However, I am still trying to wrap my head around the particular style of romance that I am seeing in 白发王妃 (Princess Silver). I am not sure what to make of it and how to view it as romantic.
The story gets much better much later, after the 2 protagonists fall into a stable relationship. Once their relationship stabilises, they share a love that my poor dear husband now has to live up to. Heeheehee!
But... but... but... the beginning of their courtship is quite disturbing. It starts with the 9th Prince (younger bro of the 7th Prince) drugging The Beautiful Lady in order to get truthful answers to some of his questions about her background. Yes, it is normal to want to get to know a potential sister-in-law but to drug her?
It gets better. The 7th Prince (older bro of the 9th Prince) comes by in the nick of time and catches The Young Lady in his arms, just as she passes out. However, instead of helping her upstairs to her own sleeping quarters, this 7th Prince spirits her away and lays her onto a tiny little bamboo raft with a deaf boatman, a nice tea table with cushions and a beautiful tea set.
Ah! The tea set was lovely... but back to the story...
She wakes up and wants to go home. She walks off. I have no idea where she is trying to walk to because she is surrounded by water, in the middle of nowhere. I must say though that the scenery was very beautiful and I would imagine that if I were there with The Husband, we would think it is romantic too... but... but... but... if I got drugged and woke up on a tiny raft, to the face of a man who kidnapped me (no matter how handsome), I would have NO MOOD to look at the scenery!!
I would be in the water, swimming my darndest outta there!
Instead of swimming away, The Young Lady actually sits down to drink tea with her kidnapper!! Thus, a beautiful afternoon passes for both of them. When the time came to go home, the 7th Prince brings her to HIS manor, and practically coerces her to stay there. And she does! He gives her a beautiful bedroom, sets up guards all around her. She is not allowed to leave his manor because, for some reason, it would be unsafe for her to leave.
In effect, he is holding her prisoner, in a gilded cage.
Granted that his manor is HUGE and the living quarters allocated to The Young Lady looks to be about 2000 sq ft (and the rooms are so beautifully done up that my heart aches in my chest) but it is still a very creepy style of courtship.
I am still scratching my head wondering which part of this whole thing qualifies as romance. If anyone courted me like that, I would be calling the police already, and saying in a whisper, "Hello! Hello! Helloooooo... I am held prisoner in a big house. I don't know where I am. There are guards at my door 24/7. The house belongs to a very handsome man with a face like a horse (Arif Rahman). He is fabulously rich and has royal connections but the crazy pervert is holding me prisoner. Please come save me!"
Perplexed, I asked The Husband if he would want his daughter to be courted like so. The Husband gave me this look of absolute horror: "No! Of course not!"
If anyone else reading this, has watched Princess Silver, and understands where the romance in this whole courtship process is, do please leave me a comment to explain.
I also notice that in these Chinese romance dramas, The Lady does a fair bit of fainting and falling and tripping. It always happens when the male lead is around to catch her lovingly in his arms. It makes me wonder why I have never ever fainted so gracefully, beautifully and romantically into The Husband's arms, and the last time I was thrown off my bike, landing with my face in (I kid you not) a pile of rotting dead leaves, The Husband was not there to catch me tenderly in his arms.
Instead, I received a nice scolding afterwards on bike safety. Definitely not romantic at all. Who would have thought that falling over, tripping like a klutz and fainting are effective seduction techniques? I must ask some PRC friends whether they have ever fainted into their husbands' arms.
Does vomiting on The Husband, and THEN fainting, count as romantic? I ask because I did that once.
4 comments:
Sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me! You might wanna catch Sound of the Desert (风中奇缘) for more of that. Think it might be in the teens episodes. Chinese period dramas also tend to start out fun, but end in tears and despair. Please note the trope of noble idiocy often rears its head at least once every series as well.
I think in a lot of Asian dramas, patriarchy is pretty entrenched even if the women in question seem to be kickass. As you have noted, Asian (period) romances tend to be pretty chaste, so there isn't much physical contact. Hence, all the falling and tripping is to create accidental "skinship" and inadvertent kisses. Sometimes, the sparring scenes will also result in titillating encounters (check out the first third of The Legend of Fuyao.
Coolio! A C-drama soulmate blog reader? What is noble idiocy? And yes... the patriarchy is AWFUL! In Princess Agents, Chu Qiao started as the maid of the bedchamber of Yuwen Yue in a relationship that hints of bondage and sado-masochism... I was gobsmacked!
I love C-dramas! I would highly recommend Nirvana in Fire II (There is no need to watch Nirvana in Fire I to understand II) - a story based on loyalty, chivalry, family ties. Women are not subjugated in that show, heh. The setting is beautiful as well; artfully done.
@Rachel Tan
Ok! I will go check it out!
Post a Comment