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Back to the Small Fishing Village In 1982 Chinese webnovel review – Great until it wasn’t

When you’re reading your slice of life web novel and having a great time and then suddenly the author takes a really bad decision that pisses you off and you drop it but now you’re sad. If you want to experience that, read Back to the Small Fishing Village In 1982.

Summary: Ye Yaodong is a fisherman who falls into the sea in his 50s and wakes up again in his 20s in his fishing village in China in 1982, just like the title said. Having squandered his life and burned all his bridges last time, he decides to live this life a little more sensibly.

And that’s really it. Ye Yaodong isn’t one of those people who go back in time with a system or superpowers or even esoteric knowledge. His memory isn’t even that good, with only major events like his wife’s miscarriage standing out to him. And as an ordinary villager in rural China, he can’t even read until he takes night classes, though he proves to be quick study.

The only thing special about him is his high degree of luck when it comes to fishing. That, and an ability to shmooze. He also knows enough about future events to recognize a pyramid scheme at a time when few have heard of it, and to know that certain things like oyster pearls will go up tremendously in future. This helps him stay out of trouble by working diligently and avoiding standing out too much, while preparing for a prosperous future by making and saving money when he can.

I read up to chapter 77 from a blog that cleaned up the machine translation, but unfortunately the rewrites stopped just when Yaodong had bought a fishing boat and was preparing to become independent from his family. After that I read the brain-melting but still understandable raw machine translation. If you read it, you can look forward to choice lines like, “What kind of mouse meeting last time, didn’t they just not listen to A Dong? You see, they didn’t believe it and didn’t lose. We are too greedy, and the ghosts are obsessed.” It… kind of makes sense in context, but phew!

Not only did the half-garbled nonsense make me appreciate the first blogger, but it also made me think that edited machine translations (a.k.a. post-edited machine translations) are the wave of the future, at least for web novels. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Thanks to the machine translation, me and my surviving brain cells were able to read up to chapter 466 of Back To the Small Fishing Village In 1982 before giving up due to a very disgusting action on the part of Ye Yaodong. Before that, there’s a lot that happens, but for the most part this is a slice of life about a fisherman in a fishing village, so he goes fishing, catches fish, comes back and sells it, rinse and repeat. Whole arcs can revolve around catching spawning squid (sustainability? what’s that?) or picking up scallops on the beach after a typhoon. Here are major events I recall:

In his last life, his wife Lin Xiuqing miscarried a daughter, but this time they are able to hide the baby until it is almost due (barring one person who finds out and tries to blackmail them). Lin Xiuqing goes into labor just when inspectors come round to check, but the villagers are able to delay them until the baby is born. The truly horrifying implication is that she would have been forced to abort the almost full-term baby if she hadn’t given birth right then, which is too cruel to think about but was a reality in China’s draconian one-child policy days.
Ye Yaodong quickly upgrades from his small wooden boat to a mid-sized iron boat. He hires his father as his deckhand and sells (IIRC) the wooden boat to his friends. His two brothers take over the dad’s old boat, and everyone is happy.

Ye Yaodong makes a lot of money through different bursts of luck, such as finding pearls in oysters, picking up and selling a beached oarfish, taking rich men fishing, and finding a reef with plenty of abalone for the picking. He buys a diving suit so he can pick up expensive seafood like sea cucumbers from shallow waters, and comes to a profit-sharing agreement with his friends to let them borrow it.
He also has occasional run-ins with unfriendly people at sea, such as a guy who later incites someone to rob him, and a gang of pirates from Luzhou island. So far he has successfully fended them off every time.
There is a long drawn-out and boring sub-arc where his friend Ah Guang tries to woo his sister Ye Huimei and eventually succeeds. Every reader breathes a sigh of relief once they are finally married and out of the picture.
He successfully mends and improves his relationships with all those who knew him as a ne’er-do-well in his previous life, such as his long-suffering wife, his children, and his in-laws.
For example he goes foraging in the mountains and rivers with his in-laws and helps them make a lot of money, he helps his mother get a job as a village cadre, and he builds an extra room in his new house for his doting grandmother – which indirectly saves his life because she’s around to give him advice during a typhoon.
He saves a whale and gets his picture taken with it.
He picks up a box of treasure while diving and hides it in his garden for the future. He also picks up a tripod that he places in the local Mazu temple, then the government comes sniffing around after it. Long story short, he comes up with an idea to rebuild the temple using donations, and he also makes valuable connections in the army and the government.
He finds out that stores are being sold in a new market that he knows will be prosperous in the future, so he borrows money from his friends and buys two stores without consulting his wife. He later persuades his brothers and some acquaintances to do the same.

This is where the trouble came. He bought it without discussing it with his wife, who keeps the money in the house. When he went to get the money from her to repay his friends, she was understandably upset. So… how does Ye Yaodong persuade her? He doesn’t. He rapes her instead. Uh… yeah. When that fails to persuade her, he tries plan B: rape her again. Which works this time. The writer tries to play it off as nothing, but the magic was gone after that.

I kept reading a little longer and other things happened like Ye Yaodong making tons of money through a squid fishing trip, and picking up boxes dropped by smugglers in the process, or ordering an actual fishing ship at the shipyard (his wife doesn’t bother to oppose him any more, I wonder why) which will be ready in two years.

However, once I lost the will to support Ye Yaodong, I didn’t want to slog through the bad machine translation for his sake any more. I give kudos to the author for making a series about fishing in a Chinese village really interesting and compelling even when he’s just picking up fish on the beach, but maybe try not making him a rapist next time, yeah? I’m done here.

Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew manhwa – Nonsensical but very charming (some spoilers)

Manga / Manhwa / Manhwa is a largely visual medium, so it follows that lovely art and designs go a long way towards giving a series popularity. I firmly maintain that Solo Leveling wouldn’t be anywhere near as popular as it is without the slick art.

And the same goes for Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew, a romance series with a largely senseless plot that is all over the place, but with art that is so nice that fans are willing to forget everything and just revel in the art. I mean, look at the very first page:

Sasha-kun, so cuuuuute! So cute I almost forgot to include a summary of the series.

After being reborn as a stalker villainess destined to die for trying to kill Archduke Calix Elluiden’s lover, Charlize Lienta fled from the capital to stay away from the archduke at all costs. But her plan goes awry when she returns a year later and rescues a poor boy on the streets… because he turns out to be Sasha, Calix’s long-lost nephew! Given her infamous reputation as Calix’s stalker, will Charlize succeed in returning Sasha without raising the archduke’s suspicions?

…Of course she will. Okay, basically you should throw all logic out of the window and check your brain in at the door when you read Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew. In the first place, the timeline isn’t clear. At first she says the world she is in is from a novel where “Charlize” was executed as a villain. But then we get a flashback to her past life and she was a poor orphan in a medieval era who presumably never learned to read. So when and where did she read the novel?

And at what point did she become “Charlize”? At first it seems to be recent, but then she talks about being in the academy together with Callix. Has she been in the world for a while but unable to control her actions, or did she just reincarnate into Charlize’s body but somehow their memories have merged into one?

There’s a lot that suggests that Charlize is an unreliable narrator – for one thing, she says in chapter one the original Charlize was executed, but then she later remembers committing suicide. She claims that Charlize was an unwanted stalker who never spoke to Callix in the novel, but then remembers that they spoke once and original Charlize never forgot it. Plus in recent chapters, it seems original Charlize’s affections weren’t completely unwanted after all…?

Stop thinking so hard and just focus on Charlize’s ultra-long nails that change color with her outfits. I love them so much!

Honestly, the thought that all this timey-wimey stuff will make sense one day (and the gorgeous art) is what encourages me to keep reading, because the rest of the story is all over the place and makes no sense. First Sasha is the legitimate prince and is supposed to take his place on the throne… but nothing happens and the usurper is still there, scheming against him (or actually doing nothing and the Empress does all the scheming). What’s the delay? Why a delay? First he’s confirmed to be the late Emperor’s son, then there’s an artifact that says otherwise, then no, actually the artifact was reacting to his divine power… it’s a huge mess.

Speaking of divine power and messes, there’s a divine beast that forms a contract with Sasha and supposed to protect him… then it suddenly loses all its powers off-screen and is reduced to a stone which is tossed in a lake and only shows up once to be a deus ex machina. What even is the point of its existence?

And speaking of more powers and messes, Charlize has the power to see flashes of the future when she looks into Callix’s eyes…? Or gets closer to him? She also experiences it with a side character, but it happens once and never again, another mystery. The plot is powered by these flashses, where Charlize sees something, works to prevent it, sees something else, etc. But the power has yet to be explained and is just kinda… there. I’m sure they’ll tell us why she has these powers eventually. Maybe.

I already mentioned the ineffectual Emperor and Empress who have their own thing going on, but mainly do… not very much to anyone. The Empress is easily fooled by the fakest acting even though Charlize has thwarted her plans over and over and over again by “coincidentally” being in the right place at the right now. The Emperor is presumably usurping the throne but barely appears and doesn’t seem aware of the Empress’s plans. He’s just kinda… there.

The Empress is in a hurry to have an heir, but that’s pointless until she gets rid of Sasha, but she doesn’t try very hard to get rid of him, just minor things like pushing him into a lake (where you can’t drown because it’s magic) and setting up a fake artifact. She rather spends her time terrorizing minor nobles… I told you, it’s a mess. I like her design though. The art really carries this series.

Okay, so we established that Sasha the nephew is adorable, Charlize has something interesting going on in her backstory, the villains are a joke, the story is a wash… what am I leaving out? Aha, the romance! And the male love interest! It’s easy to leave him out because while he is very handsome and a very nice guy (no yandere stalkers here), he’s also very flat and boring. But boring is good when it comes to manhwa male leads. Some of them can be completely insane, so a relatively normal guy is lovely. It’s just that he really needs to not be so passive because there’s a lot going on around his passive, good-looking head.

Seriously, he doesn’t really do much except dote on Sasha and be nice to Charlize every chance he gets. I’m very interested in Callix’s relationship to the original Charlize in the previous timeline. He seemed to merely tolerate her stalking out of pity for an abused girl who was pushing everyone away. But later on he seemed to feel more than pity for her. And we get a flashback showing he was crushed at her death, but was it because of love or just more pity? Will the series ever address that, or am I hoping for too much?

I’d also like to see what he plans to do with Sasha, because as of chapter 42 he just spoils him rotten at home. Which is cute, but doesn’t get us anywhere. I’m guessing he wishes he could just keep him safe and let him grow up as an ordinary child, but unfortunately the Empress won’t allow that. That’s why Callix needs to take a stronger stance about pushing for the Emperor to step down and Sasha to take the throne. But no, he would rather go on playdates and slowly get closer to present Charlize… Yeah aight, you do you, I guess.

TL;DR Beloved by the Male Lead’s Nephew is a series you read when you want to go “awwww,” and “kawaiii” and just have fun without thinking about things too much. I think it’s called “fluff,” though most fluffy romances do attempt to make sense. Also read it when you want to see nice art. I love Charlize’s nails, though fans have mixed feelings about those talons, haha. If I read to the end – and I have no intention of quitting anytime soon – I’ll write a follow up post explaining how things turned out. Until then!

The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious manga review (ending spoilers included)

Japanese authors may not have invented the isekai “going to another world” genre, but they sure come up with the most interesting spins. The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious (Kono Yusha ga Ore Tueee Kuseni Shincho Sugiru) by Light Tuchihi takes the usual trope of a summoned hero saving the world, then cranks it up to eleven by giving him a hilariously pragmatic and cautious personality. It’s extremely refreshing, at least at the start. It’s also short and complete at six volumes, so even though the final twists were garbage (more on that later), it’s still worth a read for what came before.

Summary: Can a neurotically overprepared hero and an underachieving goddess save a parallel world together?! When the inexperienced goddess Ristarte is tasked with the daunting mission of saving the S-ranked world Gaeabrande, she thinks that summoning Seiya Ryuuguuin, a Japanese teenager who has utterly broken stats as a Hero, will finally turn her luck around. Seiya’s abilities (and good looks) are all she has ever dreamed of, but she soon wishes she had read the fine print about his “overly cautious” personality… (Yen Press)

It’s a fine comedy series – not ROFL hilarious but very amusing as we follow Seiya’s efforts to always be perfectly prepared in any scenario. I read the first three volumes, took a long break and read the final three, so I don’t remember every single antic, but there were things like buying tons of potions, suspecting every single person of being an enemy, insisting on being healed for the tiniest scratch, and escaping from battle to train more if he felt he couldn’t win.

Page from the manga The Hero is Overly Cautious — 999,999,997… 999,999,998… 999,999,999…

His antics are set off against the naive, noisy and largely useless goddess Ristarte (Rista for short) who exists mainly for fanservice, to be the butt-monkey of jokes (think Aqua from Konosuba), and to play the straight man to Seiya’s deadpan but crazy antics. Since she gets the most screentime, and it can be argued that she’s the actual main character, whether you enjoy The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious or not will depend largely on how much you can stomach Rista. Personally I found her a wee bit irritating, but the series didn’t last long enough for her to truly grate on me.

There are some other characters here and there as well, but most of them, especially the enemies, are fully forgettable. The vaunted Demon Lord only gets a few pages in the end, actually.

As the series goes on, it turns out that Seiya is right to be cautious, as the enemy is just that wily and dangerous (corrupting his allies, destroying the weapon and armor he needs, etc.). It’s a refreshing difference from those isekai series where the hero is just overpowered and there’s nothing the enemies can do. If Seiya is overpowered and overly cautious, so are they. It’s a constant game of oneupmanship, and it is interesting to see Seiya being proved right time and time again.

Unfortunately the series begins to fall apart towards the end in two ways. Firstly, the initial “normal” fanservice begins to slip into vulgar, softcore hentai of the kind I can’t even screenshot here. The scenes with Valkyria and Mitis in particular were completely gratuitious and added nothing to the series.

Secondly, and more importantly, the author tried to give a logical explanation for Seiya’s overly cautious traits. Major spoiler: he had actually been summoned before in the past but failed to save the world. At the time he was the usually genki hero who relied solely on his talent and the power of friendship. As a result of his lack of preparation, his whole party was wiped out and he died. When he was summoned again, his memories were gone, but vestiges of the traumatic experience had manifested in the form of his “Overly Cautious” trait.

To be honest, I really didn’t need a logical explation of his personality. It’s a comedy series, and I was okay with him just being that way naturally. And I liked Seiya being “a hero with actual common sense for once” instead of “a hero with common sense only because of trauma.” But if an explanation had to be given, then it’s as good a one as any, so I took that in stride.

What I had an issue with was Ristarte’s backstory. Turns out she was Seiya’s companion and lover in the past world. EWWWW. As the volumes wore on, she had engaged in increasingly explicit and inappropriate fantasies about Seiya while he treated her as a portable healing herb. Then suddenly the series claims, “Oh, they cared about each other all along because of the past”? Yeah no, I wouldn’t buy that for a dollar.

You sign up for a comedy isekai and then the author decides to change the genre tags to “romance, reincarnation, tragedy” at the last minute. It’s their right to do so, but I don’t have to like it. If the The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious hadn’t ended shortly afterwards (was it cancelled? It was popular enough to get an anime) I would have dropped it. But since it’s only 6 volumes/36 chapters, it makes a good short read and ends before it would have gotten really bad, so I finished it, and I recommend it with some caveats. Give it a try if you get the chance.

Small Shop Owner in the 60s Chinese webnovel review (spoilers)

You ever read a romance web novel for dozens and dozens of chapters, only for the translations to run out just when the male lead confesses to the protagonist? No? Then you haven’t read Small Shop Owner in the 60s (六十年代小店主), and you’re better off for it.

Summary:

Xu Nannan, the owner of a Taobao shop, wakes up and becomes a rural girl Xu Nannan in the 1960s.

Every day they only eat a wild vegetable chaff dumpling. Working from dawn to night, she carry a hoe and went to the field to exchange for workpoints.

Fortunately, her Taobao shop followed her back to the 1960s, and she was finally able to do some sideline work. (Novelupdates)

I mentioned last time that there wasn’t enough face-slapping in Raising Babies in the 70s, which reduces half of the fun of reading back-to-the-past Chinese novels (of which there are many, many). Usually the setup is for them to introduce truly infuriating family members, neighbors and in-laws, whip up the reader’s outrage and then deliver catharsis in the form of consequences, or verbal/physical beatdowns. It’s a satisfying formula when done right, and indeed the soap opera, dare I say much of entertainment, revolves around unpleasant people getting their due comeuppance.

If that’s what you want, Small Shop Owner in the 60s delivers in copious quantities, slowly ramping up from small infractions to much more serious ones. But at the same time there’s a healthy (?) mix of bad and good people, so it’s not a complete crapsack world where everyone is out to get the female lead and her sister.

For example her immediate family is cold, greedy and scheming, and many of the villagers are indifferent, but the main authority figure is reasonable, there is a kind family that helps them, and when they report serious issues to bigger authories, action is taken swiftly and thoroughly.

In fact, on the balance of things there are more good and helpful people than bad ones. The first people she tries to sell illegal milk powder to turns out to be so honest and friendly that he and his wife even adopt Xu Nannan and her sister. Her first boss loves her so much he takes her under his wing, and almost all of her co-workers love her. She never gets caught or into trouble for black market dealings or buying antiques, and so on and so forth.

However the scumminess, clinginess and sheer persistence of the antagonists, particularly Grandma Xu and the rest of the Xu family, more than make up for the niceness of the other characters. They prevent the series from being too saccharine sweet and ensure that we get regular doses of face-slapping scenes to keep our morale high.

Now, on to the romance. In a change from the usual, Xu Nannan doesn’t magically wake up with a husband, and indeed the male lead (Lin Qingbai) doesn’t show up until like 50 chapters in, maybe more. And neither character instantly falls in love with the other, but rather they start out with a friendliness that develops into something deeper as they keep finding excuses to spend time together.

The male lead Lin Qingbai is not the usual cold, unapproachable face-paralysis kind of guy either. He is a bit distant from the ladies compared to his disgusting playboy brother, but that is appropriate for the times. And he can smile, he can laugh, he has normal emotions, he doesn’t touch her inappropriately, he doesn’t get violently possessive when other guys show interest in her, he doesn’t try to restrict her movements, he doesn’t fantasize about locking her up… man, when did my bar for male leads get so low?

Random picture of couple on bikes because Lin Qingbai woos Xu Nannan by picking her up on his bike.

The main downside is that he smokes. Normal for the times, but really icky. Also the 10-year age gap is off-putting not because of its size but because she’s 17 and he’s 27, and the difference in maturity is a bit much. 27 and 37 would be a-okay. Plus he comes with an annoying family, especially his brother, but then again so does she (and how!).

In all, it’s a healthy and relatively fast-moving romance, which is helped along by the prevailing attitude of the 60s, which held no truck with this “male friend/female friend” stuff. As soon as you guys are seen together more than a few times, everyone starts asking when the wedding is.

And so, after being together for a while, others start asking questions and Xu Nannan tries to put some distance between them. But then she misses him terribly, she runs into him with his family, he introduces her as his “partner” and takes her away. Then he asks… “So do you agree?” … AND THEN THE TRANSLATIONS END BEFORE WE CAN HEAR HER ANSWER!!!! NOOOOOOO! No updates since August 2021 is just too cruel :’-<

I always worry about the translator/site owner in such cases. Anything can happen to any of us at any time, after all. The cause of a sudden translation stop can range from benign or even positive (won the lottery and moved to an island resort) to very bad. Fans can always machine-translate the rest of the series (in fact the “translation” of Small Shop Owner in the 60s is barely-cleaned machine translation anyway) but a life can’t come back. Stay safe, wherever you are.

So as I said in the beginning paragraph, we get a build up to a confession and then nothing unless you want to MTL the rest. Which I can’t be bothered to do because raw MTL hurts my brain. Engines like DeepL have made great progress, but it’s still hard to read. It’s easy to figure out that Xu Nannan and Lin Qingbai will marry and live happily ever after, but what about all the side characters?

From Novelupdates reviews, I learned that Lin Qingsong rapes Xu Hong and gets away with it, and that Xu Nannan’s birth parents get divorced and her mother dies miserably in poverty, but what about everyone else? The Xu grandparents? Liu Qiao and her scheming daughter Xu Meizi? Xu Nannan’s neglected sister Xu Ling? Her mine worker friends? Teacher He? Etc etc. I’m quite curious, but I already decided to put the series behind me, so I’ll just paper that curiosity over with the next series and move on.

I recommend Small Shop Owner in the 60s if you want a balance of characters and drama in your face-slapping novel. Not too crazy, not too boring. Also if you want non-pushy actually kind of decent male leads because the bar is set in hell these days.

Lastly, a word on the “twist” in this series, which is that Xu Nannan has access to her Taobao (think eBay or Amazon) shop and can buy and sell things there. This does not make as much of a difference as you would expect, mainly because a 15 year old girl splashing around large sums of cash would attract all kinds of questions and lead to horrible consequences.

The level of scrutiny and lack of privacy in those days also means she can’t buy or sell anything too modern, or even use such things in her personal life. However the shop does play a role because taking out useful items like milk powder here and there helps her befriend her benefactors, and more importantly keeps her and her sister from starving to death before they finally get out of the Xu family’s clutches.

So if you’re expecting some dramatic business shenanigans with the Taobao shop, nah, at least not at chapter 89 where translations stopped. The female lead doesn’t use her ability to shop from the future to buy history books and find out what’s going to happen next either, though she does stockpile antiques. It’s implied that she’s avoiding standing out too much or rising too high because of the Cultural Revolution that is coming in 1966-76 (I’d find a way to escape to Hong Kong if I were her), but either way she doesn’t do anything too flashy in the chapters I read. Just FYI.

Raising Babies in the 70s webnovel dropped

Don’t you just hate it when you’re reading fluffy slice-of-life romance and the author takes a decision that completely ruins everything? I have a couple of dealbreakers for a formerly fluffy series, mainly physical or sexual abuse from one of the romantic partners – i.e. no more rapey CEOs/princes allowed. Also if the side characters are too annoying, like those in-laws with the endless face-slappping scenes, that gets tiresome if it drags on too long with the same characters. But in general I try to be pretty forgiving because I realize most web novel authors are amateurs. If I like the characters and they behave well, that’s enough.

Well, now I guess I have to add new dealbreakers to the list: kids butting into the romance from nowhere. I already mentioned that I don’t like the “little bun” kind of character in Chinese romances, with the preternaturally smart and precocious son (almost always son) of one/more of the main characters being obnoxious and getting in the way all the time.

In Raising Babies in the 70s (七零海岛养娃日常) it’s even worse than that. The kids are basically foisted on the main couple before they can even start their new life together.

Long intro, but here’s the series summary at last:

Qin Rou was a kindergarten teacher with a soft personality. After dying while protecting a chlid, she transmigrated into an arrogant and coquettish female supporting character whose personality was opposite of hers.

Meanwhile, the ill-tempered Lu Yan, from a good family background, had made great contributions and was about to be sent to a certain island. His parents wanted to marry him off ASAP, but every girl who went on a blind date with him returned crying.

To give him a lesson, his father said bluntly, “Choose a girl with the fiercest character for him!”

And so Qin Rou and Lu Yan went on a blind date together. Qin Rou returned from blind date with red swollen eyes as well.

But just a few days later, news came that after just one meeting, they had agreed to marry each other? (summarized from Novelupdates)

If you like the “arranged marriage” and “cold guy being softened up” tropes, and we all do, don’t lie, this is right up your alley. And so indeed, through an amusing misunderstanding (read it yourself), Lu Yan and Qin Rou end up deciding to get married, and they set off on a train to Lu Yan’s new posting.

So far, so great and fluffy, right? Lu Yan was smitted at first sight and just keeps falling deeper and deeper in love (just as we like). Meanwhile Qin Rou has her reasons for wanting to leave her job, but she doesn’t think he’s so bad. We’re all set for a lovey-dovey romance with some face-slapping here and there, maybe a rival or two. Y’know, the usual delicious formula.

BUT NOPE. Enter the Children. For some bizarre, stupid, ill thought-out, needless, senseless reason, the author decides to have Qin Rou’s four year-old nephew (one of those “‘autistic” but magically cured by the female lead” kids. Yes, there’s more than one. Oh you have no idea) and Lu Yan’s nephew insist on accompanying them to their new home on the tropical island of Hainan. The kids aren’t even in abusive situations or orphans or anything. Some random excuses are made and then presto, two strangers are butting in on our budding romance.

Lu Yan and Qin Rou start their new life on a tropical island paradise.

And not just butting in to sit quietly by, Lu Yan’s nephew is loud, ill-mannered and obnoxious, completely unbearable. Both kids are bound to make complete nuisances of themselves. Or I assume they are, because after two chapters of the kids, when it became clear the author wasn’t going to send them back, I threw in the towel.

Especially since Qin Rou confesses in chapter 24 that part of the reason why she brought her nephew along was because she didn’t feel comfortable being alone with Lu Yan. A child is not a prop! If you’re that uncomfortable with him, adding a kid to a potentially dangerous situation is not the solution.

But anyway, as I said, I try to cut these authors a bit of slack because they’re amateurs. And furthermore, an author has a right to write the story they want to write, just as a reader has the right to read the story they want to read. If the author of the Raising Babies in the ’70s novel wants to write about two newlyweds becoming instant parents, well, there’s an audience for that, I’m sure.

… … … and so I wrote all that, and prepared to conclude and hit “Publish.” But then I thought I was remembered some details wrong, so I decided to re-read a bit of it to refresh my memory. And so I read, and read, and read, past where I originally quit (chapter 24) all the way up to chapter 60.

For the sake of full honesty, let me say that the kids don’t turn out to be as much of an issue as I had expected. Lu Yan quickly puts his annoying nephew in his place, and Qin Rou’s nephew might as well not exist for all the presence he has. However the kids are still good at fulfilling their purpose of preventing the romance from developing too quickly just by being there and stopping the newlyweds from getting too frisky. They also serve as an excuse for Qin Rou to show what a wonderful kindergarten teacher she was, and… that’s about it.

Secondly, Qin Rou is a bit of a Mary Sue (sooo beautiful and her voice is sooo nice) but not to excessive levels. In particular her cooking isn’t that great and she’s not very hardworking. Most “back to the 60s/70s/80s” series… in fact, most Chinese romances have the woman as this amazing, world-shatteringly good cook (e.g. My Fantastic Chef Wife) whose food can melt the hearts of gods. Qin Rou is good, but not that good, and her husband can cook quite well too. So that makes this a bit bearable compared to some of the others.

Despite all that, I didn’t feel like reading past chapter 60 because the main characters weren’t that compelling. I’ve read too many of these romance series, and honestly, too peaceful is just as bad as too dramatic. Lu Yan is from a wealthy family, has a ton of savings and has accommodation provided, so basically the family never has to worry about anything because they’re rich.

He’s also a rising officer in a military barrack setting, so few people are willing to mess with him and his family because it will harm their own careers. It’s not like most other series where the lead character has to scrimp and save to feed her family, manage finances, clean up her little hovel, etc. The bulk of the series is even set on a beautiful tropical island with coconuts, papayas, abundant seafood, etc everywhere.

Basically Raising Babies in the ’70s is a little sweet and is very low-drama, perfect if you’re into that kind of thing. But due to the kids, the overly generous setting, and Lu Yan’s personality and job, you don’t get that much fluffy interaction between the two romantic leads. It’s a very bland, but inoffensive series. Read if you have nothing better to do or really, really like this kind of series, but don’t expect too much.