Some comments to a Chinese sitcom: Chinese-Style Divorce

zychen1973

Confusion
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Recently, I always heard people taking about a Chinese sitcom: divorce of Chinese style (I don’t know if my translation is fit or not, but I am sure anyone who watched it could easily know what I am talking about).
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' l1 C, N) J  P# U. N; X" bLast week, I borrowed this sitcom from a friend and spent three intense days to finish watching it. During the watching, I couldn’t help thinking that how come the things go to that woeful way between a couple who deeply loved each other at the beginning of their marriage? Until at the end of the sitcom, I still confused about the fate of the story’s protagonists.

( w# l% e! T- x  n/ ?  H9 sI originally believed that the reason caused couple divorce is because they have no steady foundation of marriage. When they got married, they didn’t really love each other. In reality, there are lots of possible sakes for man and woman walking through wedding aisle without true love. I won’t waste time to list those all well-known excuses of mismatched marriage. In my opinion, all couples ended with divorce due to their unsteady foundation that caused their vulnerable relationship.
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However, I disappointed to find out that my self-righteous belief about failure marriage was not true any more after watching this sitcom. The protagonists in this story fall in love pure-hearted when they were young, but still ended in failure result. What’s wrong with them or should I say what would wrong with us who still love each other at present? Is that possible for us to follow upon the protagonists’ heel at our 10th wedding anniversary?

& T9 [, z; U8 @2 Q; X1 L/ M9 BHere, I really need consult some experienced sisters who got married over seven years. Do you think couple would l ose interest each other after living together a long time? Is that situation happened in this sitcom popular to most of couples? For me, married four more years till today, it is hard to catch on why loved couple would hurt each other with teeth and nail. It is more difficult to understand why they perform their love in the abnormal approaches to each other. If they were not love each other, those situations are easy to comprehend. The problem is they still love inside of their heart. Since they got steady foundation of their marriage and they still loved each other, why they took action to hurt each other?
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$ c& [0 \  Y: C) S1 tHonestly, I dislike the female protagonist Lin Xiaofeng who looked like a shrew without education.
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) `) A% i7 P; A( j" YBefore her husband went to joint-stock corporation, she looked down Song Jianping for not earning big money for her. After her husband job-hopping and became succeed in his career, she worried about being looked down by her husband.
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I can understand her mixed feeling when she achieved one goal of her life but lost others importantly, which she regretted to give up latter. She thought she was great because she sacrificed her own career with getting in return her honorable husband. Therefore, when she attended Song’s classmates’ get-together, she superficially showed off her supportive backup for her husband succeed. After being teased by others, she realized she was only an appendant of her husband. Without Song as her instruction, she was nobody. Therefore, she began to save her status in the crazy ways.

4 u1 W; p5 G3 B- \; s# e7 k However, I don’t think being a housewife is a shame thing or at-risk of being abandoned by husband who succeed in career, as long as we keep our identity within our own hand. It is not easy to be a qualified housewife, as someone take it for grant. We still need strive to be a housewife without losing own identity.
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When husband betrayed wife, people would say it is definitely husband’s mistakes because women are weak and easy to be hurt by those ungrateful men. In this sitcom, I didn’t feel Lin Xiaofeng belonged to a weak colony instead just because of her toughness leaded to her failure marriage.
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I am not saying that I thought Song Jianping was good enough as a husband, in fact, he was the direct person who caused his wife's crazy behaviors. But I will not talk about husband now, what I want to reconsider is wife responsibilities. As wife, what should we learn from Lin Xiaofeng’s lessons on her unsuccessful marriage and what should we avoid that would badly impact couple’s relationship.

Please don’t simply think I am saying that as wives, we should abandon Lin’s behaviors that drove her husband far away from her. No, that’s not my point. My point is avoiding her unhealthy psychological states although worked as housewives. I wish I won’t be one of Lin’s students five years later.

[ Last edited by zychen1973 on 2004-12-22 at 05:01 PM ]

OliveOil

I haven't seen that show yet. But I can make some comments about real life.
In my opinion it is too soon for any people with less than 10 years of marriage experiences to say" we are truly in love and we are to stay together forever"; and also too soon for anyone who is married for less than 20 year to talk about "love".
World is changing; life is changing, so are people and marital relationships. The only thing for relatively younger people to be certain about is that" I am in love now and I am trying to make my relationship work and last as long as possible..."

zychen1973

World is changing; life is changing, so are people and marital relationships

When I was an undergraduate student, I am pretty sure the world is changing, so does everything. Since I married, I am reluctant to believe that is true.
:P

OliveOil

I didn't have a chance to watch the actual program, (BTW, it should be a drama, not a sitcom--situation comedy) but I finally found the book to read. Great writing! Disgusting characteristics!

, D9 ]! Z" M" EI don't like either the husband or the wife. No sympathy for them whatsoever. Actually they made me feel sick! The wife is too shameless to always play the victim's card. There is nothing to do with her education: she is just a psycho who is stubborn and stupid enough to communicate with everybody else but her own husband. I don’t buy the writer's ideal ending for her: gracefully sign the divorce paper and let her husband go! I would rather believe she may ether commit suicide or murder.

The husband is no better than wife, not a bit. He is absolutely a coward who never even once tried to stand up for their poor son by warning his wife's insane burstout, or made any move to initiate a heart to heart conversation with his wife. I don't see that he actually loved his wife, not at all even before she got so bad. When did he ever make a positive comment about his wife to her face? Only when he wanted to trade for sex! He is just too much a coward to do anything as a man: he doesn't know how to love; he doesn't know how to solve any problems--his family, his feelings, his work, even his sex; he doesn't know how to keep his own son from harm, he doesn't know what it really meant to be a man; The only things he knows about are to lie, to escape from the out-of-control situation, or to go against his wife even when she complains just like a normal woman... He doesn't have any guts to make any decision, to be honest, to be humorous! This kind of man (is he still a man?), women are better off without.