Tag: chinese

Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang Chinese web novel review

I haven’t read any Chinese romance web novels in a while. I enjoy the face-slapping and the romantic tension, but they were always kind of… rapey. Or full of over the top dog-blood drama. Or otherwise uncomfortable to read, either from the start or as the story developed.

I dreamed of a world where a Chinese romance would exist with no rapey prince/CEO and insane antagonists, and at last I found it in the form of Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang. Even better, it’s complete and relatively short at 215 chapters including side stories.

Summary (condensed from NovelUpdates):

Ye Jiao, an ancient ginseng root, woke up to find herself already riding in a wedding sedan chair—a wedding meant to bring a sick groom good fortune.

Qi Yun was frail and sickly, plagued by an ill-fated birth chart and constantly hovering near death’s door. Yet after marrying Ye Jiao, his health began to miraculously improve.

Only then did they realize the luckiest person under heaven was actually his own wife…

Just because it’s complete doesn’t mean I finished it, however. I stopped around chapter 64 firstly because I ran out of the better translations and had to switch to brain-melting machine translations, and secondly because the main character Ye Jiao got pregnant, and romance series always decline for me when babies come into the picture. Most readers seem to live for the precocious “little bun” scenes, but that’s where I lose interest unless I specifically signed up for a child-raising series, in which case the baby had better come early.

That said, I still highly recommend Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang for any readers looking for a series full of positive and supportive relationships. It’s not just the one between Qi Yun and Ye Jiao: almost all the relationships in the series are positive. For example, their world is some alternative ancient China where almost no one has concubines. The Qi patriarch doesn’t have one, none of Ye Jiao’s acquaintances do, even the third prince they run into has only one wife. Improbable, yes, but it also reduces the drama and tension of a series set in ancient China by 70%. Happy (one) wife, happy life.

Meanwhile Qi Yun is, of course, appears to be the usual “cold to every one but sweet to my wife” character, but we quickly discover he was largely that way because of his long illness. He’s actually fairly warm and caring not only towards his wife, but also towards his family, especially his two brothers Qi Ming and Qi Zhao. There’s no sibling rivalry even when he recovers and begins to shine brighter, and although his sister-in-law Madam Fang is shown to be a bit petty, she only tries some minor scheming and quickly gives up (as of chapter 64 anyway).

Meanwhile Ye Jiao is initially sold into the Xu family by her sister-in-law and her second brother Ye Erlang, but unlike most examples of this trope, her family doesn’t hover around trying to suck up or insisting that she owes them money. Since she’s not the original Ye Jiao anyway, she doesn’t go looking for them and they don’t come looking for her unless they have business with her. If you’re looking for annoyingly persistent relatives being face-slapped ever chapter, this isn’t the series for you.

The theme runs throughout the whole Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang. People are generally nice and decent to each other, and those who are not are still not as terrible as other examples in other series.

The romance—the whole point of reading a romance series—is extremely positive. Qi Yun does get slightly jealous of a few things (including a rooster, of all people) but he’s secure enough to understand that Ye Jiao only loves two things in this life: him, and food. And he respects that by not being jealous or confining, not trying to touch her against her will, no rape, no harassment, nothing. Even when they finally sleep together, it’s fully consensual with no hints of hesitation or discomfort.

For Ye Jiao, there’s genuinely nothing in her head besides loving Qi Yun and eating good food. Okay, and she’s interested in medical herbs to make her beloved husband better, and she treasures good relationships. But in general, due to her past history as a spiritual ginseng and not a human being, she is too empty-headed and disinterested in others to be a Mary Sue. If she has food and Qi Yun, that’s enough for her.

By the way, shockingly enough, she cannot cook. If I had a dollar for every heroine in a Chinese web novel who wows the whole world with her astonishing cooking skills, I’m positive I could retire, but for once there’s a series without such powers.

She’s not even that great a healer either, and mainly helps Xu Jing recover by holding his hand, being near him and eventually raising a medical plant that makes him much better. Though apparently he always remains a little weaker than others despite that. A Chinese fiction heroine who isn’t an action girl, isn’t a miracle doctor, isn’t a fantastic cook, can’t even embroider… what kind of rare beast is this?!

So Lady of Fortune, Jiao Niang is a nice change from the usual toxic dog-blood series in a lot of ways. It’s not perfect, however. The biggest thing, and the reason why I quit, is that the lack of drama unfortunately makes the series highly predictable. Like yeah yeah, Qi Yun will become filthy rich, Ye Jiao will have babies, the third prince will probably become emperor, blah blah. In most series you can guess the conclusion, yes, but you stay for the twists and turns and the face-slapping along the way.

Or at least if the heroine does anything beside eating and sleeping, then you read for the delicious recipes or to see whose life she saves with her mighty healing powers or whose butt she kicks with her awesome ninja skills… something, anything! There’s nothing like that here, so if you want the fluffiest of fluffy romance series with the greenest of green flag MLs, this is your series.

I Just Want to Freeload on Your Luck – chinese web novel review (dropped)

I Just Want to Freeload on Your Luck is one of a sub-genre of Chinese webnovels where there’s a real daughter, who was kidnapped or otherwise went missing, and a fake daughter who was taken in by the original parents, and later on the truth is revealed and all kinds of dramatic hijinks ensue.

There are occasional variations on this, e.g. there’s no fake daughter, or the protagonist is the fake daughter, but usually it all plays out the same way. The family is initially hostile to the “real” daughter because they spent so much time with the fake, but over time she wins them over with her class and demeanor while the lowborn fake exposes her true colors and is eventually kicked out to meet a messy end.

I hate those kinds of stories. Obviously I don’t hate them enough not to read I just want to Freeload on Your Luck, but I do hate it because it’s always poorly done. The original parents always come off very badly because they can never find a way to balance their natural affection for the one they’ve raised all these years with their guilt/feelings for their biological child. It’s always one or the other.

In the end all of the adopted daughter’s failing will be written off as her own bad genes – even if she has been raised from babyhood by those parents, and even if they never saw anything wrong with her behavior until the real one showed up. And meanwhile all the real daughter’s successes and triumphs and good behavior will be credited to her good genes, even if she was raised by wolves 2000 miles away for the first 20 years of her life. It’s so hypocritical, and it really makes me feel bad for the adopted child.

Now, on to the main topic of I just want to Freeload on Your Luck. The real daughter is Zhao Mingxi, the fake one is Zhao Yuan. The gimmick is that Zhao Yuan is super lucky, while Zhao Mingxi is super unlucky and gets even more unlucky the closer she gets to Zhao Yuan. Having died miserably once and been reborn, Mingxi decides to attach herself to lucky characters in the series (except Yuan) to soak up some of their luck (hence the title) and thereby avoid a messy end.

The first half of the story, and the only enjoyable part, is how Mingxi decisively makes a break with the Zhao family that has been treating her poorly for two years. She moves out, cuts all ties and focuses on her studies and getting luck from her seatmate.

The Zhao family is a little pathetic here, because the author strongly implies that Zhao Yuan’s supernatural luck makes it impossible for them to think straight or evaluate matters fairly. It’s only when Mingxi leaves and builds up her luck to an appreciable level that the “spell” is somewhat broken. And then they all begin to turn on Zhao Yuan, which is honestly a little sad because she’s just a kid they all spoiled and doted on for 17 years and suddenly they’re all so cold and hostile to her. It’s not her fault she has that extra luck, and she’s not even aware of it.

It takes about 30 chapters, but the Zhao family eventually gets the hint that Mingxi is well and truly done with them. Well, not really, they still think she will come around eventually but at least they’ve backed off for now. Once the initial source of drama is gone, the story takes a serious downturn to the point where I completely lost interest and dropped it.

Remember when I said Mingxi was absorbing luck from her seatmate? His name is Fu Yangxi, and he somehow gets the idea that Mingxi is in love with him. Then he is heartbroken and depressed to discover she is not and begins to distance himself. Honestly he’s another pitiful character because this is not his fault. Mingxi behaves completely like she has a crush on him, to the extent that an adult male would be fooled, much less a naive, hormone-addled 17-year old. She takes punishment for him, she insists on sitting next to him, she brings him snacks every day, does his homework, worries about him, holds his hand for several minutes, etc.

Unfortunately for him, she barely sees him as human at that point. Her (understandable) goal is to avoid dying of brain cancer at age 23. To that end, she doesn’t care who she hurts or misleads – in fact, it’s not even that deliberate. Do you care about the feelings of your Wifi router? As long as it’s working, you don’t even think about where it is or what it’s doing.

That’s how Mingxi is with Fu Yangxi until he stops “working” and starts avoiding her, then suddenly she starts feeling lonely, following him everywhere, even working her way into his apartment without knowing what the problem is. Meanwhile Fu Yangxi has his panties in a twist because he’s assuming Mingxi was with him to make her old crush jealous, which is absolutely not true but he doesn’t straight up ask her and keeps on assuming. And keeps on running into her and old crush in all kinds of situations which just makes the whole thing worse…

The whole Mingxi-Yangxi thing dragged on so long that I completely lost interest in the series and dropped it. In the first place, I don’t like series where former adults act like kids. Just talk to the boy already! All that beating around the bush is frustrating.

Secondly, I don’t buy Fu Yangxi as the male lead. He’s not a bad guy, but he’s way too immature and has a lot of growing up to do and issues to resolve before he will be a credible romantic partner. Which means either things will end unsatisfactorily or the series will drag on much longer.

Thirdly I’d prefer Zhao Mingxi to focus on her studies and her future like she wanted to instead of getting sidelined with high school romance. 99% of high school romances don’t go anywhere in the long run, and a 23 year-old is old enough to know that.

And so I ended up just dropping I Just Want to Freeload on Your Luck. I’ve read enough, Mingxi has absorbed quite a bit of luck and changed her fate, things are looking up, it’s better to quit while I still have some fondness for the series. I tried to look up ending spoilers but didn’t find any, but I’m sure Zhao Yuan will come to a miserable end and Mingxi and Yangxi will live happily ever after like they always do in these series. The end.

Sweet Wife in My Arms (Chinese webnovel) – Gave up at chapter 270 (spoilers)

I don’t remember when it was, but I know I promised myself not to start any webnovel with a ridiculous number of chapters. I told myself I would always check first and not start something that was bound to get tedious and stupid. But time passes, people grow old, we forget our promises and then… we end up reading long-winded dreck like Sweet Wife in My Arms.

Summary: For his sake, she was willing to abandon her career as the best actress and be his wife. With her own network, money and unscrupulous methods, she helped him rise to the top of the world. He, on the other hand, held another woman in his embrace and kicked her away with no mercy. It turned out that all he ever wanted was her rare blood type, her six-month-old child’s cord blood. It was her life…

When she opened her eyes again, she returned to her 20-year-old self. Time repeated and her life rewound. In this life, she would live well. [source: Webnovel]

Now, to be absolutely fair to Sweet Wife in My Arms, the first 250 chapters are a decent and enjoyable read. The female lead Yan Huan is definitely a Mary Sue with perfect acting skills, the most beautiful face ever, amazing wire-fu skills, etc. but that is normal for this kind of series and she’s not obnoxious about it. And unlike many trashy series of this sort, she does not fall back in love with the guy who killed her because it was all a big misunderstanding or something.

In the same way, the male lead Lu Yi is your general icy cold super powerful guy who doesn’t like women at all but somehow there’s something special about the heroine… etc etc. You know the drill if you’ve read even one Chinese romance web novel. Lu Yi is miles and away better than most other CEO/Prince MLs. He’s not rapey, not physically or mentally abusive, not over-the-top protective and doesn’t try to force his way into her life. If anything, she’s the one who starts clinging to him even when he has a girlfriend.

Furthermore, the plot isn’t bad. It has the generic “super talented actress” gimmick  romance web novels use when they’re not using “super talented doctor” instead. I like this gimmick better because we get to read about the various cheesy, campy movies and series. Yan Huan takes part in. Which the audience laps up, but they sound sooooo bad. Like this one called “Divorced” about a woman whose husband cheats so she finds another man who doesn’t cheat, happily ever after, after all a woman can’t be happy without clinging to some rich man, haha… And somehow it grosses 600 million yuan and makes her a millionaire, lol.

But that’s the thing about the series early on – it doesn’t take itself very seriously. Despite Yan Huan’s sad past and Lu Yi’s coldness, it’s not a mopey or depressing story. It has its dramatic moments, frustrating ones, funny ones, cute ones. It’s no masterpiece, but it was interesting enough to pass the time. To slowly see Yan Huan overcoming her unfounded fear of Lu Yi, Lu Yi learning to stand up for himself a little, Lu Yi bonding with her cat Little Bean, Yan Huan winning him over with her food, etc. Very cute stuff.

So where did it go wrong with Sweet Wife in My Arms? Around chapter 265, when Yan Huan did something very stupid. I mean she had done stupid things before like meeting a ‘director’ in an apartment alone, but this was extra stupid. Here she remembered that a mudslide occurred in her past life, and Lu Yi was trapped in it. Instead of telling him about it, she decided she would look crazy if she did. So what she did was… she borrowed his car… and went there… and almost got caught in the same landslide.

In other words, instead of potentially avoiding millions of dollars in damage, injury, lives and work hours lost, she wanted to play “little rescue heroine” by showing up with food. Look, I get it, in a NORMAL situation, she might sound crazy for saying she had a dream or premonition about a mudslide. But Lu Yi is the kind of guy who absolutely can and would investigate the area if she so much as hinted at it. He told her as much, whatever she needs him for, he’s willing to do it. There was no need to risk his life, her life, many other people’s lives, just so she wouldn’t look crazy.

But see, that incident in itself wasn’t the dealbreaker for Sweet Wife in My Arms. The problem is that the mudslide broke my immersion, so to speak. I sat up and thought, “This is really dumb. Do I really want to read much more of this?” And THEN, only then, did I check the chapter count. Aieeee, 707 chapters translated to date. Over 2500 chapters in Chinese!! Two thousand five hundred! 2500!! I was only 10% of the way through and I was already shaking my head.

So at that point, I thought, eh, I can’t do this. Let me just read spoilers and see their happy ending and then I’m done. But the spoilers for Sweet Wife in my Arms are hooorrible. The series is craaaap!

Highlights include:

  • Yan Huan still tangling with Lu Qin, Su Muran and other idiots she dealt with in her past life when a sensible person would move halfway round the world to get away from them,
  • Lu Yi getting amnesia and getting cuddly with another woman,
  • Switched identities, the usual miscarriages, triplets…
  • All kinds of shenanigans revolving around Yan Huan’s extra special blood,
  • Obligatory Yan Huan in a coma scene, and
  • Yan Huan going through not one, not two, not three but FOUR rebirth sagas before getting her happy ending

And that’s just the spoilers from the thread. I’m sure there were even more ups and downs, especially revolving around annoying side characters like the gluttonous, uncaring manager Yi Ling and her inevitable romance with Lu Yi’s best buddy Lei Qingyi. To be honest, if the series was, say, 400-500 chapters long, I would have stuck it out regardless of the stupidity of the mudslide incident. But 2500 of this and more? Nope, I’m out. Time is precious in 2021. Gotta read better web novels before COVID clobbers us all.

TL;DR – Sweet Wife in My Arms has a passable premise and very likeable main characters. However it goes on waaaay too long and involves waaaaay too much drama. Unless you have nothing better to do with your time, I advise you to read shorter, more compact and more sensibly plotted series.

Trying to learn Mandarin with the Spoonfed Chinese Anki deck

Exactly what it says in the title – I’m thinking of learning Mandarin Chinese and I’ve found a promising tool for it. Anki is a spaced repetition system that helps you memorize stuff, Google it. And in addition to uploading your own sentences, you can also download pre-made decks where people have compiled and shared their vocabulary lists, sentences, etc. I’m already using four of these intermittently for Korean and Cantonese:

FSI Cantonese
Cantonese Words
Korean Grammar Sentences by Evita
Korean 한자어 Vocabulary Builder (Sino-Korean words)

Now I just added one more: SpoonFed Chinese. 8000+ Mandarin sentences supposedly arranged in order of difficulty so they regularly introduce new vocabulary items and grammar concepts. The idea is that by the time you work through the whole deck, you will have a ton of vocabs and grammar as well as reading and listening practice so you will be functionally competent in Mandarin.

Does it work? I googled around for a bit, but didn’t get enough results to prove it. Most people who use the SpoonFed Chinese deck do so with a number of other resources, and those who said they would use it exclusively have never reported back on their results. I myself plan to use it exclusively at first, but will branch out into other stuff if I find Mandarin interesting enough to stick with.

Full disclaimer: I’m not a complete beginner at Mandarin Chinese. I took a semester of Chinese in college ages ago and I’ve been learning Cantonese for many years now. I would say I’m an upper beginner in Mandarin and maybe medium-intermediate in Cantonese? So if I come back months later and say “Hey, look at all these cool things I can do with Mandarin now!” you should know that I didn’t start from zero. I.e. “results may not be typical.”

Before I go, I should answer the question no one is asking: why Mandarin, and why now? I took that semester in Chinese in college and dropped it because I wasn’t very interested in China or in Chinese culture. And I’m still not, not really. But in the past year I’ve been reading more Chinese webtoons and romance web novels, and some of them are pretty fun.

I’m really grateful to the companies and fan translators who make it possible for me to enjoy the better series (especially the non-rapey, non-abusive prince/CEO titles, which are like 1 in a million). At the same time, sometimes you see a series on NovelUpdates and it has over 1000 chapters… but only 10 are translated. Case in point, The Delicate Prince and His Shrewd Peasant Consort.

I appreciate the free translations, but in the 2.5+ years it would take for this series to be fully translated, I’m pretty sure I could learn enough Chinese to read it for myself. Assuming I put in a lot of hard work and didn’t lose motivation, which is a big “assuming.” Which is also why I’m not spending money on many resources or books or anything. Just SpoonFed Chinese to begin with, then we’ll see.

How often will I update on this pet project? Not very often, because I’m not that serious about it. Korean and Cantonese still come first before Mandarin. Let’s aim for either updates every 6 months or every 10% of the deck, whichever comes first. Either way it will be a fun experiment, so look forward to the results!

Peerless Alchemist (manhua review)

It’s been a while since I reviewed a Chinese manga, a.k.a manhua. When I first started this blog I hadn’t read much Korean or Chinese stuff, nor did I intend to. But I’m on an isekai kick lately and eventually I ran out of Japanese stuff to read. Not to mention most Japanese isekai manga only release once a month, which is torture to wait for. So I had no choice but to go foraging for other series. I found some good ones, too, which I will introduce on this blog as and when I get the time. Today: Peerless Alchemist.

Blurb: A nameless 24th century cultivator is thrown back in time after being struck by a missile. Yes, Truck-kun was busy so he sent a subordinate. She takes possession of the body of the late Ji Fengyan, a much bullied and mistreated young lady of the Ji family and goes on to become the head of Ji City. And to all those who used to mess with her, beware! There’s something different about this new Fengyan…

And by something different, I mean she is one tough cookie who is a ton of fun to read about. I’ve been reading a lot of isekais with female main characters and they’re usually very good, but the main characters tend to be soft-hearted little flowers who go about sparing enemies, trying to hide their powers and being flustered whenever a male character shows the least bit of interest.

None of that for our Ji Fengyan. She doesn’t go out looking for trouble, but if it comes knocking at her doorstep, whoo boy, get ready to see the fur fly. My favorite part is when an enemy threatens to spill her misdeeds to the emperor and she answers, “How can you tell him anything… if you’re dead?” And she wasn’t kidding either, though she did end up sparing them because they wisely struck a deal.

But it’s not just her ruthlessness that makes Peerless Alchemist such a good read. I don’t know about others, but I really enjoy the Superman/Clark Kent dynamic Fengyan has going on with the male lead Xiao Liu Huo. She picked him up from the side of the road and decided, hey, you’re mine now. And that was fine, but it turns out Xiao Liu Huo has another form… Hidden behind a very thin disguise that absolutely no one but the readers can see through!

It’s better explained in the novels where Xiao Liu Huo is a teenager who is even younger than her while his other persona, the State Master, is much older. But in the manhua, apart from different eye colors, a different face mark and a much larger physique, they’re practically identical. It’s hilarious seeing Fengyan going “Squee, Xiao Liu Huo!” one second and “That damn state master!” the next second without knowing the truth. 😀 She’s going to find out eventually but until then, it’s just too funny.

Though truth be told, I think the State Master is better looking… And even Fengyan agreed, until he made an unwarranted pass at her… Chapter 54, nevar forget!

You might be wondering if there’s much of a story behind Peerless Alchemist beyond Ji Fengyan beating up the haters and being lovey-dovey with Xiao Liu Huo. For the first 70 chapters, that’s pretty much it. She moves from beating one dumb enemy to the next without a break in the middle. No real story, no rhyme or rhythm. It’s only now after 70 chapters that things are starting to move, in the form of a relic known as the Destroyer Armor left to Fengyan by “her” late father.

Everyone wants to get their hands on it. It’s the Empire’s trump card against the evil demons, and yet… Why does Xiao Liu Huo make her promise never to use it? Why is he determined to get the Armor off her? Why are all the bodies of past destroyers missing? The latest raw chapters have Fengyan going to the Imperial Academy for Destroyers, so maybe we will finally get some answers there.

Wait, the latest raw chapters? Yes, the latest raw chapters. I like the series so much that I started reading the raws online. I’m up to chapter 80 now. With my intermediate Cantonese skills, the Japanese kanji I recognize and the little Mandarin I learned back in college, I can get the gist of most chapters. Ideally I would do some hardcore Mandarin studying and be able to read the original novel by the end of the year, but I like the manhua so much better because the art is great. Reading the manhua is good practice too, because the pictures make things easy to follow.

This isn’t the last I’ll be posting of Peerless Alchemist, not while we still have at least another 200 chapters to go (the original novel is over 1200 chapters long). In the meantime, go check it out. You’ll like it if you enjoy: Powerful main characters who aren’t afraid to show it, great art and good-looking guys, bad guys who get what they deserve, a romance where characters don’t hide their feelings. Apart from that, it’s not that different from other xianxia manhua out there, so if you’re sick of the same old formula… well, try it anyway!