In Spite of Myself

Professional Single is a Chinese drama that seemed a bit staid and drawn out for a college series, with the usual contrived conflicts and not-so-subtle propaganda. Yet I enjoyed it, mainly because despite all the script and production problems the actors all did a very fine job with their roles.

The story is a typical romance between two unlikely characters: Yuan Xian (Ireine Song), a clumsy art student with a tiny body but a big heart who is stuck in the wrong department and has nothing but bad luck, and Qin Shen (Aaron Deng), who is detached, cold and by-the-book as well as the top artist in the same department as Yuan. These two shouldn't even notice each other, but of course they do. Weirdly Shen is the one who falls for Yuan and starts pursuing her. There's also a childhood friend of Yuan's who has grown up to be a star athlete, as well as a high school classmate who relentlessly stalks Shen to serve as competition and distractions, and both do a fine job with that. The whole cast was quite inspiring with their convincing performances.

Problems: aside from what I've already mentioned, throughout the series there was a lingering atmosphere of misogyny as well as Victorian-level uptightness about sex and relationships. Yuan reacts more like a middle schooler than a college student in intimate situations with Chen, and that made every romantic scene seem almost forced on her. I know there are very high expectations when it comes to female moral character in Asia, but this was silly and unnecessary, and nearly spoiled the romance. Also, the annoying friends (as always) are present, but were sometimes excessively annoying. For my final gripe I have to mention the art class itself -- these kids are the slowest clay sculptors I've ever seen. Since I took art class for four years in high school with a bunch of clay sculptors, and sculpted clay a bit myself, I speak with authority. :)

Despite the problems I still liked Professional Single; I think Aaron Deng is gorgeous and Ireine Song very fetching. They don't quite work as a couple, but just watching them act was fun. Available on Viki.com.

Comments

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

Search This Blog