u/Webbie-Vanderquack

For those who haven't seen the show, 'Wheat' and 'Scallion' are waiters at Granny's Eatery, a restaurant frequented by the ML and FL that specialises in scallion pancakes. (I want to go to there).

Every time these tiny waiters appear on screen I squeal. They're so darn cute. Whoever painstakingly designed these little costumes deserves a 'minor character costume appreciate award.'

Who would you give one of these awards to? (Name the series and the character!)

I recently made a post elsewhere and u/BronzeBellRiver kindly encouraged me to make it my first post here! I've made a few small changes, but mostly I'm pasting from the original post, so please excuse me if it sounds like I'm 'preaching to the converted' re C-dramas or Pursuit of Jade.

In a recent thread elsewhere, someone used the word "yearner" to describe people who yearn in period dramas, but a few people in the comments (myself included) assumed a "yearner" was, like a page-turner or a tear-jerker, a word for a period drama with yearning in it. Henceforth I plan to use the word this way, because I just watched Pursuit of Jade, and guys, it's a yearner.

Pursuit of Jade was my first C-drama and I'm now obsessed with them. I can't believe I slept on historical C-dramas for so long, but I had no idea they would be this good.

Pursuit of Jade, starring a bunch of the most beautiful people on the face of the earth, begins with a humble butcher's daughter rescuing a half-dead warrior in the snow. There's a marriage of convenience, a war, mysteries and secrets about the identities of the lead characters, endless scheming at the palace with implications for everyone and several romance subplots that are as compelling as the main one.

The costumes are beautiful and elaborate, as are the sets, and the story is incredibly complex. C-dramas are typically a lot longer than Western dramas (Pursuit of Jade is 40 episodes), so there's time for stories to take a lot of twists and turns and build in intensity.

And there's time for yearning.

If you enjoy the restraint and longing of Pride and Prejudice and North & South, you'll find it in Pursuit of Jade and in C-dramas generally. (For those in r/cdramasfans who haven't seen it, North & South, based on the 19th century novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, is regularly cited as one of the best period dramas of all time, featuring the occasional touching of hands, characters looking at each other longingly and for a long time, and even a potentially serious injury!)

Censorship rules in China are strict by Western standards, and the happy side effect of that is that it results in the kind of creativity in depictions of romance that we're familiar with from 19th century novels. Recurring tropes in C-dramas, like feeding your loved one soup, bandaging their wounds, or grabbing a handful of their voluminous clothing because you simply have to (sometimes you need to legitimately prevent a fall!) are so romantic you probably have to see it to believe it.

Chinese dramas also come with martial arts as standard. Sometimes they obey the laws of physics, sometimes they bend them just a little bit, but it's fun to watch, and the stories often contrive reasons for female characters to skilfully engage in this stuff too. In fact, they're pretty good at doing the 'strong female character' thing, even the physics-defying kind, while also allowing women to have vulnerabilities, empathy and even maternal instincts. The male characters too are allowed to have qualities that might typically be considered feminine, at least in Western media: nursing and cooking for women, making gifts and showing kindness towards children.

C-dramas tend to intersperse intense melodrama, sometimes of the most serious kind (e.g. deaths in war), with broad comedy and quirky music. For a Western audience, this may take some getting used to, but it works because the characters are so human and so endearing.

I've since watched The Legend of Shen Li (also a yearner) and loved it as much as Pursuit of Jade, so I'm definitely hooked. I find myself actually looking forward to watching TV in a way I haven't for a long time, especially since Western TV shows are often 8 episodes per season now, with several years between seasons. There are so many historical C-dramas, with so many episodes, that I feel like I've got thousands of hours of joyful viewing ahead of me.

So if you're in the mood for a good yearner, clear your schedule for the next week and check out Pursuit of Jade.

Edit for r/cdramasfans: I'm in Australia, and C-dramas are not well publicised here. None of them had really crossed my radar before. Netflix advertised Pursuit of Jade a bit more aggressively than usual, and I have a relative called Jade, so I messaged her and said "we have to watch this drama, it's about you." I was half-joking, but started Pursuit of Jade anyway. It grabbed my attention instantly and didn't let go.

I've now finished Shen Li but found I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Zhao Liying and Lin Genxin, so I'm watching Princess Agents. I'm almost at the end and I know enough to have braced myself for a heartbreaking/unsatisfying ending, but I definitely didn't expect my heart to be broken several thousand times along the way. I have all of the emotions. I may need to discuss them at some point.

Thanks for reading my first post!