longingly at one another, and/or making each other laugh.

A lot of danmei couples depend on having at least one partner who, if not outright tsundere, is at least stoically long-suffering -- which is romantic, sure, but also exhausting in real life. These two read about as married as any danmei pair I've ever seen because they make one another smile all the time. They're incredibly touchy and affectionate from basically the moment they meet. They're not just in love, they actually like one another.

Now, don't get me wrong: These two are both absolute exhausting gremlins who deserve one another so they don't have to be anyone else's problems. But they're good-natured enough about their respective gremlin natures that when one of them lets loose with his rascality, the other tends to think it's hilarious.

They don't even have the mandated danmei breakup! They're never mad at one another for more than the length of an episode. Most of the time they're just refreshingly normal about one another (or, you know, about as normal as two drama queens can be). And when they're being not normal about one another, it's because the circumstances they are currently enduring are not normal either.

They're so in love that by the time you get to the last episode, everyone in their lives is like, gee, those two sure are in love. For the main couple in a Chinese-censored BL adaptation? That's pretty darn in love.

2. The costumes!!!

Of course I have to gush over the costumes. Several major characters are professional opera performers, and their wardrobes are just stunning in complexity and detail -- and accuracy, apparently.

But they're not even where all of the wardrobe budget went! Everyone looks great, from the dapper upper class to the household servants to the street performers.

I also can't get over how everyone looks so cozy in their winter outfits. The show really wants to hammer home how cold Beijing is, and so most non-opera clothes are either heavily quilted or furry. Not a single outfit in this show is slimming (except maybe for some of the gorgeous gowns Cheng Meixin wears). It's all about conserving body heat, which means a lot of people walk around basically wearing mildly tailored quilts all the time. I love it. I envy it.

3. Oops! All bottoms!

This is a show of very soft men. It helps that very many of them have spent their whole lives playing female roles, but even those that haven't tend to be pretty darn soft.

(And I'm not even talking about the way people keep handing Cheng Fengtai babies and he loves it.)

Du Luocheng and Shang Xirui are absolutely what happens when you get two soft gay guys who are kinda into one another, but they're both too lazy to top, so they just become best friends instead.

Fan Lian stands as a testament to how you can be the only heterosexual in the show and still be soft as hell.

The old married gays. Softness level: off the charts.

Chen Renxiang's role is that of the opera frenemy, and he's incredibly soft about it. (This actor is also apparently in the Sha Po Lang live-action adaptation! Maybe someday it will be released...)

Opera underling La Yuehong hardens up later in the show, but even when he does, there's still a tragic softness to it.

Even the baddies are soft! Pretty much all the rival opera bitches fall into the "love to hate" category -- and nearly all of them win at least some sympathy from you before they leave the story for good.

There's one more soft boy whose presence surprised me, and that is Xue Zhicheng/Kujo Kazuma, a sympathetic Japanese character. Every other Japanese character in the show is sinister somehow -- not surprising, considering the drama is set during the brutal Japanese occupation of Beiping/Beijing.

But this little guy is a gentle, well-meaning opera fan who just wants to watch his favorite performers! When his actions cause trouble, it's only because he's so well-meaning that he couldn't see how anyone could disapprove of his attempts at cross-cultural undertanding. He even comes to the rescue a few times, at significant personal cost!

Moreover, the show uses him to make it clear that there's a difference between the Japanese occupying force and Japanese people and culture. In fact, the show is pretty critical of people who conflate the two and use interest in the latter as evidence of support of the former. That is not a level of nuance I've seen from other dramas set in this time period, and I was pleased to see it.

In conclusion, the critial war shortage in 1930s Beijing was not food or medicine or ammunition, but tops.

4. A whole lotta ladies

Again, not even counting the fact that one of the two main guys, many of his buddies, all of his heroes, and several of the antagonists professionally dress as women.

The most notable of them is Cheng Fengtai’s wife, Fan Xiang'er. They've been married for years by the time the show starts, and they have a son together. Theirs is an arranged marriage that they've managed to make work so well that they've actually wound up liking one another ... most of the time. Remember what I said earlier about his being exhausting? She knows that better than anyone.

(Sidebar: If you are uncomfortable with a love story where one of the participants is canonically married to someone else, this may be one you want to skip. That said, there are several male characters in this show who have multiple wives and/or mistresses, so the metric of what counts as infidelity in this setting is ... loose.)

Beyond her, though, there are many more female supporting characters in this show, from all different socioeconomic levels, in all different kinds of situations.

A caveat: Some of the women (one in particular) are at times frustrating as hell because they're too often written as jealous shrews who believe all the terrible gossip they hear and act on it without having actual adult conversations with anyone first. I dislike this trope, mostly because it relies on making some smart women artificially very stupid for the sake of forwarding the plot. I have little patience for situations that could have been solved five episodes ago if somebody had just been willing to ask clarifying questions.

That said, I can't be too mad about that, because there are many, many more women who are not written like that. Some of them are good and loyal! Some are sneaky and self-interested! Some are callous and manipulative! Some are meek and traumatized! Some make terrible decisions! Some make terrible decisions but, like, you get it! You know, just like in real life?

The answer to better representation is almost always more representation. When a character is the only one of whatever they are, everything they do is kind of an indictment of that category, especially when that category has a history of stereotypical negative representation. When there are several others, the characters stop being representatives of that category and start being just plain characters.

5. It just feels good to watch

Don't misunderstand: This is not a happy fun time show where everything in sunshine and roses all the way down. There are plenty of tense and emotional parts. Not everyone we like makes it out of the drama alive. Not all love stories get a happily ever after. People disappoint one another all the time. Awful things happen when soldiers occupy civilian populations. Poverty is a bitch.

But the show itself remains a nice viewing experience. It's absolutely a feast for the senses, what with all the music and costumes and sets and props and old-fashioned cars and everything.

The story is very straightforward. It's never trying to do any complex schemes or mislead you before some big reveal. I imagine this could be a good show to put on in the background while you're doing something else. You're never going to be too desperately confused about what's going on if you zone out for a minute -- and if you are, just hang on for a bit, because by next episode, it'll probably be onto whatever storyline comes next.

I have not read the novel, and I cannot judge anything against its standards. However, my friend who has read parts of the novel tells me that the adaptation is much preferable, because in the novel, you get to hear everyone's internal narration -- and everyone's internal narration makes it clear they're all bratty, insufferable assholes. That is not the case here! Or, rather, they are often bratty and/or insufferable, but from outside their heads, it's a lot more charming.

Finally, it's legitimately a very good love story. Shang Xirui is the only person in Cheng Fengtai's life who loves him for who he is, not what someone else needs him to be. Cheng Fengtai goes from being enraptured by this beautiful little weirdo to basically wanting to wife him. They spend a lot of time taking care of one another, sometimes in the only ways they know how. They're capable of operating independently -- there are several episodes where their storylines diverge completely -- but they'd prefer not to. They've just each found their soulmate, and that's all there is to it. (The red thumbprint in the palm is about the most romantic thing I've ever seen.)

I'm a little surprised by how little I hear English-speaking fandom talk about this one, especially since (see below) it's a widely available, high-budget show that even has a Shang Xirui figurine, and there's no question about how in gay love these two are. But if you hop over to AO3, there's only 257 works total in the Winter Begonia tag, a scant 57 of which are in English, and if you've tried looking into the Winter Begonia tag on Tumblr, you know it's pretty quiet 'round here.

I can't be sure, but I'd assume that's partly because this is both a) a relatively low-stakes drama, and b) so enmeshed with actual historical events and concepts that you'd have to do at least a baseline amount of research before making any fan media. I would imagine that for some folk, this is a barrier to entry.

And it is 49 slow, gentle episodes long. I saw Tumblr posts asking which episodes are important, because the posters don't want to or can't commit to watching the whole thing. But the answer is ... all of them? none of them? There's no plot you'd be getting or missing with specific episodes. There are very few things I can think of that would even qualify as spoilers. It's just a walk through a couple very eventful years in the main pair's lives. I understand if folk aren't up for that, but if you are, this is really a gem.

Have I convinced you to give it a try?

I would say that Winter Begonia is perhaps the most easily watchable of any c-drama I've come across. Here's where you can find it:

iQiyi

Viki

Amazon Prime

YouTube

We watched most of it on YouTube, where the subs were perfectly fine. However, there was one episode where we had to switch platforms because the English subs were all out of synch, so we went to Amazon and they were fine there too. Other than that, I don't really have a sense of which translation experience is the best. Try them all!

(PS: If you feel like putting on a tinfoil hat, I'm just going to say, they look at one another like that in real life, too.)

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

trick or treat >:3

Your blorbo is Shang Xirui (Winter Begonia)

[ge]

PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT THIS AU🙏 😌

TEEHEE HEE ANYTHING FOR YOUUU its based on the bl cdrama winter begonia which i highly recommend watching so u can see my vision more clearly since idk how well ill be able to fully encapsulate it...its like the only cdrama ive actually finished and it holds a very dear place in my heart.. its all translated on youtube if ur interested (smile

this au takes place in 1930s shaanxi and follows chung myung, a semi-retired peking opera dan (an opera performer who takes on the roles of women in plays) who was once wildly famous and well known for his talent and passion for the arts in his youth until a tragic "accident" struck him and his former troupe, leaving his troupe to fall out of favour of the public eye and into (physical as well as financial) ruin; and tang bo, a wealthy business man from sichuan who became captivated w peking opera after watching a performance from chung myungs troupe for the first time and ends up making an acquaintanceship w chung myung and becomes the troupes main sponsor and avid supporter, helping them rebuild their huashan house as well as their former prominence and fame...

my au follows the show pretty closely and i was going to keep the political plot kind of vague since i wasnt sure how to touch on it but its a really integral part of the story so im keeping it in, the drama focusing closely on the preservation of the art during the japanese occupation......... not that im ever actually going to write anything for this au but still, it exists in my head and i need to connect the dots so

chung myung, as per always in my canon and aus, is a trans man here and that plays a pretty significant role in his life and lore of this au.. historically, women werent allowed to play in opera so men would take on the female (aka DAN) roles.. chung myung being a trans man playing a dan role is like, for him, a middle finger to the status quo and period typical transphobia he'd face if it were known as well as a spiteful internalized gesture OF 'if only you knew'.. the world would see him as a woman who isnt good enough despite him being the man who is the best.. rubs chin.. im not good w words, this makes way more sense in my head but if u get wat im trying to say then u get it..

they also all have short hair in this au SORRY i know i said i would never give them short hair in any aus i did but it has to be this way for this au, taking place during the chinese republican era where short hairstyles were mandated (this, again, ties into trans chung myung)

cheng fengtai and shang xirui are just so tangchung I CANT EXPLAIN IT YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW.. wealthy businessman whose had everything fed to him on a silver platter his whole life finds himself unhappy & wanting more from life and lonely orphan boy raised in a strict martial arts setting grows up to be the best at his craft but still wants for more.. cheng fengtai and shang xirui are soulmates.. tang bo and chung myung are soulmates.. can i make it anymore obvious..

everyone in rotmhs has an obvious counterpart in this au, like tangchung are the mcs of course but chung myungs troupe are the mt hua disciples/elders, the great sects/families (sans tang family, which is plot relevant) are involved in the opera scene in some way, the magyo are also an opera troupe in this au LOL..

but one thing i wanted desperately to keep in this au was tang bo and his wife/family/child, which is kind of hard to do since there are literally like no fucking women in rotmhs so i have to make ocs... the subplot in the drama of cft (tang bo) "cheating" (in quotations cuz they never actually crossed any lines but it was obvious there was deep unspoken romantic tension there + the wife suspected) on his wife w sxr (chung myung) is so vindicating to me.. closeted gay people cheating on their opposite sex arranged marriages/spouses for someone of the same sex.. its so real.. so freeing.. gay people trapped in straight marriages, especially in the 1930s.. i really adored the nuances in the way it was handled so beautifully in the drama so i HAD to adapt it here.. its such a guilty pleasure of mine weehehehe twirls hair

the drama ends in a bittersweet hopeful kind of way, nothing bad happens to anyone i just want to put that out there..in case ur worried, no buried gays or wateva

umm well im tired so i cant think of anythign else to say but if u love beautiful costumes, drama, heart aching romance.. IF U HAVE ANY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS JUST ASK CUZ IDK WAT ELSE TO SAY..... please watch winter begonia so we can frolic in the flower fields that are my winter begonia tangchung au...... plugging this again since who knows when yall'll see it again.. goo bye.... (chung myung in 'drunken concubine' play costume⬇️⬇️⬇️)