#Who has so many tragic memories associated with the fuck ass song

[mothwithpronouns]

get you a man who fucking sobs to summertime by my chemical romance

[drwcn]

Hi! I hope you are doing okay with all the discourse going around. Im white and raised in a very white society so i will never have a say in it, but i was wondering, is there any way i can educate myself more in asian/chinese culture? Im aware i consume content thru western lens and because of that i dont really get all the nuances of the shows, but i would like to have at least some backround. Im guessing just watching the shows doesnt give enough of that, can you maybe reccommend some blogs or books to check out? (If you dont thats totally fine and im sorry if i said anything offensive)

Hey friend! Not offensive at all, no worries. Honestly, I’m not too sure. I think just keeping an open mind about things is a really good start. I’m not really sure which blogs to recommend but if I could recommend some dramas? Since it’s probably easier to watch a show then read a book?

《The Story of Minglan》 is a good one to sort of parse out the intricacy of historical Chinese society in the Song Dynasty, keeping in mind that different dynasties have different practices, so even amongst different time periods there were differences. 《The Story of Yanxi Palace》 is another good one for Qing Dynasty (circa 1740s) if you wanna get into imperial harem stuff. (Or you can watch 《甄嬛传》 or 《如懿传》 for harem stuff. I just think The Story of Yanxi Palace is the most palatable, most aesthetic, and most fun out of the three. The other two are kinda tragic?) There are other dramas but I feel they’re not as... accessible?

Chinese historical dramas come in 3 flavours: serious dramas, idol dramas, and those that ride the fence. What I mean by idol drama is...everyone in it is young and hot and the writing is eh and the acting is eh. More often then not there’s a lot of modern elements to it. The Untamed is so popular because it’s idol drama done really well.  (xianxia and wuxia genre used to be more quality when I was a kid, but now they’re kind of ehhhh.) I would say Minglan and Yanxi are both successful because they ride the fence. 

On the other hand, serious historical drama has A LOT of politics and can be quite dry especially if you’re watching it through half-assed subtitles. The actors typically are more seasoned, older. People jokingly say that idol drama is what mom watches and serious drama is what dad watches, and honestly given my parents’ tv habits...it’s pretty accurate 😂.

Some really well known ones from the past 20 years are: 

The 《铁齿铜牙纪晓岚》 series 1-4. I would only recommend part 1-2, 3-4 are not as great. This one has quite a bit of humour but it might fly over your head a bit because of the language barrier. The story surrounds a well known government official and scholar named Ji Xiaolan  纪晓岚, his frenemy and colleague the (EXTREMELY corrupt) prime minister He Shen, and the Emperor Qianlong. For better or worse these three are depicted as both liege and subjects as well as friends. Trying to see Ji Xiaolan and He Shen one up each other while Qianlong tries to balance his court and rule the country is quite interesting. I won’t pretend this is an easy series to follow, but it’s actually quite fun. 

《汉武大帝》 - is about Hanwu Emperor of the Han Dynasty circa 150 BC? He’s one of the most famous emperors of distant history. It’s basically about the course of his life and the many people that featured in it. 

《大明王朝 》- my memories of this one is very vague, but it is about the Ming Dynasty (the dynasty before the Qing Dynasty c. 1500,1600.) 

《The Advisors Alliance 军事联盟》-  2017 two-part television series based on the life of Sima Yi, a government official and military general who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty and Three Kingdoms period of China. circa 150 AD. 

As a side note, a lot of serious dramas for a while now have been focused on the Qing Dynasty, just because it’s the last imperial dynasty before Imperial China fell into decline, WWI and WWII ravaged the country and communism happened. Even a lot of idol drama are about the Qing Dynasty (I feel like I should do a post about this, just to string things together haha). 

So for the Qing Dynasty, because they are Manchurian, their last name is Aisin Gioro or in Chinese Aixin Jueluo 爱新觉罗. Their earlier emperors are much more well known than their later ones and have been the focus of MANY dramas. (You’ll notice their names in the beginning spell very different than the Chinese names you’re used to, but once they take over China, the emperors’ names start to become more and more mainland Chinese and less and less Manchurian.) 

Nu’er Hachi 努尔哈赤/ Nurhaci - The granddaddy of Qing Dynasty, but was never officially Emperor of China during his life time. 

Huang Taiji 皇太极 - Nurhaci’s oldest son. He led the campaign against the Ming Dynasty but died before the campaign was over 

Fulin 福林, Emperor Shunzhi 顺治 - Huang Taiji’s 9th son. He is the real first Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. His uncle Duo’Ergun 多尔衮/ Dorgon was his regent as well as his commander-in-chief. Dorgon was the one who won the war against the Ming Dynasty and instated his nephew as the Emperor. Fulin was 6 years old when this happened, and now you may wonder why the fuck is that? It’s because Fulin’s mother, Huang Taijii’s widowed concubine Consort Zhuang (name: pu’erji-jite bumubutai  (pinyin) 博爾濟吉特 布木布泰/ Bumbutai Borjigit, Da-Yu’er 大玉儿) remarried her brother-in-law Dorgon. Whether Bumbutai and Dorgon were actually in love is....contestable. Certainly one of my favourite serious dramas that depict this part of history is《大青风云》. 

Xuanye 玄燁, Emperor Kangxi 康熙 - Fulin’s third son. Very famous. Very long reign. Serious drama associated 《康熙微服私访记》， 《康熙王朝》

Yinzhen 胤禛, Emperor Yongzheng 雍正 - Xuanye's 4th son. His reign was highly contested because some ppl believed he forged the succession document. It’s probably not true. He was an efficient emperor but very austere, very severe. Not well liked. The best serious drama about him is probably 《雍正王朝》and the aforementioned《甄嬛传》. The former is 100% politics and a fictional re-telling of historical events whereas the latter is 100% harem drama and 100% made up. 《步步惊心》is an idol drama about a girl who transmigrated back to this time and fell in love with Yinzhen. Lol. 

Hongli 弘历, Emperor Qianlong 乾隆 - Yinzhen’s 4th son. I think he’s the longest living/reigning emperor of Chinese history. SOOOOO many dramas were made about him or set in his reign. Of the serious drama category:  《铁齿铜牙纪晓岚》 that I mentioned earlier is really good. There are others but I won’t name them here.  《如懿传》 is a serious drama about his harem, but really terrible? I really didn’t like it (just my personal view). Incidentally it was released around the same time as《The Story of Yanxi Palace 延禧攻略》which is also about his harem and MUCH better in my opinion, because the actor for Hongli in Yanxi is much better skills-wise. 《还珠格格》was the OG idol drama about Hongli’s children. I gave a brief synopsis about it here. It was made in the 90s but damn...so nostalgic. 

There’s many more emperors after him, but they’re not as important. 

Okay yeah, so I’m not sure if any of this is really helpful, but definitely watching serious drama gives you much better context and understanding of Chinese culture than idol drama. I mean when the drama has flying and magic...the historical relevance sort of falls to the side. 🤣

ADDENDUM: I made a typo earlier. Fulin is Huang Taiji’s 9th son, not Nurhaci’s son. Also Abahai is Huang Taijii’s mother’s name (wikipedia lied to me on this one XD).