A drama watching which I have rested my soul

At the beginning, a small note from me. To fully understand each of my reviews, you need to read them all, from the first to the last, because all my reviews together are one story, which also includes the story of my life, and each my new review complements this story. Do not be lazy and read all my reviews on this site. You will find out a lot of interesting things, even things that will stun you.

Well, and now my impressions of the drama Song of Youth. This series has everything that I love about Chinese cinema and why it is worth watching Chinese dramas: the well-recreated atmosphere of the epoch in Chinese history in which the events in the series take place; the beautiful, pleasant picture; the strong cast and impeccable acting; the beautiful songs in a purely Chinese style with deep meaning; the self-criticism of the then purely patriarchal way of life in Chinese society in a satirical form; the funny Chinese jokes; the well thought out and written plot and script, as well as the story that engages and keeps you interested from its beginning to the very end. But most importantly, this drama has great life wisdom and good morality, not distorted like in two previous Chinese dramas I have watched. Watching this drama, I have finally rested my soul, received a lot of impressions and gained positive emotions. And yes, it is in dramas like this one that I want to see Bai Lu.

Song of Youth reminds me of such Chinese dramas as Marvelous Women, The Story of Ming Lan and The Sword and the Brocade. This is a sign of the high quality of the drama, because I also have liked the listed series. In addition, the drama has references to many other Chinese series, as well as to the Bible, which I will tell you about below.

This drama, like other Chinese historical dramas, clearly shows the corruption in ancient China. For each sneeze, the imperial eunuch had to be given “on the paw”, not to mention all the others, both inside and outside the palace. Not much has changed in China since then. I was delighted to hear again in Song of Youth the mention of the famous ancient Chinese physician Hua Tuo, as well as to hear the sounds of the pipa. By the way, there is a fruit growing in China that is also called pipa.

What a great cast in this drama. The actors were gathered from almost all the Chinese dramas I watched, and strong actors. I'd like to highlight Jackie Li's acting. In the drama, I liked both her as an actress and her character Wu Yue Hong. Her character in this drama is just a sweetheart. With the appearance of Wu Yue Hong, the sun shone brighter in the drama. I finally saw a Chinese actress with a figure like a normal woman. Because most Chinese actresses are so thin that it looks like they eat air. In this drama, Jackie Li has proved that it's not the appearance that matters, but inner beauty, charisma and acting talent. I watched the “boxing” scene with Jackie Li in the twenty-second episode at 21:15 several times. It was fantastic. :):):)

Wang Mao Lei is good at performing as a villain. In both Story of Yanxi Palace and Song of Youth, I hated his characters. I don't mind actors acting bad characters. Someone has to perform them. However, in the process of acting, they should not be whitewashed or justified, but performed as they are and in the end they should get the end they deserve.

I couldn't believe it when I have found out that Wang Xing Yue is only twenty-two years old. He looks older. I don't stop wondering. What is happening to the young Chinese generation? Young Chinese male actors look much older, but Qu Gao Wei is like a fresh cucumber at his forty-four. He either drinks the elixir of youth, or he has the same good genetic heredity as I have. There's another version (I'm more inclined to it for some reason): he is a lazy ass who loves only himself and doesn't want to exert himself too much. :):):) When I found out about Wang Xing Yue's age, I thought: “No, that's not for me. Thirteen years of age difference is too tough”. :):):)

I was happy to hear Lu Hu's voice again in the songs of the drama. In this drama, as in Marvelous Women and Story of Yanxi Palace, he has sung several songs at once. He and Bai Lu sang great in a duet in the drama. And I sang along with Lu Hu again. :) Liu Xi Jun in Song of Youth, just like Qin Lan in Story of Yanxi Palace, sang over one of Lu Hu's songs, but Liu Xi Jun did it much better than Qin Lan. 

And now I will tell you in detail about the signs of God and interesting things I have seen in the drama Song of Youth, as well as my impressions of the plot of this series. The main hero of the drama, Sun Yu Lou, like his family has the surname “Sun”, which means “sun” in English. His father has four sons and four daughters. Similarly, there are four Gospels of God.

In the fifteenth episode of the drama, at 20:39, Sun Xun tells Lin Shao Chun that women should follow the three obediences and four virtues. This is like the Holy Trinity and the four Gospels. You see, even in these words of Sun Xun, God has hidden Himself. In the thirty-first episode, at 36:38, on the letter it says “Year 12, 4th October...” This is like the twelve apostles and the four Gospels, which are written also by the four apostles. And in these words God has hidden Himself. At the beginning of the drama's opening credits, two fish are depicted. Fish can also be seen on Wu Yue Hong's clothes. As I have already mentioned in my review of the series Twisted Fate of Love, fish is one of the symbols of Christianity.

In the twenty-third episode, the Madame Shen (Shen Qing Yao) said that since ancient times, sons have returned with their wives to their families, and daughters have been married off to other families. But according to God's plan, it was not supposed to be that way. Even before the fall of the first humans, God had established that it was the son who was to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife. I have already mentioned this in my reviews of Marvelous Women and The Legend of Zhuo Hua. You can also read about it in the Bible. In other words, reasonable matriarchy has always been right in the eyes of God, and patriarchy was the result of the original sin.

At the beginning of the twenty-eighth episode, it is said that couples who have been married for a long time become similar in temperament and appearance. This is God's plan for a husband and wife to become one whole, one flesh, which you can also learn from the Bible (I have already given links to relevant provisions from it in my reviews of Marvelous Women and The Legend of Zhuo Hua). In the thirty-third episode, at 35:33 (again, the game of numbers that indicates Christ's age), Wu Yue Hong says “...a good woman doesn't serve two men and a loyal subject doesn't serve two masters”. Christ also spoke about that in His sermon, mentioning the idol mammon. I have already written about those His words in my review of Twisted Fate of Love.

You can see how many references to the Bible there are in this drama. There are also many of them in other Chinese dramas, which is why I like to watch them. A lot of Chinese wisdom is Christian, but the Chinese don't understand it. They don't see Christ standing right in front of their noses. Remember: the soul of every person is naturally Christian, and only people themselves can spoil their souls and become literally demons.

Since Jesus Christ is usually compared to a majestic lion in Christianity, I also have seen a lot of lion statues in the drama. There were more than in any Chinese drama I had seen before. During the period when I was watching the drama, I saw the lion statues again in  YouTube videos. These statues are already haunting me. :) What did I want? I was watching videos about Shanghai. :) Recently, a car drove past me on the street and on its rear window was a picture of a lion in a crown.

The Chinese are strange. They have statues of lions everywhere, but they worship dragons. They have a complete mess in their heads. They need to take the dragons away, keep the lions, and everything will be fine in their lives, because then everything will fall into its place.

You know, I still hope to see someday, even in my old age, a united democratic China without the CPC, total control and strict censorship, open to the world, that is, a cosmopolitan China, similar to what it has been during the reign of the Tang Dynasty, but already without an emperor and imperialist pains.

Let me tell you something interesting. I recently fulfilled one of my wishes and bought a silk Chinese fan Tuanshan with embroidery. I have no one to rely on but God and myself, so I fulfil my wishes myself, and God helps me. I had already owned one Tuanshan fan before, but it was with painting, and I wanted to have such fan with embroidery. Similarly, in the sixteenth episode of Song of Youth, the protagonist Lin Shao Chun first came to the Emperor in a dress with painting, and then he gifted her with an embroidered dress. It was interesting that I bought the embroidered fan on the very day I watched that episode, but before I watched it.

And do you know who I have bought that embroidered fan from? From a Chinese man who lives in Odesa, sells Chinese souvenirs and loves Ukraine. And recently, when I have already been finishing watching Song of Youth, I have seen in a YouTube video how a Chinese man living in mainland China sings a Ukrainian song in Ukrainian. It was cool. :) Such Chinese as those are the real soft power of China, not that foolishness that the Chinese Communist Party comes up with.

In the drama Song of Youth, I heard for the thousandth time the famous idiom “When there's a will, there's a way”. Almost every Chinese drama can't do without this phrase, but I'm not sure if it's really true. I believe that everything is God's will, and if you can't achieve something for a long time, despite all your efforts, then God doesn't want it and you should leave it. I was convinced of that from my own experience. So I'm more inclined to think that if you can't achieve something, it means you don't need it and you shouldn't waste your time on it. But the Chinese think differently. They are used to relying not on God, in whom they do not believe, but on idols they worship or themselves, which is why they are so fond of this idiom.

In my opinion, much wiser than this phrase are the words of Lin Shao Chun's teacher, which she has said to her in the sixth episode of the drama. I'm not going to tell you what they are, so as not to spoil too much. After watching this episode, you will understand what I mean. In the drama, I have liked more the phrase that good things come to people who know how to wait. This is really true. God appreciates patient people and rewards them for it.

In the drama, Shandong's Jinan was mentioned again. Almost every Chinese drama can't do without Shandong either. :) The drama also mentioned Jiangnan, the Yangtze River and Suzhou. While watching the drama, I have watched several videos on YouTube, the author of which lives in Suzhou. I would like to have handmade Suzhou embroidery someday.

In the third episode of the drama, the plum blossom is mentioned again, namely the white plum blossom. I also like white plum blossom (not just any plum blossom, but white plum blossom). I even have a night suit with a picture of white flowers of plum. I never noticed what was depicted on that night suit before. But when I heard about plum blossom in several Chinese dramas, I noticed it. Actually, I wore that night suit when I watched Song of Youth.

In the drama, I heard the name “Ruyi” again. In the third episode, the Ruyi Shop is mentioned. In the fifteenth episode, an agarwood jade Ruyi and a serpentine jade Ruyi are also mentioned. The character of the actress Wang Xi, who performed Tao Yao in Song of Youth, was named Ru Yi in Marvelous Women.

In Song of Youth, there are such characters as the Princess Nan An and the Commandery Prince of Nan An. And in the drama The Princess Wei Young, there is the Prince Nan An. The drama has a female character named Pan Xi Niang, and Tribes and Empires: Storm of Prophecy has a female character named Pan Xi.

At the beginning of the thirtieth episode, the Madame Shen was reviewing her hairpins. I had bought several traditional Chinese hairpins before watching that episode, but I bought them on the same day as I watched that episode. Then I have bought a few more of those hairpins and now I have more of them than the Madame Shen in the drama. :) By the way, one of the songs in the series is called The Legend of Purple Hairpin, sung by Lu Hu and Bai Lu.

Well, have you thought that I don't like China and the Chinese? Quite the contrary, otherwise I would not be interested in Chinese history and culture, would not watch Chinese dramas, listen to Chinese music and buy traditional Chinese jewellery. What I don't like about China is communism, the Communist Party of China and the dictatorship. The history of Chinese civilisation goes back thousands and thousands of years, and the CPC with its communism is not even a hundredth of that history.

A significant drawback of the Chinese, in my opinion, is that the majority of them (not all) fully believe and trust their government. The Chinese are too naive and too submissive. I don't trust any government, including the Ukrainian government. They are all liars. Remember: good people don't strive for high positions of power, they don't need it. It is better to trust God and yourself, as I do.

The protagonist of the drama Lin Shao Chun, like Jiang Xue Ning in Story of Kunning Palace, outsmarted the servants with a fake book. And in the thirty-seventh and thirty-ninth episodes of the drama, I saw butterflies, just like in Story of Kunning Palace.  

Also, in the thirty-ninth episode, at 20:48, I saw a tigress with wings and a Ukrainian flag. :) In that same episode, Sun Xun was practicing kung fu like Si Ma Yi in The Advisors Alliance and Growling Tiger, Roaring Dragon, and he and Liu San Jue connected their pearls against the sun, just like Li Wei Young / Xin Er and Tuo Ba Jun did it with the stones in The Princess Wei Young.

In the drama Song of Youth, I liked two heroines the most. One of them is the protagonist Lin Shao Chun. She's as smart and clever as Li Wei Young / Xin Er in The Princess Wei Young. No wonder Xu Feng Qiao compared Shao Chun to Zhuge Liang. Wu Yue Hong has said it right that Lin Shao Chun is the lucky star of the Sun family. I think so too. Lin Shao Chun and Sun Yu Lou are the perfect couple. The song Voy Por Ti by the Mexican actress and singer Kika Edgar is very suitable for this couple.

Even more than the protagonist, I liked Yao Di Zhu. She's like me: on the outside, she's calm, sensible and well-mannered, but inside, passions are raging, and no one knows when this volcano of emotions will erupt outwards. :) She made a wise and intelligent decision not to join the imperial harem. If I were in her place, I, like her, would have had all chances to enter the imperial harem, and if I did, I would have pushed not only the Imperial Consort Sun but also the Empress out of their places. But why do I need it? What is the pleasure of fighting three thousand women for one man? It is better to live freely, the way you want, and with whom you want. Pay attention to the scenes in the twenty-eighth episode of the drama, starting from 24:41. The same would happen to Chinese men if I came to China. :):):)

In the drama, Yao Di Zhu learned a good lesson that I learned in real life. The conclusion from this: if you see that the shit is drowning, do not look for justice where there is none, and do not try to save that shit, but just let him drown. The Imperial Consort Sun also learnt a good lesson. I hope that in the end, she still has understood who has been a really good person: Pan Xi Niang or Yao Di Zhu.

The second son of the Sun family, Sun Jun Hao, hastily married a woman he didn't love on his father's order. Immediately after the wedding, he ran away from her to go to war, and as a result, received deer antlers from her. Do not marry in haste, men, because when you will  really meet your soul mate, you will cry bitterly. This also applies to women. I wish I could meet a man like Sun Jun Hao, because I liked him the most out of all the male characters in the series.

The couple Sun Shi Jie and Wu Yue Hong are a parody of the couple Si Ma Yi and Zhang Chun Hua from The Advisors Alliance and Growling Tiger, Roaring Dragon. Not surprisingly that Wu Yue Hong also mentioned Zhuge Liang in one of the scenes. :) Xu Feng Qiao and Sun Jin Ge reminded me of Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. I laughed at that couple for the whole drama. :):):) By calling his wife a tigress in the series, Sun Jin Ge insulted all real tigresses, including me. Xu Feng Qiao is not a tigress, but a jackal woman. The real tigresses in the drama are Lin Shao Chun, Yao Di Zhu and Wu Yue Hong.

Jia Feng Yuan is a scoundrel and drunkard who likes to sleep with married women and break up families for his own gain. He reminds me of one Chinese actor which I call “that scarecrow” (because he doesn't deserve any other name) who also likes to have affairs with married women for his own benefit. Tao Yao is a female copy of Jia Feng Yuan. In the twenty-ninth episode, Lin Shao Chun says to Tao Yao that her ability to lie is a thousand times better than her ability to perform. The same can be said about the Chinese actor whom I call a scarecrow. He lies better than he acts. But all such bastards end up equally bad.

The scene in the third episode of the series, in which Sun Yu Lou and his servant discussed a plan to escape from his house, reminded me of the 2013 film Escape Plan, starring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I watched more than once. I really liked that movie. I advise you to watch it too. However, I warn you that snots better not watch it, because it is about real men and for real men. Yu Lou's servant Huan said right in the seventh episode about the poor and the rich. He basically said what I wrote in my review of Twisted Fate of Love.

Monkeys were repeatedly mentioned and shown in the drama. Of all the animals, I dislike monkeys the most. Apart from the fact that they are disgusting, I have bad associations with them. In the final part of The Chronicles of Narnia, a monkey-drunkard becomes a false prophet and traitor of Narnia. I think it has been written in that book for a reason.

When Yu Lou's elder sister told him in the thirty-seventh episode that russia had given China some muskets as a tribute, I said out loud: “May russia pay tribute to China forever, and return the territories which it has torn off from China during the Opium Wars!” The modern Chinese consider russia to be their old friend, but in fact it is their old enemy, which has betrayed them more than once. Learn your history, Chinese.

This is basically all I have wanted to draw your attention to in the series Song of Youth. One important conclusion that can be drawn from this drama is that you cannot use your acting talent and acting skills for profit. It's a pity that most actors and actresses in the world have forgotten the true purpose of their profession — to give joy and delight to people —, and use their talent and skills solely to become popular and get rich.

I will remember Song of Youth for the rest of my life, and not only because it's a good drama, but also for another reason, which I won't advertise. Let it remain a secret for now. You'll find out one day... :)

In addition, I want to tell you something else. While watching the drama, I took a test on the Internet for my personality type. The test results have shown that I have the personality type “Architect” (INTJ). Architects are one of the rarest personality types. They make up only two percent of the population, and women who are this type of personality are particularly rare, making up only 0.8 percent of the population. You see, I haven't lied to you, I am truly unique. But what I lack is a builder by my side to bring my genius ideas to life. My natal chart says that one of the necessary conditions for my success is having a worthy partner who is practical, confident and business savvy. Well, that's exactly the kind of man I'm looking for.

In the twenty-seventh episode of the drama Song of Youth, Lin Shao Chun has told Wu Yue Hong that she shouldn't sing praises to people because they will think she is a schemer. At least that's how I understood those her words (the translation is unclear there, so take it as you will). But there are people in the world, blessed by God, who naturally give compliments as if they are singing praises, but they are sincere in their statements. When such people open their mouths, a song flows from their lips. Imagine how bright and pure their souls are. I am one of such people. I was sincere when I praised you in the past, but you didn't believe me and labeled me a schemer and a liar. Well, you don't have to worry, I won't sing praises to you anymore. God has taught me how to deal with you.

You know nothing about me, hamsters. You have thought that I am an ordinary, weak and defenseless woman, but I am a warrior of Christ who is ready to gather and lead an army of people like me. To all my enemies I send “hi” with Adam Lambert's song Superpower. In the end, I advise you to listen to one more song: Kelly Clarkson — Catch My Breath. This song is about me — about how God has helped me to become myself and see the beauty in everything.

P.S. How bad Chinese poetry still is. О_о I'd rather go and read Lina Kostenko's poems. :):):)