Chinese Love

So in the three weeks I spent at home I started watching this Taiwanese drama with my mom. I really got inadvertently sucked into it. I would be sitting in my kitchen, on my computer and snacking or something, and something loud and humorous would happen on the television screen, and I'll look over and watch for a few minutes and if there's one part (perhaps the crux of the scene?) that I don't understand, I ask one short innocent question and my mom will answer, and then elaborate upon her answer until I know basically the entire background of the character in question as well as an in-depth analysis of her immediate family members and a short synopsis of their adventures so far and basically I would receive so much information that I figured I might as well just watch the damn show since I've already invested so much time and listening power into it. Kinda like you just did with this sentence.

And I've got to say this particular show is funny and interesting enough for me to withstand the one slightly uncomfortable scene where a 20-something guy is basically telling his girlfriend of five years that he's been really very patient and come on, can I just get some? (Side note: a guy who's willing to stick around for half a decade without ever seeing his girlfriend naked even once? Where's true love like this for me? Although come to think of it, I don't think a boyfriend going five years without even seeming to want to get it on would make me particularly happy)

The funny thing about this drama is that I totally see where my mom gets some of her mannerisms from. And it's a little country (yes CHINA, it is a country) known as Taiwan.

There's this one scene where a mother is berating her high school age daughter about receiving an anonymous love letter in the mail. "Who is this from? It better not be from a boy! I told you, NO BOYFRIENDS BEFORE COLLEGE."

It was basically verbatim any lecture I received all throughout my high school career. I mean minus the love letter part. Because I guess I was less pimp than a girl wearing a knee length skirt and sporting a bowl cut. God that's depressing. Where was I?

Oh right. But despite all the intricacies and deeply embedded warnings in the typical Taiwanese attitude toward love, there exists a concurrent idealism that the silly not-so-pretty girl will end up with a tall handsome gorgeous boy who worships the ground she walks on and finds her idiosyncrasies adorable instead of maddening. Or sometimes both. And I guess that's why girls with upbringings like mine continue to at least half-heartedly believe that the perfect guy will sweep us off our feet while telling the boys in front of us, "you want me to do what?! god no, do you know what my mother would say if she found out?"