First Episode 24: 孽子 (Crystal Boys)

[renzhe]

A part of the Grand First Episode Project -- See this thread for more info.

youku

emule

"boy lives with his parents, then mother runs of, then little brother dies, boy finds out he's gay and he's kicked out of the house by his father." - Lu, on whose advice we're skipping to episode 3.

--- PLOT SUMMARY ---

The third episode (the one we're watching) starts with the main character 李青 being kicked out of the home by his father after finding out he's gay. We have a flashback to the school where he and his lover get beaten by a teacher and expelled from school because of their relationship.

He runs off, sleeps the night in the park and meets an older gentleman who asks him to come stay with him for the night, because he's lonely. A fight almost breaks out before another gentleman chases the first one away. He talks to 李青and tells him that he first ended up in that park 12 years ago and tells him the story of his life -- he too is gay. He also proposes to give him a place to sleep. This time, 李青 reluctantly agrees.

At the gentleman's home, he gets some food -- clearly he hasn't eaten for a day. He talks about getting thrown out of home and about his younger brother's death and his mother leaving, both clearly painful topics. The gentleman brings an album documenting the history of the park where they met -- it is a meeting place for gay men. It's full of photos of people, and each one has a story.

One particular story catches his attention, about a man called A Feng, who got stabbed one night by a lover (I didn't quite understand this part). After telling the story, the gentleman goes to sleep and 李青 cries in the shower. The flashbacks of his brother follow him everywhere.

The next day he makes a photo for the album. They talk about his fate (see below), and the gentleman tells him that whatever happens, his parents cannot hate him forever.

李青 has an interview for a job at a restaurant. He admits that he can't really do anything. The interviewer says he's had many kids come to work and end up stealing and that he hopes he is not like them. The interviewer (who is also gay) tells him to be discreet because other people look down on people like them. He meets his new colleagues, one of them is gay and friendly and the other one apparently doesn't like him. The first one tells him to let him know if he has trouble. Apparently, they've met before. They agree to go to the park together later.

--- SUMMARY ENDS ---

I wish I could give more useful information here, like word lists, or precise explanation of what is being discussed, but this is difficult for me without subtitles. I could follow the plot, but missed a lot of detail. Please correct my summary if I misunderstood something, which is quite likely.

The language level is basically lower intermediate (once again, the beginning is a bit harder), but there are no subtitles on the verycd version (even for non-Mandarin parts), which makes it more difficult to follow. Though it's a Taiwanese show, I found the accent very easy to follow, the zh- and friends all come across very clearly with most actors.

This was actually a quality show, good acting, based on a novel. The language (if you can do without subtitles) is quite easy and clear.

However, this is too depressing for me to watch, claustrophobic, with solemn string-instrument backing. Good drama, but I don't think I can watch a whole series about a depressed, abandoned guy chased by the ghosts of his past and present. It's too heavy, and I prefer something lighter. If you're into more serious stuff, give this a try, but it's not for me.

A couple of vocabulary questions from me:

In the park, one guy says "咱们都是同路人". He means they are all on the same path / in the same boat, or did I hear incorrectly?

In the darkroom, the man says "ru guo huan shuo hui lai..." What's the "huan" (or is it luan?)

In general, the entire first part of the discussion in the darkroom (41:30 - 43:30 on the emule version) is kind of muddy to me. I understood something about an impulse (冲动), why he had the impulse in school of all places, something about tuition (学费), how he would suffer (吃不少苦), something about Canada, and I think he said something about dying. I'd appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this particular part.

Also, the word "tu4 zi" comes up a few times (could be du4zi). Is this a slang term for homosexuals? Or what does it mean in that context?

EDIT: Found a youku version with subtitles, that should help some folks!

Edited February 9, 2010 at 02:08 PM by renzhe
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[Lu]

Tu4zi, rabbit. I only first saw it in this series, and also figured it's a derogatory term for gay.

Will watch again when both me and my copy of the series get home, see if I can shed light on anything.

[roddy]

Got this downloading, but it's taking its time.

[zhen_shuai]

This show is amazing. I think you need to watch the first two episodes to understand the third one, though.

@Renzhe - The older man asks 阿青 what his plans are for school. 阿青 says he wants to first find a place to live, then find work. The older man says since he's young it shouldn't be too hard to find work, but that he shouldn't take too much time off because he still hasn't graduated yet. He offers to pay 阿青's tuition, but 阿青 says '不用了‘ . 阿青 says something about being kicked out and that probably no school will take him in. Not 100% sure what the guy says directly after this, but then he asks 阿青, 'Anyways, don't you guys were too impulsive? How come you would...at a school?' (ie 阿青 and his friend got caught making out in the chemistry lab at night, that's why he got kicked out of school). Didn't catch anything about Canada...somebody else might want to take a quick listen to this section to double check though.

[natra]

I am reading the book right now. It is really sad and interesting.

[tooironic]

This looks really interesting! One (newbie) question though... how come 孽子（小说）.exe is listed in the verycd link? Should I be scared of this?

EDIT: Sorry just realised you need eMule to download it anyways. Can that software be trusted? Does it have malware on it? (Again, sorry for the newbieness.)

[c_redman]

I'm always cautious about exe's (I usually try them in a VMWare virtual machine first). These are usually just eBooks, packaged as software so they can have basic navigation. However, I tried to download this file, and my virus scanner reported "Backdoor.Trojan" and deleted it. So I would be very wary of it.

eMule should be fine. It's an open source project hosted on SourceForge. From it's :

Since its inception, eMule has been downloaded over 420 million times as of August 5, 2008 making it by far the most downloaded project on SourceForge.

It works fine with VeryCD links. The easyMule software linked on the VeryCD site is a modified version of eMule. I don't know what these modifications are. The Wikipedia entry for VeryCD claims it includes a filter for sensitive words.

[roddy]

.exe's are quite common for ebooks and magazines in China. Anything on verycd.com should be relatively safe (check the comments to see if there are any warnings), but personally I'd be unlikely to risk a . exe for something as simple as an ebook - search online and you should be able to find it in plain text reasonably easily.

eMule is fine, it's what you download with it you need to worry about.

[renzhe]

I agree with roddy. eMule is trustworthy software, but I personally wouldn't run executable files downloaded from the internet. I mostly use it for tv shows.

It's nice to see interest in this show. It is certainly one of the best in terms of quality that we have looked at, and IMHO the best Taiwanese show we've covered. Only a bit too depressing for me.

[Lu]

Didn't catch anything about Canada...somebody else might want to take a quick listen to this section to double check though.

As I recall the boy A-Qing was making out with also got kicked out of school, but his father pulled some strings and so the boy is being sent to Canada to go to school there. But I'm not sure if that was explained in this episode, or much later.

[zhen_shuai]

Just finished watching this last week. At some point the version up on verycd starts having subtitles, so if you can read traditional the sections in Taiwanese are follow-able!

The whole subplot with Ah Feng and Longzi is ridiculously cheesy, but Ah Qing's whole story arch was well done. The level of detail in this show is incredible. I really felt like I was in Taiwan in the 1960s, especially the clothing. Bell bottoms! And the twist!

There are sad parts, but there are also a lot of happy parts too, esp after Ah Qing starts hanging out with Xiao Min, Lao Shu and Xiao Yu. Ah Qing shows a lot of growth through the series, as you see him come to terms with his homosexuality and the loss of his brother and mother. It's also interesting to see how Bai Xianyong (the author of the book the show is based on, who is also gay) treats the relationship between fathers and sons in Taiwanese society and the way coming out can affect that relationship.

Final verdict: Not for everyone, but definitely well done and worth seeing if you're interested in Taiwanese history and culture and / or homosexuality in Chinese culture in general.