Hello, welcome to Roundtable, where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzle in China and beyond.
I'm Yeohong Lin. In recent years, Chinese family dramas have undergone a significant transformation reflecting the evolving societal values and individual aspirations of their audiences.
Today, Roundtable invites you to take a closer look at some popular TV shows, films, and different types of TV dramas in China and find out what do these family dramas say about the changing ties of Chinese family values and societal expectations.
For today's show, I'm joined by Ding Hung and Steve Hathorly.
Now grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
In the last decade, Chinese films and TV dramas have shifted their lens, moving from tales of harmonious households to stories of empowered individuals and unconventional buns.
With a growing number of young people embracing these family -drama -centric shows, one can't help but wonder, what is it about these stories that resonate so deeply with the younger generation?
Moreover, what do their entertainment preferences reveal about the evolving family values of this day and age?
To start the dialogue and conversation, first I want to ask both of you, what is your favorite family drama show that you can think of?
There's one that comes to mind for me.
It's not so much a drama as it is a sitcom, and it's not on air anymore because it concluded.
I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
It was called Modern Family.
Oh, yeah, I loved it.
Fantastic, really, really funny show.
It was a sitcom that I forget how many seasons it went, but it was on air for quite a while.
Quite a while. And it was really, really popular at the time.
And the reason it's called Modern Family is because when we think of, you know, your typical family structure, perhaps, you know, mom and dad and the two or three kids in the big house with the white picket fence.
That's kind of the North American or American idea of what a family is, I guess, the stereotypical look.
But in Modern Family, it kind of broke all the all the rules, so to speak.
You know, the dad, he was divorced and married a woman from another country.
She was from Colombia and she was much younger than him.
And then there was another couple that adopted a baby from Vietnam and she was super sweet and cute on the show.
And then mean and sophisticated and smart when she broke up.
Yes, exactly. She had a little attitude when she got older.
And the reason that I love that so much is because it did exactly that.
It taught people that there is no true definition of what a family is.
A family can have many shapes and forms and it can look very, very different from one family to the next.
But it's all about loving and respecting and being there for each other when it's important most.
Hmm. So for me, in my remote memory, I mean, at least one decade ago as a teenager, as a young guy in his 20s, I have watched a couple of Chinese family themed dramas.
For example, back when I was in high school, I have watched this Golden or gold marriage which went on air for the first time in China back in 2007, I guess.
It tells the story of a married couple living here in Beijing.
And basically, their story goes on for like 50 years from the early 1950s to the early 2000s to 2004, I guess, and their whole life story, a lot of drama and conflicts, inter -family conflicts, et cetera, et cetera.
And like 10 years ago, I guess it was in 2015.
Back then, there was already very complicated social and economic changes and evolution taking place here in Chinese society.
So there can say phenomenon like very super expensive, say school district housing, especially in magnet cities and parents pushing their children to study really, really hard.
So around 2015, I watched a TV series named hu ma ma ba in Chinese, right?
That really captures people's anxiety about the education of the next generation.
I think that is very interesting.
And at the same time, one thing I suddenly remember or suddenly realize is that because Steve, you talked about modern family.
Yes, I enjoyed that one quite so well as well.
And also, I have watched some other sitcoms, Western English speaking sitcoms, and I suddenly realized when it comes to family drama or family sitcom type of show, what Chinese shows would like to do is to put these families in a certain period of time in perspective.
Instead of talking about a family's 10 year of daily life, what they like to do, usually does is to pick one or two significant drama story of the family and talk about those exact stories or to pick a really long period of time so that the dynamic of the family, the stories of the family, actually
the several generations in the family can at the same time reflect the changes and evolutions and development of that period of the society as well.
You could do that in a story, in a drama, because typically I heard this, correct me if I'm wrong, that some Chinese dramas, they would have a lot of episodes in maybe one season.
So it would be possible to tell a story in that way.
Exactly. But for Chinese TV shows or dramas typically, or at least for now, we still do just one TV show instead of, let's say, several seasons of shows and instead of airing it one episode a week for an entire year and then the second year, then you have 10 seasons, you have 10 years.
What we usually do is to air them one or two episodes a day and continuously for that, for example, two months.
Then you've got already 50 episodes or so and you can tell an entire story.
So that's the typical situation.
And the reason I am explaining the differences is that because we have this special design or a different design compared to maybe the Western TV shows that our listeners might be familiar with, we get to tell the stories of a family drama against the backdrop of a certain period.
So a lot of Chinese TV drama centric shows are also period shows and apparently those kind of shows are getting the attention, getting popularity among the younger generations these days.
Exactly. And I guess when we talk about period pieces, in this regard, there is actually a particular survey we can take a look at, which somehow shed some light about young people's preferences and dislikes nowadays.
It is conducted, it was conducted recently by China Youth Daily and almost 74 % of the young respondents said that they would like to watch period pieces that depict the stories of average people or average families with the changing of times.
And regarding what young audiences love to watch from these shows, more than 60 % love to watch things like fall of human touch among family members among say neighborhoods, colleagues in an era of material poverty.
59 % love to watch intriguing personal stories during great changes of time.
55 % love to watch genuine touching stories of ordinary people making efforts to have a better life.
Interesting. 52 % want to watch period pieces that respects the reality of one particular period.
49 % say they hope that those shows don't avoid touching on social problems.
47 % say they hope that they can gain a sense of emotion from period pieces.
Very interesting. Very interesting and also makes a lot of sense because come to think of it when I was a little kid, I think my life was quite different from what we are living right now.
I didn't used to have internet, which is everywhere nowadays.
And I didn't used to have the kind of material abundance we enjoy right now.
So I think for younger generation nowadays, these kind of period pieces start to be a way for them to understand what it was like for their parents, not so far away.
So when you say period piece, when I hear period piece in English, and I don't know about 1900s or America as the country was founding or something like that, horses and carriages.
But that's not what we're talking about here.
These dramas, these period pieces in dramas might be from the 1980s, for example?
Yes. Because I feel like what you have described for us, we call it Li Shih Ju, historic dramas.
So because China has a really long history, and when we talk about historic dramas, it's definitely behind or before the Qing Dynasty or so.
And then one is period pieces.
It's more like relatively closer.
And since we have already experienced drastic evolution and also development for these couple of decades.
So if we're talking about or if we're watching the kind of shows that reflects the lives of our parents generation, then it's already a period piece for us.
I understand. Yeah.
So we saw that, didn't we?
That in the response from young people about what they like to see, family members bonding together during times that are tough, also stories that talk about the changes of time that China has gone through the decades.
Also though, saying specific periods in time, that's a good answer too.
Here's what they don't like according to the survey, bad acting.
Reasonable, reasonable.
I kind of disagree with that because if you like bad acting.
Well, you know, if the acting is absolutely horrible, that it can add to the entertainment value, but that could just be me.
Here's another thing they don't like, young people in drama, slow rhythm and a meaningless plot and things that are too old fashioned in relationships.
Yeah. That is very interesting because since we're talking about family drama and the reason we're talking about it is because these shows do actually reflect the changing of family values, the changing of personal goals and priorities and expectations.
Because let's talk a little bit about the shows that were previously popular, the gold marriage like Ding Heng has talked about, that was a really good example.
And also the Hu Ma Mo Ba, the very tough parents teaching kids.
Because if you think about family, definitely the, let's say the focus of the stories would be for these different couple of different relationships.
Like the relationship between parents and kids, how you raise your kid, what is your philosophy in rearing the next generation?
And also the relationship between the, particularly the daughter -in -law and the mother -in -law.
That was a very interesting pair of relationship, quite tricky.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then the relationship between the husband and wife for sure.
And sometimes even the third whale in the family and the family.
These are typical relationships.
And the funny thing is I realized, or I noticed that people's attitudes towards these relationships are actually changing.
Indeed. And one angle I can put forward here is that, let's be frank, sacrificing women's or a wife's benefits for the so -called family.
Harmony. Happy. Great job.
It used to be a norm for the older generation.
Over time, I think this idea has evolved.
And from 2007 to 2014, there were many TV series depicting the life stories of couples from the older generation.
Those works often have a very long time span.
They are close to average people's life.
Show, showcasing the challenges that marriages in a family usually tend to encounter, but they also integrate the changes of time.
And I guess a good example is this golden marriage that I mentioned earlier, because for a long time in this couple's marriage, the society has held this kind of negative or discouraging view about divorce.
The main female character, Wenli, in this golden marriage, she gives in to her husband who falls in love with another woman.
And their marriage goes on till the end of the show, even though this female character once mulled over divorce.
Now, the tolerance of this kind of unhappy marriage among the older generation has a side effect, frankly speaking, because the offspring of the older generation, who have witnessed the unhappy marriage of their parents, when they grow up, they are reluctant to get married.
So I guess that's one plot that has been designed in that golden marriage period.
But of course, there are many TV series depicting people born in the 1980s, 1990s, like people in my generation who are unwilling or at least have a high degree of reluctance to enter marriage or even enter into a serious...
Stable relationship?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
The effects that these types of shows can have on people's real opinions in real life is very profound.
Talking about stories being told in a different way, there's a film in the theaters right now, as a matter of fact, in China.
It's a thought -provoking film.
It's really popular.
It's got a rating of 9 .1.
And I don't know the Chinese title.
You can help me out with that.
It's called Her Story.
Yeah. So this has made a ton of money so far, 648 million yuan as of almost December 20th.
And it's a single mom named Wang Tai Mei.
She's an editor who moves into a bustling urban neighborhood with her daughter.
And her neighbor is this free -spirited, aspiring singer.
And they form this unexpected bond.
And then the bond between the three of them, it becomes the heart of the story.
And it's a community...
The story is about a community of women who lift each other up.
And it's a reflection of the growing trend of female mutual empowerment in contemporary society.
You probably don't see a movie like this being made in China maybe 20, 30 years ago.
The stories now being told are different.
Yes. And I think the girls help girls kind of theme is definitely getting more and more popularity because it is what is happening in the real world.
One, what's happening in the real world is women can look at each other and very genuinely help each other and praise each other instead of only focusing on competition instead of cooperation.
Yet in movies or TV series, you still see girls trash talking a little bit of other people's appearance or working style.
Then you feel like this is not what we're living.
Then it's definitely not appealing.
I think that's one of the reasons that her story is getting popularity because it's real.
It reflects the times and then it got huge popularity.
And even if the stories in the show might not be entirely from our time, the value can actually be.
I am talking about an example called Romance in the Alley.
I don't know if you have watched any clips of it.
Even if it's a recent creation.
Yes. Yeah. It's a very recent one.
I've watched clips of it and some episodes and I enjoyed it quite so much.
What's it about? It's actually also about a story that happened in the late 1970s.
Actually, it's three families living in a small alley in Suzhou, a city near Shanghai.
And it's about the, well, one, the society developed and changed the parents and children in each household, experienced different dramatic shifts in their lives.
It's about whether or not we should sacrifice a little bit of the kids, for example, studying time to take care of the family in law.
It's about whether or not the girl should be continuing following her dream in, let's say, going into high school instead of a vocational school, which was a very common already quite good and decent choice for that period of time, whether or not they should directly go to a factory and secure a job
and just all these different things.
And one particular point that I got from this, or let's say one thing that attract me was instead of depicting the women in the family as someone who's sacrificing all the time, you get to see the struggle of this mom, because this young mom wants to take care of the family in law as well in a reasonable
way. Yet, once she realized that she has to stand up for her kids to fight for their space to study, their time to study and fight for more money so that she can take better care of them, she decided to stand up against her family in law.
A little bit of those are, I think, I'm not really sure if these are actually the kind of societal value for the 1970s, but it is the value that we want to praise nowadays here in China that are more popular nowadays in China.
That is, you have to set your priorities and keep sacrificing will not make your family, even if we're talking about the extended family, the bigger family happier.
Only when everybody in the family is happy, the family is a happy family.
And I guess such kind of TV series or even movies, they aim to reconstruct or construct what most people think of as a family by depicting some typical families during a particular period.
However, I think one thing we cannot deny is that their contents are really changing rapidly.
It's really no exaggeration that there will be a new trend in every few years.
And if you think about this, I think the reason is very simple.
Great changes have taken place in China over the most recent decades, over the past four decades, and they are continuing to take place, great changes in our society.
And this can really to a great extent influence average people's life and their ideas, their perception about a good family.
It used to be the case that when we think about family, we think of your wife, your husband, your parents, your offspring.
But nowadays, I feel like even this whole idea surrounding family is evolving like this kind of neighborhood mutual empowerment, as was showcased in this movie, Hao Dong -shi or her story.
I feel like nowadays, family members are no longer seen as those that are related by bond, but those who truly love and care for you in your day -to -day neighborhoods.
This is art, right?
And this is why art is important, because it represents what's happening in society at the time, and it empowers people.
It gives people a voice.
It shows people what's being reflected in society through film and television shows and music and other forms of art as well.
But we're talking TV today.
And I think this is important.
We talk about the importance of representation in Hollywood, right?
Minorities being represented on film.
Asians getting star roles in Hollywood movies so that young Asian children in America can know, oh, I don't have to be the kung fu artist or something like that.
I can be in the starring role.
These types of things are important so that the next generation of people can know what's possible for them.
And that's what's happening, it seems like, in China with these dramas these days is that there's a different representation, different stories are being told.
And the next generation of young Chinese people to grow up, they're seeing these stories.
And they're seeing, okay, I don't have to act a certain way.
Actually, I can act this way too, and I can be myself, and I can care about myself first.
Those types of stories, I think this is really important.
Yes, and it's very interesting to see that for each different period, you get to see the keywords are kind of evolving.
In not only one TV show or film, it's like this period, the most popular ones are reflecting that specific theme.
We talked about education being one of the themes, the struggle of parents trying to lift their kids up.
And then we see the relatively unconventional relationship between a woman and a man.
By saying unconventional, I mean they do not have to definitely have a happy ending, no matter what one party did during the relationship.
Actually, happy ever after is no longer the one and only answer for happy ending.
Actually, a divorced relationship can even be a happy ending.
I think that is also reflected in not only in Chinese TV shows and dramas and Western ones as well.
Well, yeah, I mean, if we go back to the 1990s, for example, we could go back to the 1980s and talk about how career women were represented in Hollywood through film or television shows.
But let's just use the example of the very popular American sitcom Friends.
Ding -hyun, do you know that show Friends?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. People love to use that to study English sometimes in other countries.
Yes, in Chinese. Yeah, in Korea too.
Anyway, in that show, people love to dissect the importance of that television show and what we could take away from it.
And if we think about some of the characters, for example, the character Monica.
Well, she was a very hard nosed, tough woman in her 20s.
She was a chef and her employees saw her as a B, the B word.
And that was kind of a representation of the times where, oh, if you're a strong woman in a powerful position in a company, you can't act that way because people are going to think you're that word.
And that showed people, no, you can be that type of person in that type of position and there's nothing wrong with that.
That show was important for many reasons.
But one aspect of it, it showed strong, independent, career -oriented women who were great at taking care of themselves and taking care of their friends.
Yeah, similarly in Chinese TV shows when it comes to successful, independent female characters, previously we get to see that they have to be in a happy marriage as well, no matter how successful they are career wise.
But recently we started to see that maybe at the end of the day, they can be independent and not alone, not happily, but happily alone.
And that is also another choice that we're praising.
