ATOTS Rewatch Party: Ep. 2 April 16th 8:30 PM BKK Time: USING SYNCTUBE FOR GROUP VIEWING.

 solipisism5:

This is the end of chapter 3. Let me know what you think. Of course my summary doesn't capture everything so you can enjoy reading the novel for all the rest of the details.

Thanks for sharing your reading of the novel! It highlights the similarities and differences between the novel and the show. The novel seems to far more explicitly parallel Tian's life with the Buddha's.

I am SO glad that there was no mention made of Tian being a womaniser in the series! Congrats to P'Aof for steering clear of that messy trope!

Thank you!  Much appreciated.  If people have the time for some show they love they should read the source.  After all, we would never have ATOTS without Bacteria's novel.  I wouldn't bother doing this with virtually any other series (like Lovely Writer, Fish Upon the Sky etc).  Just no point.  I'm not criticizing those shows and I'm much easier to please than most, but ATOTS is on another level.  It even has spiritual / philosophical meaning.  I'm not getting that elsewhere in BL.  Maybe one day we will see another...

I haven't gotten to Tian's gender orientation.  I'm not at the end of the novel, but I'll certainly let you know if I get any answers for you.  

 dllmzca:

My problem is with comedy, in general. I just don't find a lot of it to actually be funny. I think I have a very dry sense of humour. I chuckled when Tian gave that self-satisfied grin to Phupha after tricking him into the water, for instance. The humour in FUTS is way too OTT, for me...

By the way, I just watched episode 2 of Fish Upon The Sky. There must be a tumor in my humor I felt numb after haha. I don't know why. 

 solipisism5:

Thank you!  Much appreciated.  If people have the time for some show they love they should read the source.  After all, we would never have ATOTS without Bacteria's novel.  I wouldn't bother doing this with virtually any other series (like Lovely Writer, Fish Upon the Sky etc).  Just no point.  I'm not criticizing those shows and I'm much easier to please than most, but ATOTS is on another level.  It even has spiritual / philosophical meaning.  I'm not getting that elsewhere in BL.  Maybe one day we will see another...

I haven't gotten to Tian's gender orientation.  I'm not at the end of the novel, but I'll certainly let you know if I get any answers for you.  

Thank you for the summary indeed. I really wanted to read the novel but wasn't able to so your summary is much appreciated. Hope you keep on doing it, it really gives us more to talk and analyze about.

 Jaybird17:

I love how you summarized the novel. I bought the English version in MEB after episode 6 came out because I wanted to know if it will be a happy ending lol! I enjoyed reading it but hated how Bacteria suggests that Tian exclusively dates women even when he returned from the village.I've had enough of this "I'm not gay I only like you" trope which really is a deluded fantasy. I admire P'Aof changed it in the series.

That would have absolutely ruined the show, for me, if they had presented that trope. I find it deeply offensive.

 Dainora Petrauskaite:

Can you please share the link of playlist in spotify? I really wanna listen to all OST's used in series. 

Also, I hope, I could join next re-watch too!

You can find the link in this thread: https://mydramalist.com/discussions/a-tale-of-a-thousand-stars/61033-the-music-of-atots

You're welcome to next weeks rewatch for episode three! :)

Hi everyone.  The translation I'd been summarizing was taken down on Wattpad, but I found one on Kindle.  The chapter numbers are slightly different.  This summary will be for chapter 6 in the Kindle version but takes place exactly from where I left off before.

One interesting thing I didn't mention before are the people at Pha Ban Dao village are Karen people who are actually from Burma.  They speak the Karen language which is related to Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. In another translation they are Akha people who are actually from Tibet or the Yunnan province of China.  I'm not sure which one is correct.  In either case they've been living there for several generations prior to Tian visiting.  They had first farmed opium before King Rama purged the drug trade and taught them how to cultivate some new kind of crops.  

Chapter 6:  The next day the whole Sopasitsakul house is in an uproar because Tian has disappeared.  Lalita faints after reading Tian's letter, but her husband is more reflective.  He tells Lalita that she has been smothering Tian.  He says, "Calm down, it might not be so bad"  Lalita asks if she is wrong for worrying about her child.  Mr. Teerayut (Tian's father) says to her "Anything overdone will always backfire. He says she is following a path of excess and that the Buddha would want a person to follow a path of moderation.  Lalita says that Tian should be happy because they provide him an endless supply of money.  Teerayut tells her "that is what we think of as happiness, but that may not be the case for Tian." Teerayut is actually happy that his son is going out into the world to face difficulties.  Teerayut reaches out to a friend in the military to search for Tian.  If he knew what Tian was up to and that there was no danger he would let Tian do what he wanted to with his life until he was satisfied.  [I think this is just a very important missing piece in the drama and paints the father in a very positive light.  Maybe we can understand from this how he is so accepting of his son being gay at the end of ATOTS].  Teerayut does all this before even reading the letter from Tian.  When his wife goes to her bedroom to rest he finally reads it:  [I'm going to put this letter in verbatim]

"I want to say that I have struggled for a long time before deciding to write this letter but please believe that I didn't really want to leave home.  After miraculously surviving, it's like I see everything upside down, so much so that I feel empty of my past life, not knowing what I truly want.  

"I just wanted to see something that people talk about all the time but I don't know about.  Finally, I just want to tell you, it's not a bad thing and I don't want my mum and dad looking for me now.  I'll come home when the time comes, don't worry about me.  I love you all."  

Teerayut folds the note in half and thinks to himself that he hopes Tian finds what he is looking for.

In the next scene Tian is seen taking a bus to get to Pha Ban Dao village.  Air travel would have been ten times faster but he thinks he will be less likely to be found out taking the bus since there is far less security.  The bus is also very uncomfortable and he thinks people will assume a pampered rich kid like himself would never use it.  After several hours he pulls into the Chiang Rai terminal [This is actually a real place and is the northernmost major city in Thailand and is very close to the Burmese border].  Here he is picked up by Yod who takes him on an uncomfortable ride for 40 kilometers by Jeep.  They get out and Tian is made to walk another 3 kilometers up a steep slope.  Near his destination he collapses and is caught by Phupha.  Phupha actually drops Tian after catching him which greatly irritates Tian.  Tian is told he is replacing Mr. Aot who has left after 3 weeks because he couldn't stand the hardship.  Phupha is actually in the military.  Currently he's having some trouble with illegal loggers  - he really would have little to do with poachers.  

Tian sets up for the night and almost sets the whole place afire turning on a gas lamp.  He sets up the mosquito net, unlike what happens in the series.  He's starving and realizes he hasn't brought any food.  Phupha has left him a boxed lunch and Tian thinks maybe he isn't all that bad.  At night he's very cold, and the pillow is very uncomfortable.  It's got a lot of wholes in it and is filled with Kapok  (a very interesting massive tree that produces a cotton-like fibre).  He thinks to himself, what am I doing here?

End of Chapter 6

 solipisism5:

"I want to say that I have struggled for a long time before deciding to write this letter but please believe that I didn't really want to leave home. After miraculously surviving, it's like I see everything upside down, so much so that I feel empty of my past life, not knowing what I truly want.

"I just wanted to see something that people talk about all the time but I don't know about. Finally, I just want to tell you, it's not a bad thing and I don't want my mum and dad looking for me now. I'll come home when the time comes, don't worry about me. I love you all."

 I think that this would have been better than the pared-down version in the show.