I’m currently watching an epic Chinese drama called Swords into Plowshares (太平年 / Tài Píng Nián). It’s one of those rare, once-in-a-blue-moon historical epics—something the Chinese entertainment industry, currently fixated on high-profit, fast-food idol dramas, rarely produces these days.

As I watch, I can’t help but wonder if the producers were prescient, that somehow they knew this story is the right one for our times.

Chinese dramas often like to set their stories during the magnificent Tang Dynasty (often considered one of China’s most glorious dynasties) or the Song Dynasty, which came after it. Both were prosperous dynasties; the height of Chinese civilisation.

However, before the dawn of the Song Dynasty, there were nearly eight decades of chaos: what was dubbed the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. Swords into Plowshares is set during this time.

When the Tang Dynasty fell, it fell hard. From a glorious civilisation which attracted merchants and diplomats from around the world, it fell into a state of utter barbarism. Entire families were massacred at the slightest hint of rebellion. Brothers killed brothers, fathers their children, to preserve power. Armies herded entire towns of people into slaughter lines, turning humans into minced meat to feed hungry soldiers.

Little wonder that the characters in Swords and Plowshares often wished for 太平年 (”year of great peace”). And isn’t that what we all hope for now?

Despite the utter barbarity of this period, the people of this era still clung to societal norms. They wore Tang Dynasty garb and still performed the same courtly rituals. Heck, even the invading Khitan royalty wore the garb of a Chinese emperor, but it was all a veneer because the moral compass of the dynasty had disintegrated.

I can’t help but see parallels when I look at what’s happening in the world now.

I think what makes the US-Israel attacks on Iran hard to stomach is the immorality and depravity. Hundreds of children killed. Not a word of apology from the perpetrators. A certain world leader saying that it was “more fun” to sink a ship instead of capturing them. Assassinations or threats announced with glee on social media. And a section of society celebrating along, as if this was a video game and their team had won the sortie.

Like the people of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the aggressors may have civilized veneers, but their actions expose their utter lack of morality. The name of God is used to justify their cruelty.

One of the tragedies of studying Chinese history, especially for the Chinese, is the paralyzing realization that we still haven't learned from it.

There were so many dynasties in China’s thousands of years of history. Yet, dynasties continue to rise and fall on schedule, as if it is inevitable. There’s a certain kind of pathos when you have that weight of history; you feel that the human race just cannot outwit its wiring.

I think many of us in the 21st century believed that the age of barbarous wars was behind us, but as the present shows, it seems that humanity still hasn’t discovered the code to stop all wars.

I can’t help but think that the current world order, whatever it is, is in the final throes of collapse. How many decades of chaos will the world endure before the rise of a “Song Dynasty”?

My hope is that in our hyper-accelerated world, it would be mercifully shortened to years instead of decades.

After all, if we can learn anything from history, it is that humanity is at its most creative and resilient when the old ways have failed, and that 太平年 will eventually come after a new dynasty rises from its ashes.

You can watch Swords into Plowshares on Youtube or Viki (US, and some regions).

The trailer:

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I ask: Why not?

It is, after all, a holocaust the world seemed determined to ignore, to brush aside, and till this day, remain ignorant about.

Before I go on, I’d like to emphasise that I’m not aiming to blame or point fingers at Japanese people. After all, one can’t control one’s ancestry. However, I’d like to bring awareness to this massacre, which remains not talked about till this day.

Let’s continue.

According to Michael Glitz, Dead to Rights is the No.1 movie around the world “by an almost invisible (woman) margin”. This surprised me because I thought that in today’s depressing climate, this movie wouldn’t be that successful.

But perhaps due to the curiosity about China at an all-time high these days, maybe this shouldn’t surprise me.

FYI, the movie is about a group of ordinary people sheltering in a photo studio amid chaos. They are forced to develop film for a Japanese military photographer and inadvertently come into possession of images that can testify to the slaughter.

In China, the film ignites strong emotions across China.

From the article:

Renowned director Feng Xiaoning, speaking in a video circulated widely online, shared his reaction to the film. “When the film ended, the entire audience remained seated, unmoving, until the credits had fully rolled. Everyone was lost in deep thought,” he said. “I believe every Chinese person, and everyone in the world with a conscience, will be shaken by this film.”

Tai Tales is usually a light-hearted affair. I try not to post things that could upset people, but the open wound that is the Nanjing Massacre refuses to close, so here we are, still talking about it.

Sorry, I know, I know! I’m still healing from the abscess, and I can’t help but think about this metaphor as my wound heals. Although the wound is recovering nicely, it’s still “open” and has not closed and can send me uncomfortable zaps of pain as a reminder.

I can’t help but think how this is a perfect metaphor for how the Nanjing Massacre feels to the Chinese not only in China but around the world. An open wound. It may have healed over time, but it will zap us randomly without warning.

So, if you’re up to it, this week I want to highlight some articles highlighting the terrible World War II holocaust that the West has dubbed the “The Rape of Nanking”, made famous by Iris Chang’s book of the same name.

When China Says “Remembering History” About WWII, Is It Calling for Revenge?

Inside China

When China Says "Remembering History" About WWII, Is It Calling for Revenge?

Last Sunday, I watched "Dead To Rights," a film about the 1937 Nanjing Massacre that prompted me to reconsider the role of historical memory in Sino-Japanese relations. The film depicts the systematic slaughter of civilians and execution of prisoners of war following the Japanese army's capture of Nanjing in 1937, as well as the story of a Chinese photo…

Read more

10 months ago · 36 likes · 14 comments · Fred Gao

China’s commemoration of World War II and the brutal Nanjing Massacre has attracted critics, who are asking, “Why now?” My question is: “Why not?” Unfortunately, Japan continues to deny its cruel acts in World War II, and this is a raw wound for many Chinese communities around the world, especially in China.

Dead to Rights, the movie, lands around the world

I am still shocked that so many around the world (especially in the West) are not aware of the Nanjing Massacre. Perhaps this movie will finally reverse that. Hopefully. I don’t think anything will change, however.

Dead to Rights is coming to Malaysia around end of August, near Malaysia’s Independence Day, interestingly.

To be very honest, I don’t know if I can watch Dead to Rights. I watched the Christian Bale movie Flowers of War and it left me depressed for nearly a month.

I had to process it, in the end, by writing the short story, Blood of Nanking (you can read it on Substack). Yet, the movie didn’t show the graphic detail of what happened. I don’t know if I’d be able to handle watching a more graphic representation of the massacre, though reviews seem to indicate that they didn’t make it too graphic.

FYI, in South-East Asia, we too suffered the same types of massacres, but not to the extent of Nanjing. For example: The Sook Ching massacre in Singapore, then part of Malaya.

'We were never friends': A massacre on the eve of WW2 still haunts China-Japan relations

URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp89ed9j5ygo

It is unfortunate, but the Japanese government, and its media continue to downplay or even deny that the Rape of Nanjing ever happened.

However, there are Japanese people who acknowledge this history and urge other Japanese to face "the dark side of their history".

But he's more of an exception than the rule. This China Daily column, Japan's selective amnesia threat to peace and historical truth, said: Instead of prompting a thoughtful reflection, Japanese outlets such as TBS Television linked the movie's popularity to growing anti-Japanese sentiment in China, while the Yomiuri Shimbun dismissed it as "overhyped political propaganda". The Sankei Shimbun went further by publishing a column with the headline, "The 'Nanjing Massacre', as claimed by China, is a lie". Even former Japanese national soccer player Keisuke Honda initially dismissed the massacre as a "Chinese-made lie".

Eye-rollingly, typical of BBC who often ends their articles with "at what price", hints that the movie is part of some kind of propaganda campaign.

Look, guys. Let the Chinese tell their stories, no matter how ugly, how about that?

The Light of History Should not be Lit by Hatred

China Literature & Arts (艺文中国）

The Light of History Should not be Lit by Hatred

Ren Jingjing (任晶晶…

Read more

10 months ago · CCLL

The writer urges that difficult events in history like the Rape of Nanjing should not be fueled by hatred but by evidence, dignity, honesty, and reflection. Historical cinema should commemorate responsibly, balancing remembrance with restraint, to prevent history from being misused as a tool of hostility.

War subjects carry traumatic images by nature, and the climactic pitch of music and performance can, in certain screenings, ignite a mood of collective catharsis. How to prevent that catharsis from being converted into immediate hostility toward present-day others is the public ethics challenge any historical film must face when it meets an audience.

Still, some are criticising China for “bringing up Nanking” today.

I thought Amber’s response to this was really good, especially this sentence: “But it’s just as unacceptable when people exploit the tragedy of the victims to make a point about other current affairs. Even though issues like extreme nationalism or China’s social problems do exist, please discuss those in a separate setting instead of exploiting the victims and survivors to fulfill selfish goals.”

As for me, I have always had an uncomfortable reaction to Japan government’s “we didn’t do it, they’re lying” stance about the whole thing.

A few years ago, a group of Japanese Christians visited our church, went on stage, and bowed deeply to us, asking for forgiveness for the crimes of their people against the Chinese (and other races) in Malaysia. I remember watching it, feeling uncomfortable, thinking: “But it’s not really your fault. You shouldn’t be the one apologising! But the ones who did it, the government, are refusing to apologise!”

Postcard From Japan

Cosy Moments

Postcard From Japan

Freezing my arse off in Australia, bundled in a jacket and long trousers, I boarded a plane — and ten hours later emerged in sultry Tokyo. Historically, it was a water city, but most of its rivers and canals have been filled in. In July, the moisture is in the air…

Read more

a year ago · 11 likes · William Poulos

William Poulos visited many places in Japan, but what caught me about his entry was his reflections when visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to soldiers who died during World War II. (This shrine is extremely controversial in China. If a Chinese person is seen visiting it, they could end up cancelled, like once-rising-star Zhang Zhehan who had his career destroyed by an image of him standing in front of the shrine.)

William was amazed by the plaque about the Nanjing Massacre, which was blandly called “The Nanking Campaign”, calling it a “masterpiece of propaganda-by-euphemism”.

Why Did We Forget Japanese War Crimes?

Ken LaCorte

Why did we forget Japanese war crimes?

Friends …

Read more

a year ago · 18 likes · 7 comments · Ken LaCorte

They forgot because it was convenient to.

I try not to be too salty about this, but at a time when Gaza is being ignored by some governments are we surprised this happened to China’s holocaust? It wasn’t convenient to acknowledge this at a time when Japan was a strong economic partner to the United States (and the world).

Ken argues that Japanese war crimes during WWII, such as the actions of Unit 731 and the Rape of Nanking, were as horrific as those of the Nazis but are far less remembered. It explores potential reasons for this collective amnesia, including Eurocentrism and Cold War politics that shifted focus away from Japan’s atrocities.

The Rape of Nanking

Mina’s Substack

The Rape of Nanking

Iris Chang’s monumental book stands tall as a testimony to the barbarity of the Japanese empire, its military culture, its adherents, its charlatans and its lackeys. Most of all, it exposes the nakedness of an empire that hunts down, eats off and eviscerates not only its peripheral victims but also the collective humanity of its enforcers, its soldiers…

Read more

10 months ago · Mina Kohistani

This piece reflects on Iris Chang’s book and the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in 1937, describing the event as a “forgotten Holocaust.” It details the systematic brutality and mass murder in Nanjing and criticizes the inaction of the international community.

The Goddess of Mercy of Nanking

Read about Minnie Vautrin, an American missionary who saved over 10,000 women and children by turning her college into a sanctuary during the Nanjing Massacre.

The Good Nazi

As much as I whinge about the inaction of the world about massacres and genoicides, let’s all remember there are always heroes, even from sides whom we consider “bad”.

John Rabe, a German Nazi, was one of the many good foreigners who rescued the Chinese during the massacre.

There’s a movie about it; it’s in German:

Interestingly, someone made the movie available on Youtube, with English subtitles. Do watch it if you can

The Chinese also truly honour Rabe, preserving his house in Nanjing as a memorial.

End notes

Some will cry Dead to Rights is Chinese propaganda. (Well, in that case, was Schindler’s List propaganda?) Sure, it’s “inconvenient” for China to talk about this now during heightened tensions around the world, especially since the tarriffs are making things difficult between China and Japan as well. But there's never a "convenient" time to talk about genocides.

My philosophy about the whole matter is this:

If some powers that be want us to forget that The Rape of Nanjing ever happened, or want us to “let the past remain in the past”, then it’s up to the people of China to continue reminding themselves and the world that this brutality did happen so that history will never ever repeat.

It’s their story. Let them tell it.

Note: i prefer to use the Mandarin pronounciation for Nanjing instead of “Nanking”, which is more common in the West. 南京 - 南 (Nán), 京 (Jīng) means South Capital. It's a city in Jiangsu province, China.

So, how about you? Will you be watching Dead to Rights? Or have you watched it? Do let me know by leaving a comment.

Leave a comment

This issue was first published on my website: Should we bring up China's Nanjing Massacre today?

Substack’s algorithms can be tricky, so let’s not rely on it alone. Follow me on my websites and other channels via RSS or email — that way, we won’t lose touch: elizabethtai.com / Mastodon / Drama Tea (where I write about Chinese dramas).

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The video is the promotional trailer of Duel on Mount Hua: Eastern Heretic and Western Venom, a prequel to Jin Yong’s Legend of the Condor Heroes, a classic of the uniquely Chinese genre, wuxia. You can download the WeTV/Tencent streaming app to watch this. Yes, even from the United States.

I’ve been writing fiction again. (Thanks in big part to my experiment of writing fiction with AI.) Since I write wuxia and xianxia stories, both uniquely Chinese genres, I’ve been studying how some of the most famous authors of these genres, Gu Long and Jin Yong, tell their stories.

And I’ve discovered something fascinating: the story structure of Chinese fiction is not the same as in the West.

While Western fiction often centres on the journey of a single individual, Chinese fiction still pays attention to the individual — but the real weight of the story rests on the community. It’s a very different, and very intriguing, way of seeing the world through narrative. And once I saw this, I started noticing it everywhere.

I’ve always assumed that all cultures tell their stories in the same way — you know, in the Save the Cat! plot structure way. I am shocked (and I shouldn’t have been, really) to realise that the Chinese tell their fiction differently — even their plot structure is different.

I realised this at first when I was reading Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, a novel written at the end of the Ming dynasty. I was amused that each story ended in a way that would make most Western readers (and probably modern Chinese ones) frustrated. It doesn’t always end with justice for the protagonist. It seems to say to us: Well, life is like this, what can we do?

What most Westerners would call a “bad ending.”

As for Chinese dramas, the prevalence of tragic or even open endings can be frustrating to the modern viewer (Chinese and Western alike). But traditionally, the Chinese do not coddle their people, not even in fiction. And that made me wonder—if so much of the world now consumes Hollywood movies and Western publishing’s idea of “great literature,” what happens to other ways of telling stories?

The traditional Chinese story structure

If there’s any time when I am intensely frustrated that I didn’t pay attention in Chinese class so that I can read the great Chinese classics and even simple webnovels, it is today.

I dived into this rabbit hole after I noticed that the AI generated copy that was “off”. The only way I could describe it was: “it’s too Westernised, too American.”

So, I’ve been exploring the “why”. Through my very rough research, I realised that Chinese authors wrote their stories with a different thematic emphasis, and that their dialogue is often more lyrical and not as direct - for wuxia and xianxia genres, especially.

Chinese fiction, apparently, has a different four part structure*:

Qi (起) – Setup: Introduces characters, setting, and emotional tone. Often includes poetic visuals or symbolic moments.

Cheng (承) – Development: Builds relationships and stakes. This phase may feel leisurely, but it’s rich with emotional layering.

Zhuan (转) – Twist: A sudden shift — betrayal, revelation, or a change in perspective. It’s not always a plot twist; sometimes it’s a thematic or emotional pivot.

Jie (结) – Conclusion: Ties everything together, often with a sense of moral or emotional resolution rather than just plot closure.

* Modern Chinese fiction now has Western elements, and is a hybrid of this structure with the West’s … which can get a tad confusing.

So, what happens if you've been trained to write fiction in the Western story structure all your life (me!) and want to write Chinese fiction? Not just fiction set in China, mind you, but Chinese in values and storytelling?

You may end up writing in a style that conveys systems of thought that may be an odd fit with Chinese culture, which is why sometimes Chinese translated fiction may seem “off” to native Chinese speakers and readers.

Interestingly, I find myself avoiding Western narrative styles in terms of dialogue and structure instinctively as I write my wuxia and xianxia stories.

I find myself literally throwing out the playbook and just going by gut feel. After a lifetime consuming Chinese fiction, both modern and classical, I may have embedded Chinese storytelling structure without realising it, and my brain understands what needs to be done.

I understand the calls for diversity in literature now but …

…English-language publishing giants importing fiction from abroad or publishing “racially diverse” writers may not be enough to achieve true diversity.

Writing this issue made me realise how problematic Western dominance of media and literature can be for local or native storytelling. If Hollywood movies and Western publishing houses dominate English-language fiction, media, and more, pushing their idea of “great literature,” what happens to other ways of telling stories?

Is some kind of erasure taking place? Are local or native storytelling methods being overwhelmed by Hollywood films, New York Times bestsellers, and prestige lists that crown one version of “great literature”?

Even when translated works are chosen and celebrated, is it just the West’s idea of good literature from the East? Could what is considered “the best” in the East be dismissed as a result?

For example, as a moderator of a Chinese drama forum, I often notice how Western audiences have very different tastes from viewers in China. I once humorously wrote about how Western publishers tend to pick “sad stories of Asian people” to translate into English, overlooking more positive, hopeful tales from Asia.

Also, simply slapping Chinese aesthetics onto very Western narratives does not make a story authentically Chinese.

For example, I could go on at length about how disappointing the Disney Mulan movie is, but I’ll let this lass below explain it instead:

Anyway, I don’t have any answers to these questions, but it has made me more aware as a writer — how to be even more authentic to my culture when writing wuxia and xianxia stories. It goes beyond just cultural accuracy; it’s about telling stories in a way that honours Chinese perspectives and storytelling.

Substack’s algorithms can be tricky, so let’s not rely on it alone. Follow me on my websites and other channels via RSS or email — that way, we won’t lose touch: elizabethtai.com / Mastodon / Drama Tea (where I write about Chinese dramas).

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I've always thought that Chinese people who decide to become an actor or a singer in China are a special kind of crazy.

(Then again, as a Chinese person who decided to be a member of the well-paying (not) writing profession, maybe I shouldn't be the one to talk.)

Chinese parents lecture their kids to get good grades so that they can be doctors, engineers or lawyers. (Or millionaire tycoons.) But most certainly not actors.

Now, I wanted to start the introduction of Chinese dramas into Tai Tales slow and easy. You know, with articles on "how to access Chinese dramas" or a "beginner's guide to Chinese drama genres". Something like that.

But the Chinese entertainment scene kicked off 2025 with events that were very hard to ignore, as if to tell everyone: Wanna be an actor in the hyper-competitive Chinese entertainment industry?

Pain is guaranteed!

Popular actress Zhao Lusi collapses

Zhao Lusi is a very well known, beloved idol actress who is very popular with international viewers. You can find many of her dramas, such as Love Like the Galaxy, The Story of Pearl Girl, Hidden Love and Who Rules the World on Netflix.

Her public persona: A bright, bubbly girl next door.

But in 2024, Zhao Lusi made an effort to "transform" into a more serious actress in looks and drama choice. (Idol actors are not known for their acting abilities, and in a niche that prizes looks and youth over talent, idol actors have to transition to more serious works to last in the industry.)

The effort, some say, was a flop. She gets haunted by plastic surgery rumours, and her acting in The Story of Pearl Girl, where she was supposed to "transform", was panned.

Suddenly, at the end of the year, pictures of her slumped lifelessly in a wheelchair appeared on Chinese social media, and the world melted.

Well, at least it seemed like it to me.

Summarising what happened during this period would probably lengthen this newsletter into a novel, but the tl;dr version of it was that Zhao Lusi revealed that she was beaten and abused by people in the entertainment industry, and this led to her collapse.

But if you feel so inclined, you can read this: Chinese actress Zhao Lusi allegedly berated by manager for being ‘too fat’

The truth remains shrouded. After days of frantic posting from Zhao Lusi's friends, fans, and then herself, the PR machine took over and Zhao Lusi has disappeared from the trending searches, hopefully finally recovering in peace.

Rookie actor annihilates career by shooting off on the Internet

Just when you think things have calmed down, another C-ent scandal rocks Chinese socials. And this one caught everyone by surprise.

Li Mingde is a rookie actor who was slowly rising to fame after starring in popular dramas such as The Hope.

Until he declared war on the Chinese entertainment industry.

Again, it is one of those scandals that, if I list out exactly what happened, would fill a novel.

But the short synopsis is: Li claims that he was mistreated by the production crew of The Triple Echo of Time (三人行) and heavily implied that a more senior actor, Ma Tianyu, was a diva on set that got him fired.

After posting a "goodbye" letter to the production crew, Li went on a commenting and posting spree on Weibo (China's Twitter) that can be described as, well, unhinged.

(If you want a more fleshed out account, you can read this: Chinese Actor Marcus Li Mingde Slams the Entertainment Industry with Explosive Allegations, Countered by His New Drama, but seriously, even this article couldn't cover everything Li said or did.)

Initially, Li got a lot of sympathy from Chinese netizens. Here's a fellow who is like them, fighting against unfair and abusive bosses ... and then he began to act erratically, leaving strange and rude comments to everyone including fans. Nobody was spared.

And to add fuel to the fire, the crew of The Triple Echo of Time began posting their version of the story; the director even claimed that Li told him that he was mentally ill.

Ma Tianyu, meanwhile, has wisely kept quiet despite being the centre of the storm.

After a few days of this, the tide has turned against Li, the "champion of the working class". Most have come to regard him as a money-grabbing attention seeker, especially after he earned a lot of money live-streaming on Douyin during this "hot" period. (Some say he was gifted RMB10mil, some say it's less than RMB100,000 ... still, it's more than a year's salary for most.)

After all these shenanigans, it is safe to say that Li Mingde's acting career is deader than the dodo. (At least the dodo could be possibly be resurrected by DNA technology one day; I doubt Li Mingde would be that lucky.)

Last time I checked, Li has announced his "retirement" from acting.

And, he may be bankrupt soon due to the various lawsuits surely coming his way. (I was about to send this newsletter when Ma Tianyu's studio posted on Weibo that they're suing Li Mingde.)

Who is the wronged party here? I don't know, really. Both sides are probably sharing some truth, but not the entire truth, that much is certain!

I'm more sympathetic than most, I suppose. I can’t help but think that Li Mingde is having a very public mental breakdown, possibly even a manic episode, in front of millions of people.

Would a sane person ruin their life so thoroughly and publicly? Or is this the actions of a man driven mad by the pressures of the industry?

But Netizens are fickle; they're already bored with Li Mingde because another event involving yet another actor has quickly caught their attention....

Actor becomes victim of human trafficking

Xing Xing is an actor nowhere close to Li Mingde's status; he's a working-class actor who mostly plays support roles.

And as an actor who barely earns enough to support himself, he has to grab any opportunity to act. And one such opportunity appeared in Thailand. He travels to Thailand ... only to disappear near the Myanmar border.

Weibo exploded when his girlfriend wrote a post begging for help and publicity about his disappearance. The post was picked up by many popular actors, including Gong Jun, and the story went viral.

For days, I and millions of people in China, were glued to our smartphones, refreshing our screens for any new news of Xing Xing. By then, it had overshadowed Li Mingde's persistent and erratic displays of narcissism. (Li Mingde, however, reposted about Xing Xing, which I thought was a good use of his virality).

Due to the location where he disappeared, Xing Xing was strongly suspected to have been trafficked into Myanmar by a cyber scam ring.

Mere days after his girlfriend's post, a picture of Xing Xing surfaced on Weibo. He is now bald, haggard, and wearing badly matching clothes. He later revealed that he was shaved bald (so that he can be easily identified if he escaped) and forced to work in a building with other Chinese prisoners.

Perhaps due to the language divide between Thailand and China, there was a lot of delay and misinformation flying around Weibo. But then again, it's probably Weibo being Weibo.

Still, due to the power of social media, and due to this happening during a critical period when Chinese tourists would visit Thailand, the Thai PM personally took action.

And to my immense relief (and I'm sure of many Chinese people), he was rescued from his captors.

As I write this, he is still in Thailand, though it is said that he will be allowed to return to China anytime soon.

You can read this to find out more: Missing Chinese actor found in Myanmar, Thai authorities say

If there's one thing you can learn from this issue is that the Chinese entertainment industry is insanely competitive ... like many other industries in China.

China produces about 1,000 dramas a year and Chinese actors feed the machine by shooting multiple dramas a year. While American or European dramas have seasons of 12 episodes each, Chinese dramas can have up to 40 episodes, and all these episodes are aired within a month!

This is an especially cruel industry with brutal working hours and whose "top dogs" hold the fate of actors in their hands.

Actors' livelihoods and reputations can be crushed overnight by a wrong post on social media, or by "marketing accounts" that relentlessly spread gossip and rumours on social media.

The Chinese government and an unforgiving public adds even more fire to the job as they can cancel you for any misdeed, be it not paying your taxes or taking a photo in front of the wrong shrine.

Still, many try because the rewards are mind boggling. (Popular actors are often paid millions per drama.)

Actors who survive and get to the top, are not just resilient but well-connected and favoured.

Sadly, it is not always the talented that make it.

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I grew up watching the 1986 Chinse drama, Journey to the West, and watching the final trailer of Black Myth: Wukong gave me all kinds of fuzzy feelings.

For one, I thought the soundtrack was gorgeous! So Chinese. What a clever and creative way to incorporate Buddhist chants into music! And to see Chinese mythological creatures brought to life made me a tad teary-eyed.

I do wonder, however, if anyone playing this game will understand the cultural weight of Sun Wukong, the Monkey God. The story is centuries' old and considered one of China's Four Great Novels.

I think the game’s successful debut moved me because, for so long I was used to consuming Western culture mainstream. So, I was very pleasantly surprised to witness how celebrated Wukong is.

Chinese cultural products are often misunderstood, and it is not uncommon to see articles declaring that Chinese soft power is “not cool”, or “not good enough”.

These assertions have always confounded me. I’ve spent all my life reading and watching Chinese cultural products from Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong. I’ve read stories that were penned centuries ago in China.

I just think China’s cultural legacy was just shadowed by the more popular and “hip” Asian cultures of the time and is largely ignored or forgotten.

Hopefully, through Wukong, I hope that people will grow to appreciateChina’s rich cultural heritage and talk about Chinese soft power being “uncool” will eventually fade away.

Amusingly, some companies in China are giving employees time off to play Wukong! Very unusual for Chinese bosses to do this, I tell you.

Erlang Shen, the three-eyed god

Just have to add that I’m squeeing at Erlang Shen’s cameo in the opening scenes. He’s like a crush of mine LOL.

Erlang Shen is a god in Chinese folk religion. He has a third eye in the middle of his forehead, and is often associated with water - apparently he was based on a real historical figure who was a hydraulic engineer during the Qin dynasty!

Erlang Shen is always seen subduing demons and troublemakers like Sun Wukong.

By the way, Erlang Shen recently made an appearance in the blockbuster Chinese movie, Creation of the Gods I.

But I have to say that the Wukong version is way more bad ass.

It’s durian season

I wanted to write a whole epic about why durian is such a thing in Malaysia, but I’ll just leave you with this image.

The Peranakans and the Malays like to eat durian with rice soaked in santan (coconut milk). But this Peranakan (me) can’t stand the combo. I’m a purist and prefer to eat durians on its own. No rice and coconut milk, thank you.

My parents never fail to question my Peranakan genes each time we have durian rice dinners at the family home.

Durians, by the way, come in many “strains/varieties” in Malaysia. Musang King is admittedly the priciest and most prized. It’s so prized that China craves it like crazy, leading Malaysians to complain about “shipping the best to China and leaving the rest to us”.

Personally, why I do like Musang King, my favourite is XO and Udang Merah (red prawn) for its more unique taste.

Also, I’m just contrary.

Homestay with durians

Since we’re on the topic, I didn't know this place existed in Malaysia! A homestay where you can eat durians to your heart's content up in the mountains and be surrounded by cats too 😁

I love this vlogger, by the way. You can always trust him to film the most interesting locations that even I, a Malaysian, do not know about.

This homestay is in Jalan Lama Bentong - Karak, 28600 Karak, Pahang.

PS: While the Youtuber is from China, the others are Malaysian and one is Singaporean Chinese. The wife commented that her husband is a 🍌 person because he can only speak Cantonese. 🤭 So, you can occasionally hear some of them switch to English.

Portuguese in Malaysia

Another fun cultural fact: Malaysia also has Portuguese speakers due to Malacca being colonised a few centuries ago. These are the Serani, descendants of the Portugese settlers. I am curious, if you speak Portugese, whether you understand them, and is it different in any way?

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Not gonna lie, when I read ’s Study Notepad: Language studies or ’s Mandarin Weekly, I feel like a total slacker.

I have a vague-ish study plan somewhere in my noggin’, but there’s no way I can get organised enough to do pie charts, or count the number of hours I spend learning Chinese.

For one, Excel makes my head explode and I am already dealing with spreadsheets at work, and don’t really want to do it after work, thank you.

Yet, I totally understand the value of tracking stuff, so I’m glad that Tofu Learn at least has some stats thingy that I can keep track of.

My main learning goal for Chinese is to read as soon as possible, so my language learning activities are geared towards that.

My vocabulary-learning tools

I mentioned in my previous newsletter that I use a frequency list based on Chinese film subtitles.

But while the list is helpful, learning off a list is extremely boring, and for some reason, doesn’t stick very well in my head.

What I found very useful, however, was to use a graded reader.

Graded readers are specially written stories geared towards “graded” levels of readers. They are also written in such a way that characters get repeated often enough that by the end of the book, you’d be able to recognise the letters.

The third tool that has been invaluable for me is my ebook reader, a Chinese brand called Boox that is actually an e-ink tablet that enables me to install Android apps and best of all, comes with a Chinese-to-English dictionary. All I have to do is tap on a character and the character’s hanyu pinyin and English translation will pop up.

And, of course, I have Tofu Learn, my trusty SRS flashcard review app and Pleco, a Chinese-English digital dictionary.

My preferred graded readers

Some readers have hanyu pinyin right on top of the Chinese characters. I don’t use these as I find my eyes just gravitates towards the hanyu pinyin and ignore the characters.

So I prefer to read the Chinese text without any hanyu pinyin next to it.

My favourite graded reader so far is ones by Mandarin Companion. I think they’re written and structured very well, with enough character repetition for the character to really stick in my mind. But if there’s one tiny criticism I’ll offer is that they may need to come up with more interesting stories.

The next one is by Imagin8 Press. I’m currently slowly working through their Learn to Read Chinese, Book 1 but I’m dying to read their graded reader versions of Journey to the West and Investiture of the Gods, both classic Chinese stories that I’ve been dying to read in Chinese. (But I’m nowhere near that good yet, sobs.) Compared to Mandarin Companion, you need to know a higher number of characters to start reading their books.

Finally, there’s Mandarin Bean, an excellent website that offers readers graded by HSK level. Each essay comes with hanyu pinyin which you can turn off, and also audio. I sometimes read the text with the audio on. I find Mandarin Bean slightly frustrating because their HSK 1 level essays will sometimes include words or characters from higher HSK levels, which isn’t really helpful if you’re trying to improve your reading gradually. But, I tolerate it because the person who writes the essays comes up with the wittiest stories such as this one!

There’s also Du Chinese, but I prefer not to invest in a subscription app, especially since I have all these graded reader resources already.

My simple learning programme

This is my rough learning schedule for the week:

• Morning, every day - read an essay or a chapter from a graded reader right after I wake up*

• Morning, right after reading the graded reader - record 3 new characters from the graded reader and enter it into Tofu Learn*

• Afternoon or evening, every day - use Tofu Learn’s space repitition system or go through the list of characters I’ve already learned and revising those that I have forgotten. (I usually do this during lunch time.)

• Every weekend - write sentences from the new characters I’ve learned in the week. (I usually dedicate at least two hours on Saturday or Sunday for this.)

• Watch or listen to a heckuva lot of Chinese dramas, vlogs or podcasts - passive learning. (I most probably spend about 10-15 hours a week doing this!)

* I used to scroll mindlessly right after I wake up, usually reading world news, which is hardly the most cheerful thing to do. I’ve replaced this habit with this and it’s far more useful and productive.

So, that’s it. I learn Chinese in the snatches of time. I am probably beefing up my listening skills too much, but sorry, I can not stop watching Chinese dramas even if I tried lol. However, I try to take note of the Chinese subtitles as I watch the drama.

How about you? How do you learn new vocabulary in your chosen language?

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ℹ️ I rewrote this newsletter several times. I want to be very careful not to make this an anti-West rant; the last thing I want is to make people feel bad about being born in a region; that’s not something we have any control over!

Also, the reason why I pivoted my newsletter to talk about cultural issues is because I want to promote the positive things about Chinese culture. There’s so much content that ends up making you angry at a country or a region – I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to be a bridge builder, not a bridge basher.

However, this is an issue that’s been nagging at me for years, and I want to get it off my chest. And I hope by doing so, you’d understand how careless, badly researched takes about a country can affect its citizens and her diaspora. There are forces in the world right now agitating for conflict rather than cooperation, and they are creeping into “light” spaces like fandoms too.

So, recently, I wanted to share an article about To the Wonder, a Chinese drama selected for the 2024 Cannes, in a Chinese drama Reddit forum.

I almost completed the post when I realised where the drama was set:

The mini-series is an adaptation of the award-winning essay collection My Altay by Li Juan, a renowned Chinese essayist. Set in Northwest China’s Xinjiang’s pristine Altay region, the eight-episode series offers audiences a fresh narrative and sensory experience, blending light comedy with Li’s literary aesthetics to explore themes of nature reverence, self-discovery, and the simple yet resilient spirit of the northern Xinjiang herders. – To the Wonder selected CANNESERIES, marking the first Chinese language drama in longform competition

Oh.

On social media, especially on Reddit where anti-China forums like r/China flourish, Xinjiang is a trigger word. Mention it and reply guys and gals will swarm to your post.

Eager to express their hatred for a country they have never visited, let alone identify on a map, they would parrot badly researched takes and remind everyone that “China is bad”. A battle would then ensue in the comment thread between Chinese drama fans from the East and West.

But damn it, says my free-speech-loving, stubborn self. I don’t want to self-censor!

Then, I remember all the horrible comments I have to wade through each time Xinjiang is mentioned.

I sighed and deleted the post.

Listen. In case you’re itching to comment about the Xinjiang situation on my Substack, I’ll be blunt and say that I have no interest in knowing how virtuous or moral you are, politically or culturally.

I don’t want to be dragged into the “let’s see how she responds to my comment so that I can see if she’s pro-China or not” game that so many people seem intent on playing online.

I refuse to be engaged in an un-nuanced, culture/cold war “discussion” about China that is so dominant in Western media spaces these days.

Most of all, I’m extremely tired of watching people lecture other countries about their supposed “bad values” when their home countries are not exactly morally “pure” in their actions on the world stage.

“China bad” everywhere

I tell myself this often: Hey Liz, you’re Malaysian. Sure, genetically you’re probably 80% Chinese and 20% who knows what, but your ancestors left China like, over a century ago. You even think in English! Why do you care?

But as I became more involved in Chinese drama fandom, I realised that I’m not alone. I am comforted that I’m not the only one having a hard time with the constant anti-China bombardment, despite not being from China.

Even Chinese Americans feel uncomfortable about the online discourse about China, so at least I’m not crazy or, I don’t know, a secret Communist or something.

What puzzles me about the whole thing is you can ask anyone from the United States or other Western nations if they believe what their mainstream media says, and it’s always an empathic no. Even when it comes to science-y, life-saving stuff like vaccines. But somehow they 100% believe what these rags say about a country they’ve not even visited?

It also puzzles me that many Chinese drama fans (not all) who happen to hail from these countries always feel the need to declare that I don’t hate the Chinese people but I hate the Chinese government.

Why do they feel this strong urge to declare that they hate a government thousands of miles away that has done nothing to them and which has lifted 600 million people out of poverty? (Meanwhile, their governments are engaged in wars, sanctions and whatnot. Go figure.)

Personally, I believe their energy is misdirected. They need to worry more about what their government is doing to their country because at least they can do something about that. It’s almost as if someone is trying to distract them from more concrete issues. Hmm!

And if it’s not political virtue signalling, it’s weird, uneducated remarks about China or Chinese culture.

The weirdest hot take I’ve ever seen was a commentator saying that the reason why Chinese female characters have high-pitched baby voices is that women are being infantilised on TV to encourage women in China to breed.

Yes, I’m not even kidding!

I cringe each time someone asks about the Chinese Communist Party or China’s history on my CDrama subreddit because that usually means I’d have to wade through ignorant comments. Let’s just put it this way: Chinese drama fans, unless they have PhDs in the subject, are not exactly experts in Chinese history, culture and especially geopolitics, no matter how many CDramas they’ve watched. They have no business claiming to know how China operates.

The more patient among us would correct their misconceptions or bad takes, but rarely are these met with, “Oh, I get it now.” Instead, they often double down and tell us that we don’t know the truth because we’ve been brainwashed by propaganda. Poor us! We’re so ignorant about our own culture…

This is sad because, Chinese drama forums were supposed to be my happy place, a place where I can forget the troubles of the world for a moment. Yet, I’m being forced to deal with this when I’m trying to relax.

Some people will say that this is just “Reddit being Reddit. But I see this happen each time a China-related topic comes up on English social media, whether it is Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook etc. Even on mainstream media, the most banal topic, such as garlic, can be spun into something anti-China.

In a way, I admire them for their creativity.

Dragged into America’s culture war

This article explains how I and many other minorities feel: The world is trapped in America’s culture war.

Even the subheading of this article sums it up best: America won the internet, and now makes us all speak its language.

“Sharing the internet with America is like sharing your living room with a rhinoceros. It’s huge, it’s right there, and whatever it’s doing now, you sure as hell know about it.”

The American/Western narrative reigns supreme in English social media, and minority voices like mine are being drowned out or chased out. Can our narratives be heard, or should we just give up the fight?

I often speak to Chinese drama fans of Chinese descent, and a lot of them are leaving English spaces for Chinese fandom spaces due to the relentless stream of bad takes, subtle Sinophobia and misinformation about Chinese culture and China. They’re just tired of being exposed to it.

I am tempted to do the same, but I stubbornly refuse to be chased out of spaces talking about my culture.

Most of us just want to talk about the Chinese dramas that we love, not engage in ill-informed takes about China or our culture. Yet, when such comments appear, we feel compelled to correct them because it feels so unfair that our culture is singled out for the same sin many other cultures commit.

But it feels hopeless and exhausting to keep doing this, so this “cold war” in fandom spaces is forcing out Chinese people – both diaspora and from China – to less ignorant spaces.

In Internet parlance, we call these “cosy spaces”. Private chats in Discord or Whatsapp or via direct messages.

There are forces trying to drive humanity apart. To wage war with each other instead of working with each other to solve the world’s urgent problems: poverty, climate change, environmental disasters, pandemics.

We may not be politicians or diplomats, but we can do our part by not engaging in the “hate games” and label groups as “The Other” but as human beings like you and me.

Idealistic? Well, we gotta start somewhere.

To the Wonder

Now, to the drama in question!

To the Wonder takes place in the Altay Prefecture in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The eight-episode TV series, ­is available on the iQiyi platform and has received critical acclaim.

I’ve seen the first episode, and I enjoyed the peek into everyday life in Xinjiang, a region so grossly misrepresented by Western media that even I was surprised by how ordinary life in Xinjiang is.

There are fast food restaurants in Xinjiang! Big buildings! Trains! People going about their lives!

Our heroine is not a typical Chinese drama heroine. She’s not brave or courageous; she’s certainly not especially gifted. She wants to be a writer and has failed miserably at it. She has even failed miserably at her part-time job as a waitress in a kitschy restaurant serving Uyghur food.

So, she goes home to the rural area where her mother lives. After the pressure cooker introduction of life in the big city, your soul immediately feels relief at the sight of the grasslands.

Perhaps our heroine’s future lies here, where everything feels natural and where people work under the sun working with the earth and her living creatures.

Robert Wu of China Translated recently wrote a great essay about “To the Wonder”:

It’s a deep, wonderful analysis of a drama that is “boring” but has deep messages about the fundamental shift in Chinese culture and mindsets:

It’s freedom, freedom not in the political sense but at a much deeper level. A cultural, psychological, and personal revolution deeper in our hearts and minds that has only recently taken place. It’s the freedom from outside expectations. It’s the freedom from what other people want for you. It’s the freedom to love and to choose for yourselves. It’s the freedom to live, to think and to exist in the way your heart dictates, in a truly modern way. – How a “boring” TV drama becomes so successful and what it shows about today’s China

Do have a read.

The delightful thing about To The Wonder, at least to me, is its representation of the diverse cultures in China. (Heck, even the Han Chinese have such diversity it’s mind blogging.) Seeing this diversity on screen is such a joy.

Yet, there’s almost an immediate reaction from English-speaking Chinese drama fandom when dramas like these appear. To quote someone on the Internet when I recommended With You, a drama about the experience of ordinary people in China during the COVID-19 lockdowns: “What was the amount of propaganda in this one?”

I had this great urge to reply: “Oh man, the amount of propaganda in this one! One minute of this will turn you into a Mao-lovin’ commie! Capitalism will bleed out of your ears and your brain will implode from all that socialism, mein comrade!”

But I have a feeling she will not appreciate my sense of humour.

It’s sad when people dismiss dramas like To The Wonder as mere propaganda. Like Robert said, it’s much deeper than that, and you’re missing out.

It is, admittedly, challenging to access the drama. It’s available on iQIYI right now with English subtitles, but you may need a VPN and point it to Singapore/Malaysia to access it.

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Every Saturday or Sunday, I’d walk to the nearby open market to just look. Yeah, who am I kidding? I always end up buying too much food. Guilty, absolutely guilty.

I know, for godness sakes, that I really need to lose weight, but one doesn’t leave a Malaysian market with just one type of food.

This week, I bought some chang or rice dumplings. I am not a huge fan of bak chang which is more common. This is going to offend many Chinese people, but I’m pretty grossed out by pork belly and bak chang has a lot of pork belly.

I prefer Nyonya chang, not because erhm, I’m Nyonya, but because I prefer its sweeter, less chunky fillings. (It has a waterchestnut filling.)

Alas, due to miscommunication, the lady selling the chang gave me only one Nyonya chang and two bak chang.

Chinese rice dumplings

You’re probably wondering, what’s the difference between bak chang, Nyonya chang etc?

Here’s the article to educate you about the many types of chang: Bak chang 101

* “Bak” is Hokkien for “meat”

Learn Penang Hokkien

In my post about learning Mandarin, somebody mentioned whether there are places to learn Hokkien. For those who want to learn a rare form of Hokkien - Penang Hokkien, this channel will teach you:

PS: I speak this version of Hokkien.

“The Drunken Poets”

I confess to you, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what’s a good poem, whether in English or Chinese. It’s an art that has eluded me, despite being force-fed poetry in A-Level English literature. (Ironically, one of the poems I wrote for Creative Writing class was praised, but I wrote said poem hastily 30 minutes before class because I forgot about the homework!)

Not understanding nor being able to appreciate Chinese poetry, however, is a sore point for me. It’s a big reason why I’m trying to learn how to read Chinese, so that I can finally connect with a massive part of my culture.

In this video, we are introduced to one of China’s greatest poets, Li Bai, who lived during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 B.C.).

In this “dance drama”, Li Bai meets another famous poet, Du Fu, in a busy restaurant in Luoyang (in today's Henan province).

Tang dynasty music

Speaking of the Tang dynasty, I really love this Tang dynasty musical ensemble. The musicians are dressed in Tang clothes, and play traditional Chinese instruments such as pipa, guzhen, guqin, flute and drums.

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I used to believe that my memory was so terrible that learning Chinese characters would be impossible for me.

However, a few months ago I had to get a tech certification for work. I panicked. How was I supposed to remember all this information?

I tried mind maps, which helped me get a distinction in A-Level Law, but it took too long and a lot of the data I’m trying to remember didn’t relate logically to each other.

Then, I tried flashcards. It worked brilliantly. I took the tech exam and I passed and actually did well! I'm talking about a high distinction. Not bad for somebody with zero software engineering background.

Now, my Brainscape flashcards are being used by some folks in my company. Not bad for a non-engineer.

My attempt to earn the certification taught me that it was not my memory that was the problem, but my method of remembering.

I can’t repeat things 10,000 times and hope to remember. My brain just doesn’t work that way and I suspect yours don’t either.

Learning Chinese characters, however, was a little more challenging than the tech exam, to say the least.

While flashcards were useful, it isn't very useful to learn how a character looks like if you don't know how to use the word in context, for example. And I needed several tools and techniques to learn how to remember the characters.

Here are three things I put in place to create a good environment where I learn to read Chinese:

1. Use the right memory techniques. For me, it was:

• Mnemonics

• Breaking down a character into components and understanding why they were constructed that way.

2. Use the right tools:

• Space repetition systems - Tofu Learn

• Pleco Chinese dictionary

• Frequency list - Subtlex-CH

When I posted my reasons why I'm learning Mandarin, one of the most common question I got was how to memorise Chinese characters. In this issue, I'll lay out the techniques I'm using to learn how to read Chinese.

Step 1: Learn how Chinese characters work

You cannot remember Chinese characters as a series of strokes. That way leads to pain. (Believe me, I've tried.)

Fortunately, I learned way back in 2010 that the best way to learn Chinese characters is to break a character down into components and understand the logic of how they came together to form the character.

This is why I bought the Chinese characters and reading course from Outlier Linguistics, which helps me understand how Chinese characters are constructed.

However, I wouldn’t recommend that course to people who just want to learn a few phrases of Mandarin for an upcoming vacation in China. It’s a serious, full-blown course for language nerds who wants to go beyond the basics. I would say this is meant for intermediate Chinese language learners.

I can recommend this lengthy video from Mandarin blueprint instead:

Step 2: Use mnemonics

Some characters “look” like what they mean, so it wasn’t hard to remember them.

Take the numbers one to three, or even three: 一，二，三。

Sometimes, I just make up stories.

For example, the word 忙 (máng - busy, in a hurry), which I have no problem remembering because it looks like a man at a standing desk working on a laptop.

For words like 后 (hòu - empress, behind), understanding the historical background of the characters and how they were constructed helped. The character was drawn to look like two spread legs with a box and a slash coming out from them to represent ... a child kid coming out. “Giving birth to an heir”, basically. The story is so, er, graphic that I can’t look at 后 the same anymore!

I realise that if I take time to come up with the stories it is nigh effortless to remember the character.

One thing to acknowledge is the great advantage I have as a heritage speaker: I already know a lot of vocabulary, and have strong listening skills (but shite speaking skills, but that’s another story), so all I have to do is match the character to the word.

But don't despair. Just because you do not have the same advantage, doesn't mean you can't do it. The book, Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1: How Not to Forget the Meaning and Writing of Chinese Characters by James Heizig is often recommended to help people remember Chinese characters.

However, just a note that the Heizig method doesn’t help you master the tones associated with a character. It is essential to master tones if you want to be understood when speaking Mandarin.

The Mandarin Blueprint method has a good video on how to use mnemonics and memory palaces to remember the characters.

Frankly, their method is far too complicated for me since I already know the tones and vocabulary, so a lot of it is redundant for me. I may use their method for unfamiliar words, but I wonder if I'll remember the complex mnemonic story I craft for each word!

Step 3: Revise using flashcards

Oh boy, one can write essays on the use of flashcards and why it's useful, but I'll keep mine simple.

Spaced repetition systems are vital to help jog your memory as you memorize the characters.

In the bad old days, I used paper flash cards. And promptly lose them.

Fortunately, there are digital SRS apps now.

In the language circles, Anki is the god of all SRS apps because it's free and very flexible. However, I am a rebel - I don't use Anki, I use Tofu Learn.

The reason is simple. I do not want to waste precious time building Anki decks. I took a good half hour to plug in the data into one card because I wanted audio as well. With Tofu Learn, which is free, I can just add a character and it will build the card for me - with audio, quizzes, writing practice and more.

There are many SRS apps in the marketplace, but Tofu Learn is targeted towards specific languages, and is especially good for Chinese.

There's also Hack Chinese, which is another favourite. However, I found Tofu Learn's quizzes far more robust than Hack Chinese's, which only allows you to create Chinese to English flashcards.

Well, I hope this issue was enlightening. I didn't want to go on too much as it can be overwhelming, but this is roughly what I use to remember characters. In the coming issues, I will explore the importance of using graded readers.

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In language-learning circles, I'm considered a Mandarin "heritage speaker".

Heritage speakers have "learned a language informally by being exposed to it at home as opposed to having learned it formally in a school setting." (What is a Heritage Speaker?)

Technically, I don't fit the label because my real heritage language (mother tongue) is Hokkien, an 8-tone Chinese language that is considered one of the oldest in China. And I learned Mandarin in a school setting!

Basically, I was thrown into Mandarin classes during my primary school years. But I was a terrible student who spent most of my time copying homework and doodling instead of paying attention to the teacher. 

I mean, could you blame me? Classes consisted of us repeating the four tones over and over again and writing characters, you guessed it, over and over again.

But because I also lived in a Malaysian state where the main Chinese language is Mandarin, I managed to still soak in Mandarin, mostly so that I could fit in with my classmates whose mother tongue was Mandarin.

Also, speaking the complicated 8-tone Hokkien language gave me an advantage, especially when it came to tones. Basically, all I have to do is "hear" a word and pronounce it in the right tone without much of a problem.

I don't envy total newbie learners who had to grapple with the complexities of a tonal language for the first time. Especially those who have never spoken a tonal language! Many have told me that despite listening intensively, they still could not replicate the right tones. For the life of me, I have no idea how I do it.

However, my Mandarin-speaking friends say they can hear an accent. To quote a friend, "You still sound like a banana." Can't win, I guess!

Due to my unique background, I'm an outlier in my family - the only one who can speak and understand Mandarin and Hokkien (Penang, Northern version). My siblings can't speak a jot of Mandarin and only a little bit of Hokkien. 

However, as I don't get to practice my Mandarin with my family and because my circle of friends speak mostly English, a kindergartener speaks better Mandarin than I do!

Which is odd, because I have intermediate-level listening skills. Meaning, I can understand about 70 to 80% of what is being said in a modern Chinese drama without subtitles. I can understand so much yet speak so little, but apparently, this is a common problem with heritage speakers.

After decades of having a "half past six" command of a language, yet possessing an accent good enough to fool native speakers, I want to rectify this.

I tried learning Mandarin around 2011, when apps like Pleco was a distant dream and we had to learn Chinese radicals so that we could find the right characters in a paper Chinese-English dictionary. 

I took a traditional classroom Mandarin class, which I quickly learned was the wrong route for me, especially since it was there to prepare me for the HSK 1, a language exam. I didn't want to sit for an exam, I just wanted to speak better. And I was bored out of my mind because HSK 1 was far too basic for me.

So, I knew I had to approach language learning differently because most curriculums are designed for total newbies, not heritage speakers. 

The new Mandarin category of this newsletter will detail the strategy I'm using to master Chinese, my progress and the fun things I learned about the Chinese language.

I did wonder if I should create another newsletter to share my language-learning journey at first. However, I barely have enough bandwidth to maintain *one* newsletter, let alone three. (I have a fiction Substack called Distant Stars that I barely update - guilty grin.)

Besides, learning Mandarin is part of culture, and what better subject to include in a Substack about Malaysian and Chinese culture?

Even if you are not interested in learning Mandarin, I hope that my little monthly or fortnightly issues about Mandarin will entertain you, because I sure was tickled by some of the discoveries I made about the Chinese language!

Who knows, maybe you'll end up learning Mandarin!

Other articles

I have written a few articles about Mandarin learning in my blog. Have a read of my Mandarin learning posts on my website if you want to know more nerdy language stuff.

ℹ️ Technically, I'm learning how to speak Mandarin but am learning how to read and write Chinese.

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In my last newsletter, I explained that the main issue I had with Netflix’s 3-Body Problem is the dumbing down of the book’s plot.

For example:

• The ETO is now a cult of religious, fanatical alien worshipers.

• The fight against the ETO also seems very small. Goodbye, world cooperation to defeat the Santi. Instead, the crusade against the EVA is now led by ... one man's shady organisation?

• The bug/pest analogy makes an appearance but in the clumsiest way ever, compared to the poetic way it was foreshadowed and then "revealed" towards the end.

• But, to me, the most egregious simplification (nay, twisting, really), happens to the character Ye Wenjie. She is now a religious zealot consumed by hatred for humanity. 

She is a pale shadow of the Tencent version, who is resigned, conflicted by what she has created and whose literally experienced a heavy personal loss as a result of her life choices.

I felt that the actress who plays her in the Netflix version has only one expression: A hate-filled glare.

This, when contrasted to Tencent's Ye Wenjie, is massively disappointing. 

Nudity, violence, and sex, are higher in the Netflix version, and a lot of times I wondered what was the point of them all. How does it further the story?

About the Cultural Revolution: Much has been written about the misrepresentation of how things really were during that time. But like everything else, it was oversimplified, highlighting the most shock-value event of the book - the public death of Yen Wenjie's father. 

I've had people argue with me on social media about why this scene had to be included.

Now, my complaint was not that it was included at all, but that the Cultural Revolution was reduced to this one bloody event in the drama.  Basically, they weren't terribly subtle about the Western POV and at one point, Ye Wenjie hatefully stared at the portrait of Chairman Mao.

Yeah, yeah, we get you writers. Communist, bad.

In my personal opinion, the Tencent version was far more critical of the Cultural Revolution. 

Ye Wenjie had to deal with the aftereffects of that awful time for years. We realise that the damage done to her (and other people like her), was so deep and harrowing that it led her to make this one decision that altered the fate of humanity. 

For example, that super uncomfortable conversation with her mother years after the terrible event, for example, was a subtle way of conveying the trauma that Ye Wenjie had suffered and was still suffering from. 

This helps us understand her actions as well - if she could not trust or hope that her mother would do the right thing, there's really no hope for humanity to save itself. Humanity is too corrupted/broken to improve, so we'd need external help.

But the Netflix's Ye Wenjie? Well, I hate humanity so we all deserve to be slaves to aliens. Or something.

However, my No.1 biggest beef about the Netflix drama is how it’s being used by some quarters to “play politics” or talk about “the China situation”. (Though to be fair, it’s not really the drama’s fault.)

Can you sense my weariness? Each time a Chinese cultural product breaks through into the English-speaking world, I have to brace myself for wonderful articles such as What Chinese Outrage Over ‘3 Body Problem’ Says About China.

Shut up, New York Times. I’m trying to enjoy a damn sci-fi drama, not read about the US-China cold war you’re constantly screaming about.

What folks in China think about Netflix’s 3 Body Problem

This may seem like a cop-out, but I feel like I’m not qualified to speak about the drama’s Cultural Revolution depiction as I don’t know enough about this part of China’s history. Nor do I feel like I can express the cultural sensitivities around the show’s depiction of the Chinese and China. (Though as one of the Chinese diaspora, I have plenty to say). So, I’ll let the folks from China speak about this instead.

Here are some articles and videos I’ve found that could help enlighten you. Some opinions are firmly on “they really screwed with our history” half of the discussion, while some are in the “it’s not that bad” territory.

First, author Liu Cixin recently spoke out and said: “My novel is not a metaphor for US-China tensions”.

The Dark Forest portrays the conflict between humans and aliens. There’s confrontation but no cooperation. However, in real life, including between the U.S. and China, there is not only competition and opposition but also cooperation. While readers are free to interpret the story as they wish, I do not use science fiction to convey metaphors. My work is not a politically charged sci-fi novel like George Orwell’s 1984.

Then, do read The Chinese backlash over Netflix’s 3 Body Problem, a good Vox article about how claims that “depictions of nationalistic outrage on Chinese social media are probably being exaggerated”.

Then, “there’s something wrong with this tale” reaction from a popular Chinese drama reviewer:

“I cannot believe they depicted China this way” reaction. (To be honest I found this video hard to watch due to the rant against American ideology, nationalism etc. Yes, it is true that there was a Chinese nationalistic reaction to the Netflix adaptation, but it's not the entire story):

“It’s actually not that bad, but there are still problems” reaction:

An interesting discussion about the story and they share my opinion that the story has been so simplified that it has been “flattened” and that it’s like “fast food”:

Note that most of the commentators here are very down-to-earth and grounded in their thoughts about the show and are more concerned about the plot than screaming about US-China relations.

I hope that these clips will give you a more “rounded” view of the sentiments around this drama now.

What did you think about the 3 Body Problem?

ℹ️ You can watch Tencent's Three-Body on Amazon Prime and Viki. Note, WeTV recently released a 26-episode anniversary version which is said to be better paced and edited.

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When I heard that Netflix was going to adapt Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem trilogy of novels and that the people behind it were the ones behind The Game of Thrones my initial reaction was:

It's not purely because David Benioff and D. B. Weiss totally ruined the best fantasy drama ever made with that shoddy last season.

And true, my trepidation has a lot to do with how little confidence I have in Hollywood depicting one of the most sensitive periods of China's history, the Cultural Revolution. For god sake, they couldn't even do China's folk tales right (exhibit 1: Disney’s live action Mulan), let alone China's history. (PS: I’ll be covering more of this topic in part 2.)

But my main concern was around the inevitable China vs West comment wars on social media and movie forums everywhere, with both sides touting their version as superior, and then the inevitable "Communist Party bad", "OMG Chinese propaganda" and "You only like the Chinese/Netflix version cos you're pro-China/pro-West" conversation points.

And indeed it did happen. One of the Three-Body forums I lurked at devolved into East vs West squabbles daily. 

This was the most un-fun part of the whole Three-Body watching experience, having to wade through Sinophobic-tinged comments and lectures about the awfulness of a certain country, never mind that many of these users hail from countries with as blemished a history as China’s, and that most comments are wildly ignorant and off the mark.

And damn it, can we, like, not talk about Xi Jin Ping, commies and evil dictatorships when I'm trying to talk about entertainment omg??

Tencent vs Netflix versions

But okay, I'm pretty sure you don't want me to rant about the evils of over-consuming Reddit, but about the drama itself.

First, a disclosure: I've not read the novels, but I've watched the 30-episode Tencent version of Three-Body. The drama was considered a very loyal adaptation of Ciu Luxin's novels. 

I wrote an extensive review of the Tencent’s Three-Body at my blog for Chinese and Korean dramas, DramaTea, so do read it if you like.

But the TL;DR version of my review of the Tencent version is this: While it dragged in the first 10 episodes, the writers and directors did a fantastic job in fleshing out the very complex, hard-sci-fi story. 

I enjoyed how subtly and nuanced they depicted the horrors and impact of the cultural revolution. Concerns that it would be completely censored out were unfounded. If anything, the entire drama was about how this historical event had a massive impact on all of humanity.

Initially, I didn't want to watch 3 Body Problem, especially after reading the reviews and thoughts of those who had watched it.

But my brother was watching the show during my recent Penang vacay, so I ended up watching it with him.

I didn't hate it, surprisingly.

But I didn't like it either.

The best way to illustrate the difference between the two versions can be summed with these two images:

Tencent version:

Netflix version:

Basically, the Netflix version is a simplified version for the masses. Three-Body for Dummies, if you will.

In the Tencent version, your brain will need to do some extra work to figure things out. 

The Netflix version doesn't require you to think at all because we have characters explaining things to you like you're a ten-year-old.

For example, in the Netflix version, instead of us slowly finding out what the refrain, "Physics doesn't exist", means characters will literally tell us why in the first few episodes.

This "tell, don't show" approach dulls the significance and emotional impact of this mysterious event and many other events in the drama. 

I also don't understand some of the show’s creative decisions.

Like, why introduce the girl NPC character that constantly screams “Help me”? Is that a way to elicit urgency? Or turning the computer into a sexy female samurai? Both felt very cheesy.

Also, the Netflix version excluded the farmer and shooter hypothesis, a major theory that forms the foundation of the story. I have to guess that maybe the writers thought that it'll be "too much theoretical science" for the average Joe.

Don't get me started about turning the main character into several characters.

The absence of Wang Miao, the protagonist, was keenly felt. Instead, I have to watch the “Oxford 5” deal with the drama of their lives rather than the drama of the planet. (At some points I wanted to yell: “Dude, I have no time for your existential crisis or dating dilemmas. There’s an alien thingamajic problem to deal with, remember??)

Yet, the simplified Netflix version has its benefits. For one, it can be helpful for those who got lost in the weeds in the Tencent version, which is so subtle at telling the story that you sometimes take a long while to figure out why certain things are happening.

But the oversimplification of plots, characters and concepts has watered down a lot of the beauty and nuance of the Tencent version. The subtle implication of horror and despair.

As this is review is non-spoilery, I can’t really be detailed on the plot points, but I’ll explore this in next Friday’s issue*, which is about my thoughts about the depiction of the Cultural Revolution and what Chinese netizens think about the drama.

* The newsletter was at a robust 2,000 words and I thought that well, maybe email inboxes won’t like that.

So, which one is better?

In the end, it depends.

For one, the Netflix version will be best for you if you prefer an easier way to access the Three-Body tale. Meaning, you don't have to crack your head trying to figure out tough scienc-y stuff or plod through 30 episodes of a drama in a foreign language and squinting at English subtitles. It's a pretty clear-cut tale, albeit clumsily done.

About the criticisms about "forced diversity" from some corners of the web, I think as this is Britain, this level of diversity is not unusual and felt quite natural. I didn't mind it at all.

But, ultimately, I still preferred the Tencent version, for its respect for the audience's intelligence, of Chinese history, subtle and nuanced storytelling and depth. 

However, I didn't really hate the Netflix version as much as I thought (unless I start thinking about what they did to Ye Wenjie's character).

There's nothing wrong at all if you enjoyed the Netflix version or even prefer it, but big portions of the story, the deeper meaning of the tale, would be lost to you.

ℹ️You can watch Tencent's Three-Body on Amazon Prime and Viki. Note, WeTV recently released a 26-episode anniversary version which is said to be better paced and edited.

I leave you with the trailer from Tencent’s Three-Body.

PS: This newsletter has bits of my post from Reddit. In case you're wondering if I stole this from a random Redditor, that Redditor is indeed, me.

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It is Hari Raya Aidilfitri in Malaysia, otherwise known as Eid al-Fitr around the world. As usual, malls around Malaysia will try to out do each other with their decorations. This year, I only had time to visit Midvalley Megamall, a major mall in Kuala Lumpur. This is because I was in Penang for Cheng Beng.

Ramadan Bazaar

I had this big plan to take a video of a Ramadan bazaar before Hari Raya happened, but my phone betrayed me by croaking after I snapped this photo.

During the fasting month, Ramadan bazaars will be the highlight of the day. They usually open around 5pm, sometimes earlier, and patrons will flock to the open markets to buy food for buka puasa (breaking fast).

But yes, I’ve had such a busy, busy April with work and with Cheng Beng preparations that I could only visit the bazaar once (sobs).

More Penang. Like, can we have enough of it?

Speaking of Penang, it was so sad to leave it to return to Kuala Lumpur. (In fact, I’m writing this newsletter a day after I returned.)

I almost wanted to extend my trip but I know it’s not feasible. Work beckons. My possibly dead garden back in my apartment also awaits me.

Penang always fills me with nostalgia and joy. I spent my early childhood there, so my memories are filled with trishaw rides with my grandma who is always in her best nyonya kebaya.

Every time I walk around Georgetown, I’m amazed by the mix of the very old with the old and new. Buildings from our British colonial past stand next to old shophouses that have seen different governments, and even a few wars. You can walk down a street filled with modern shophouses, only to be greeted by a century-old temple nestled in a corner.

Five stones

One of my fondest memories of my paternal grandma was walking back hand-in-hand with her, collecting red sago seeds which she will sew into little bags so that I could play batu seremban (“five stones”).

During the 80s, because we didn’t have the Internet or social media. That’s what we did for fun. Cultivate hand dexterity by tossing and balancing bags of seeds with our hands! (Yeah you can guesstimate my age now lol.)

Ngajat dance

I try to highlight as much of Malaysia as possible, but it can be tough because we are such a diverse nation, so it can be difficult to feature them all. So, one of my favourite ways to highlight a culture is by featuring its dances.

This is the ngajat, a dance from the Iban-Dayak peoples from Sarawak. (Ngajat means “to dance” in the Iban language.) I confess I’m not an expert in their dances, but I just love watching the various dances from Malaysia and will definitely share them with all of you in future editions.

This is a short newsletter as I try to get my holiday brain back online to more serious things. Hope you enjoyed it and learning something fun and new anyway :)

Also, I would like to wish Eid Mubarak or Selamat Hari Raya to those celebrating it. :)

PS: I also need to apologise in advance for spelling/grammatical errors if there are any. I’m not kidding when I tell you that I still have holiday brain.

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In January I watched the Chinese drama, Draw the Line. Some people (okay, mostly those not of the Chinese persuasion) have dismissed the drama as Chinese propaganda because it had to do with the Chinese legal system, which made me think, so because you think it's propaganda you are not going to watch it?

To quote Uncle Roger:

Like most people in Asia and South-East Asia, I have consumed Western movies all my life.

I have imbibed the "America saves the world" message and watched American armies swoop down to save the unwashed masses of brown people in movies over and over again, either in spandex or in big planes, and I would like to reassure you that I've not lost my marbles nor have I turned American.

Of course, there's some propaganda in Draw the Line, but it is not “hand on Mao's little red book screaming the virtues of Communism” type of propaganda.

However, there are scenes where the judges swear allegiance to China, looking terribly moved while they do so, while an invisible orchestra plays in the background.

Or, after reading the judgment of a case, they will thoroughly explain why the punishment is being meted out and how it's going against China's values. To sweeping orchestra music.

I found these scenes funny more than OMG IT’S THE COMMIES!

Fun fact: We do that in Malaysia too. But admittedly, without the dramatic music.

Well, we don't have a little red book to swear over, but we always have a politician/royalty telling us what a fantastic nation Malaysia is and how we must extol the nation's values blah blah during an official function. It's expected.

Sometimes. I wonder if the disconnect Westerners feel when watching dramas like these is because they don't like their governments very much and wonder why the people in China seem so obedient and quiet.

I suppose this must be alien to Western countries, but I assure you that preachy, paternalistic attitudes from our government is very common in Asia. And we common folk have learned to smile and nod while rolling our eyes inside like the rest of the world.

First, let me reassure you again, that if you watched Draw the Line (I dare you!), you will see the lay folk heavily criticise the judges for their decisions on social media. You will see people literally screaming and attacking the judges (with knives too! Gasp).

I always view the comments about Chinese people needing rescuing and being too afraid to speak up against the Chinese government as a WTF moment. Like, have you seen the discussions on Weibo?? (FYI, you can plug Weibo into Google Chrome and it’ll automatically translate it into English for you. Chinese social media is wild. Makes Twitter look like a kindergarten brawl.)

Yes, Chinese people do criticise the government and by golly isn't it weird that the Communist Party of China have such an efficient legal system?

(I can almost see some of you mumbling that it's all fake because it's propaganda, but like, please, did you think we Asian viewers watched Law and Order and thought, "Boy, that's exactly how lawyers and the justice system works in America!")

Say what you will about the Chinese communist party and whether the legal system is truly that way, but I think Draw the Line is a fascinating glimpse into everyday life in China.

Judges don't live in mansions. They live in simple apartments like you and me. They date. They go out for hot pot meals with their colleagues. They argue. They do their jobs. Sometimes well, sometimes badly. In fact, at one point the drama became so bland with the normalness towards the end, that I longed for a martial arts warrior to just burst through the screen at one point.

I've visited China a few times, the last time being around 2010 or so, and I have always marvelled at how very much they were like us. The people of Beijing and Shanghai live no differently from the people in Tokyo and Seoul. These days I'd say they have advanced a lot more than them.

I think dramas like Draw the Line not only enlighten us about how other countries live. We don't have to accept that their way of life is right or wrong, but it is so important not to judge their lives through our preconceived biases or cultural lenses and start comparing their values with ours.

I always find it a little disturbing that people would not watch or read something because it clashes with their values. Don't they have any curiosity about a world beyond theirs? Are they afraid that they'll be brainwashed the moment they read it? Have they so little faith in their own values and mental faculties that they think they'll just capitulate immediately? Or do they want to hang on to their hatred of a people/political party/nation so much that any little hint that their enemy is human and just like them, is intolerable?

Questions for another day, perhaps.

Other related information

I wrote a review of Draw the Line in my Chinese and Korean drama blog, so do have a read to get more of my thoughts about the drama.

Also, you can watch Draw the Line 100% free on Youtube. I know, I have no idea why they do this (whispers: propaganda) but I adore that I can access dramas like these easily.

But they are most likely thinking like the Chinese they are and have published it on Youtube to enjoy the yummy ad dollars and free promotion they get.

Main image is “Chairman Mao is the Red Sun in Our Hearts, People's Republic of China, 1968, lithograph - Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon - Eugene, Oregon - DSC09554” from Picryl.

PS: This issue is also published on my website. Tai Tales is mirrored there, to cater to those who prefer not to use Substack and also - we writers need to own our content, you know?.

Welcome to Culture Chronicles, where I share quick doses of cultural delights from Chinese and Malaysian culture. While you can often find these snippets shared in my Notes section too, I usually expand on them or have new delights!

A holiday in paradise. Kinda.

The picture above? Yes, I spent a few days in tropical paradise! You may think that this resort is on an island somewhere, but actually, it’s a suburb about a 30-minute drive from my apartment.

If you tell a Malaysian where this resort is, they’d be like, “Where??”

PS: The resort is located in a place called Cyberjaya. Yes, this township is really named after computers and robots.

It’s not a sexy location, but it works! I don’t have to spend hours traveling to a distant place - it is just half an hour’s drive away. I usually only do this when I really, really, need a break, and the last few weeks had been so hectic at work I really needed an escape. So this resort delivered!

(I wrote about this resort in my blog, so you can have a read if you like.)

Ramadan delights

It is now Ramadan in Malaysia and specialty products are often rolled out. Dates are usually sold, but so are beautiful tins of cookies! I fell for this gorgeous tin and despite walking away, ended up buying it the next day. I am happy to report that the butter cookies inside are also yummy!

Koi-way to heaven

Saw these stairs while on a walk around my neighborhood this week. The shophouses in this row usually have dark, dingy and dirty stairways.

But the sudden splash of beauty caught me by surprise; I had to take a picture.

A scent to wake up to

Environmental drama

Of all the countries I expect to produce hopeful fiction about the environment, China was not at the top of the list. I had initially thought of Sunrise on the River as a dry drama about saving the environment, but there is a dead body, fishy bureaucrats, a possible conspiracy, and a mysterious environmental mystery.

Worth a watch! The drama is on Youtube with English subtitles.

Watch here: youtube.com/watch?v=n8oVpL7770I

There's one section of the bookstore that I judiciously avoid.

I call it the “Sad Stories of Asian People” shelf.

I mean, I do like my periodic injections of Did you know how much we suffered as Asians in all our history or OMG being an Asian is hard in the modern world stories.

For one, I adore Su Tong's novels, who wrote the novel behind the world-famous Zhang Yimou movie, Raise the Red Lantern.

And I mean, logically, I know there's demand for it, especially overseas-born-Asians who have to wrestle with East vs West cultural pressures. But something about the West's adoration of these novels has always rubbed me the wrong way.

What is it about these stories that Western publication houses love them so much they throw awards at it?

And even if the story is set during modern times, you will inevitably have an Asian character lament about how hard it is to date/live/work/just be an Asian. Usually over ethically-sourced coffee with another friend of a minority race. Whether they live in the West or East, it's hard, baby. We Asians, we have it hard. Always.

I once read a short story written by a Malaysian writer - it was awarded some prestigious Western literary award thingy. And it was about her staring into her roti canai thinking sad thoughts about her sad life.

After completing it, I looked up and said out loud: Oh wow, I'm reading Asian suffering over breakfast!

I don't know about you, but when I stare at my roti canai I'm thinking if dhal or fish curry goes better with it . (Usually I can't decide, so I dump both it on top of the roti.)

This is probably why I refused to write stories in English about my culture for the longest time. Because there’s this unspoken thing in writer circles (at least in Malaysia) that if you write stories set in Malaysia's colonial past or about the angst of being Asian, it’ll get noticed by the big Western publications and win awards.

Damn it, Asian literature is so much more diverse than that.

Recently, of Decentralized Fiction shared an essay of his that helped me nail down one aspect of why I don't like "Sad tales of Suffering Asians."

To be very honest, the essay had so many American terms and concepts that, while I understood what was being said intellectually I don’t quite relate to them. But this quote stood out to me:

Why is Asian-American literature so boring? Why does it so thoroughly lack passion? Why are the characters so passive and never, ever, angry? Why do they almost invariably have nothing substantive to say about anything? Why does it so studiously deviate from anything interesting or controversial or innovative or offer a challenge of any kind?

Asian-American literature is boring because liberalism is the mother-of-all identity shredders and our literary elites are approval-seeking strivers by ARX-HAN

And this is a recent realisation of mine: I don’t relate to most Asian American angst or problems!

The reason is simple. There are lots of Chinese people in South-East Asia, so we are not minorities in this part of the world even if we are minorities in our countries. Also, in Malaysia, we don’t get the pressure to conform to a different culture. So, we don't struggle with our identities much. And even if we do, our parents will slap it out of us.

We struggle with other issues though. For one, being viewed with suspicion in our countries just for being Chinese. (That issue will take more than one newsletter issue to unpack!)

But what ARX-Han said about Asian-American literature though, got me chuckling.

Here's my unpopular politically-incorrect opinion: I dislike them because I consider most of them navel-gazing dreck.

One can’t really relate to the laments of privileged people living in the West, even if they're Asians, at least where I’m from.

Yes, I'm probably being unfair and may look like I'm dismissing their pain. But the angst and over-focus on identity issues is just something I do not get.

See, in my part of the world, genocides still happen and the threat of World War III possibly breaking out in our backyards is real (cough Taiwan cough US anti-China sentiments).

So, sorrylah, we have more serious problems to worry about than our identities. (Like, whateverlah. You don't think I don't have the right values? Go fly kite¹.)

Fortunately, absolutely fortunately, things are changing.

I was so happy when Jin Yong's wuxia² novels received a flashy English translation, or when dan mei³ novels like Heaven's Official Blessings were published, even if I thought the English translations for them were shite. Because more diversity in translated-to-English Asian fiction is a good thing.

On top of that, more Westerners are discovering webnovels! (China and Korea has a very robust and profitable online writing culture which I wish, wish, wish the English-speaking world could have.)

Then, hard sci-fi Three-Body by Chinese author Cixin Liu won the Hugo.

I've not read the books, but AvenueX, a video blogger I follow, commented that the Cixin Liu's second book of the series is actually far superior than the book that won all the awards. I thought her comment about this was interesting:

"Most people would agree the second book probably is the most exciting book. The third book has too many crazy ideas, but then it is the first book that got the Hugo awards. I think, among the three books, why people would pick first one to get the awards is that it is more exotic because it contains a significant part of the Cultural Revolution, which started in the mid-60s and pretty much ended in mid-70s. … it's one of the most sensitive political periods in China's history.

And from an outsider's point of view, it's the most juicy part … Whatever you think (about) this camp of "free West" and that camp, starting from Soviet Union to China to communist party to socialism … that is the juicy part, from the Westerner's perspective of modern Chinese history."

Yeah, yeah, Asian sad times is exotic mah!

What I'm saying in this long-winded ramble is that we just need a more well-rounded representation of Chinese and Asian Literature in English beyond Sad Stories of Suffering Asians, and I'm really glad we're finally getting it, even if Western publishers are still going goo-goo eyed at fiction depicting Asian suffering during cultural revolutions, wars and colonialism, or publishing Asian American writers wrestling over identity and culture issues. At least these lighter fare will balance out the dour angst.

I hope.

But to be honest, I prefer reading Chinese classics or webnovels these days and eschew Asian American fiction or Asian fiction hailed as praiseworthy in the West.

Sure, webnovels are trashy but damn they’re not self-absorbed at least. Also Chinese classics. Again, not self absorbed.

And not preachy and unconcerned about espousing the right values. Just yummy, trashy, wacky goodness.

In conclusion: I just can’t stand “my life sucks” fiction, in general.

The end.

End note: Confession - I worried about this issue and wondered if people would get offended, especially since my sense of humor leans on the sarcastic side. While I may not relate to the angst and cultural struggles an immigrant of a Western nation faces, it doesn’t mean that I’m not sympathetic.

Book recommendations

Since I wrote so much about the need for more diverse genres of Asian fiction, here's a few!

Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio or Tales from the Liao Zhai is a famous collection of scary tales written by a scholar, Pu Songling. He started writing fiction during “the Troubles”, towards the end of the Ming Dynasty and the start of the Qin Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China.

PS: Reading these stories at night was probably a bad idea 🤣 The story that got me closing the book quickly was the one with the woman's corpse. (PS: Never a good idea to sleep in a room with a dead body. ☠️)

What I find interesting is that the stories do not follow the short story structure that I'm familiar with. Instead they are like a snapshot in time and often end amusingly and oddly, as if to say that we can't solve these mysteries, we can only accept and live with them and get on with our lives.

Another novel I'm reading is There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job by Kikuko Tsumura. As a person who fantasized of ditching her corporate job to get an "easy job" this book was a barrel of laughs. And probably a slap of reality.

Cultural notes

1 Go fly kite is a nice way of saying "get lost, you dweeb".

2 Wuxia is a unique Chinese genre exploring the adventures of martial arts experts in the "jiang hu" (direct translation: "Rivers and lakes", but is actually a social order with its own rules and regulations that exist in parallel with the world ruled by the Emperor. It is often commonly understood that these two worlds must not interfere with one another.

3 Dan mei is a genre of fiction featuring romantic relationships between men.

So, theoretically, I'm a banana. Though, maybe half a banana.

Let me explain.

In Malaysia, we call Chinese people who cannot speak their native tongue a "banana". (Yellow on the outside but white on the inside, get it??) Bananas are often looked at with disdain by Chinese who can speak and read Chinese.

Chinese people — those from Mainland China or the diaspora, fiercely cling to their culture and origins. Like, we are very aware that we are from this super ancient, 5,000-year-old civilisation, didn't you know? Many of us still practice customs that are just as old, no matter how long our ancestors have left China.

So, if something negative is being said about China, we will feel it, even if we've never stepped foot in China. I find that an interesting thing because when the Western media began pumping out anti-China news, I began to feel really, really offended. Logically, I couldn't comprehend it and thought something was wrong with me. But when I asked other Chinese folks who were born abroad, they felt the same.

But that issue is a topic for another day. However, this mindset will help you understand why I'm called a tropical fruit.

So, there's a lot of cultural baggage involved with being labelled a "banana". There's this unspoken assumption that bananas have given up and betrayed their roots and think that other cultures (usually Western ones) are better.

But like I said earlier: I'm not 100% a banana.

I understand Mandarin and read a little (very poorly), and this is due to growing up next to Singapore, where the main Chinese language was Mandarin. As a kid, I absorbed the language via osmosis the way kids do.

On top of that, I spent a year with my grandma when I was a kid. She spoke Northern Malaysian Hokkien with me, so I learned that dialect too. My siblings, however, are true-blue bananas. They can't speak Mandarin or Hokkien like I do and mostly converse in English.

This ability to speak Mandarin and Hokkien has given me a "pass" of sorts among the 100% Chinese. I can almost imagine them looking at me with narrowed eyes, thinking: "Okay, this one can pass. She has not betrayed her ancestors!"

Unfortunately, my shaky accent almost always betrays my banana roots.

But, admittedly, I'm also given a pass because I'm also Peranakan.

(Now this is potentially another essay, but I shall give a quick explanation about what Peranakans are. I also wrote a hastily-written primer about Peranakans over at my blog.)

My ancestors moved from China hundreds of years ago and married local Malay women. Over time, we've developed our own culture as a result of this blend of two cultures. Peranakans have happily incorporated elements from Malay, Thai, Chinese and heck, even British cultures.

Many Peranakans no longer speak Chinese but just Malay. But I belong to a branch of Peranakans up north who are still able to speak Hokkien and are influenced by Thai culture.

This means I possibly have mixed-race ancestry, but that can't be determined 100% accurately with my family because apparently, we keep terrible records.

(Me: "Dad, which part of China did we come from?"
Dad: "Somewhere in Fujian."
Me: "Like, where in Fujian?"
Dad: "Don't know. Our ancestors didn't keep diaries.")

So, if I meet someone especially annoyed with my banana-ness, I'll mention that I'm Peranakan, and they will almost always say, "Oh, no wonderlah!"

I also find it interesting that Chinese Americans often get a tad defensive when they hear about this "banana" label.

"I refuse to be labelled a banana!" most of them exclaim when I tell them about it.

How do I feel being labelled one?

Well, for most of my life, I felt ostracised by what I assumed was my community and felt crappy about it.

Then, I realised that being Peranakan, I'm technically not 100% in said community, so decided to embrace my banana-ness, like this dude in the video below.

And because of the way I speak English, most assumed that I could not speak a whimper of Chinese, so I used that to my full advantage, eavesdropping on Mandarin conversations while they assume that I'm a complete banana. It's totally fun.

So, you can say that I spent most of my life as a Chinese spy.

Chinese New Year mall visitations

Since all social life seem to happen in Malaysian malls, mall management really go all out with their decorations during festive seasons to attract patrons.

so, it's really a thing to visit malls just to see their festive decorations. This year, I only had the energy to visit two major ones: Sunway Pyramid and Midvalley Megamall, both part of the “so big you can do a 5km marathon there” pantheon of Malaysian giant malls.

Romantic dragons

This was such a rare and beautiful poster 2023 xianxia Chinese drama, Back from the Brink, that I had to share it! (Also, since 2024 is the year of the Dragon, it seems like an appropriate time to share it too.)

The story is about a dragon in search of his body, and the woman who has one of his scales in her heart.

“Xianxia” (仙侠) is a unique Chinese fantasy genre heavily influenced by Chinese mythology and philosophy.

I wrote a review of Back from the Brink on my CDrama blog, so you can have a read.

You can watch this drama on the Youku app or on Youtube with English subtitles.

Ad stories

This is probably a tradition peculiar to my country, but during major festivities in Malaysia, brands will release short 2-3 min dramas to celebrate the festival. Petronas, Malaysia's national oil company, is very well know for these “ad stories”.

This particular story hits close to home for me because the language used is Northern Malaysian Hokkien (my mother tongue, and a rare form of Hokkien only found in Malaysia). I can almost picture my mum in this group.

Boasting about your kids during Chinese New Year is a time honored tradition, but the ultimate message of this story is bittersweet.

A rare instance where I don't skip the ad!

Wuxia dance

Wuxia is a unique Chinese genre that has so much of cultural subtext that most Chinese folks just take for granted.

Like the concept of internal energy, which enables fighters to be “light as a feather”, allowing them to perform amazing acrobatic feats and of course, jump crazy distances.

This is Cheng Yi, one of the few actors who can convincingly execute moves that looks both deadly and graceful at the same time.

From the hit Chinese TV drama Mysterious Lotus Casebook.

I think we can all agree magnesium is important for us

Technically not Chinese or Malaysian culture, but international.