First episode 27: 双面胶 (Double Sided Adhesive Tape)

[renzhe]

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

Emule youku

The daily laughs and struggles of a young Shanghai couple with rather difficult parents, muyongshi's recommendation.

--- PLOT SUMMARY ---

We follow a young couple, 胡丽鹃 and 李亚平 living in modern-day Shanghai. First we are introduced to the setting. She is a happy Shanghainese from a well-off family who laughs a lot. He is from a poor family from Dongbei and came to Shanghai to study. They married and bought an appartment at the outskirts of Shanghai.

One day, he's talking to his mother on the phone. They talk about whether their apartment has become more valuable, and he tells her that they managed to sell an apartment that nobody wanted and other real estate stuff. Afterwards, 胡丽鹃 tells him (sarcastically) that he should continue with his real-estate report. Apparently, her parents lent them 130k, and his parents lent them 20k and she's not too happy about the fact that he talks about these 20k all the time, and never mentions her parents' contribution. Apparently, his parents are planning to visit and he doesn't want them to feel like they're staying in their daughter-in-law's apartment. So they quarrel for a bit.

Later, they are cleaning the apartment to suit the mother's strict taste. She finds out the parents are coming tomorrow, but she had other plans. He insists that she come with him to meet them, and they quarrel about how she should call his parents, etc. But, as with all of their quarrels, they end up laughing merrily in the end. Apparently, they quarrel about everything and anything, including the next cleaning scene, and it's always a quarrel about nothing, really.

What she doesn't tell him is that she has a bad feeling about the parents coming. Also, we find out that it's difficult to get a typical Shanghai girl to be a traditional wife. We also meet her mother, in a flashback, which involved being pestered by a neighbour who saw 胡丽鹃 walking with a boy and proceeded to tell the whole neighbourhood, the result being 胡丽鹃 having to justify herself after arriving home. Of course, the first thing they want to know is whether he's insanely rich, and after finding out that he isn't, the parents are disappointed that their daughter managed to fish up a poor guy, when the city is teeming with foreigners, four out of five foreigners are some kind of investor In fact, 胡丽鹃 doesn't even know how much he earns, which leaves the mother in despair, as she explains that she should have peeked into his wallet while he's buying things. Once the mother is gone, the father convinces her to bring the boyfriend to dinner on Saturday.

Fast forward a bit. 胡丽鹃 and 李亚平 are visiting her parents for the first time and the father has cooked a lot. As soon as the mother returns, she attacks him for using too much oil, cause it is expensive. Even a year after they got married, 李亚平 still sometimes has nightmares about that day. They got off to a good start, with the mother boasting about how big their apartment is compared to everyone else's in the neighbourhood. The problems start approximately 20 seconds later, when she finds out he's from Heilongjiang, and not from somewhere around Beijing, and doesn't have relatives in Shanghai. It goes really downhill after he reveals how much he earns.

Later, after he was gone, the real circus begins. The mother doesn't like people from the countryside, and is against the marriage. When 胡丽鹃 returns, she asks what he is good for. She answers that he has a good temper, is honest, etc, but all this doesn't convince the mother. The mother would like a Shanghainese son-in-law, the daughter promised hersel when she was 12 that she would never ever marry one. Then she goes on about how he's tall, handsome, doesn't read her mobile phone messages behind her back, and so on, and so forth... until she says she's pregnant. Then she goes to sleep, giggling, while the mother suffers a mental breakdown.

After that, they get expressly married.

--- SUMMARY END ---

野蛮 yĕ mán barbarous

总算 zǒng suàn at long last; finally

落脚 luò jiǎo to stay someplace for a while

盼 pàn to long for, to expect

涨价 zhǎng jià appreciate; increase in price

尾房 wĕi fáng I'm guessing this is a spare apartment

荒地 huāng dì wasteland

瞅瞅 chǒu chǒu to have a look

实况 shí kuàng what is actually happening; scene

房地产 fáng dì chǎn real estate

汇报 huì bào report

计较 jì jiào bicker, argue

股份公司 gǔ fèn gōng sī publically traded company

度量 dù liàng measure

单位 dān wèi unit

怀疑 huái yí to doubt, to suspect

预 感 yù gǎn premonition

诓 kuāng mislead, to swindle

俗气 sú qì in poor taste

乌龟 wū guī turtle

女婿 nǚ xu daughter's husband; son-in-law

毛脚女婿 a daughter's boyfriend who has been approved by the parents and is likely to become a son-in-law.

地段 dì duàn section

上演 shàng yǎn to stage (a play)

实在 shí zài honest

对付 duì fu to handle

I found this more enjoyable than I had expected. It's more comedy than a character drama, and much of the show is spent following quarrels and arguments. The level is intermediate. It's not difficult stuff at all, but there are jumps in and out of Shanghai dialect (not too many), strong Shanghainese accent in places, a relatively quick pace and some specialised vocabulary. Still, anyone who's at an intermediate level will be able to follow along without much trouble, and even if you miss a bit here and there, you're unlikely to miss anything crucial.

Most of this is everyday stuff, no spies or robots, but it's quite amusing still. There are some really funny characters in there, and the conversations are entertaining. The show is loaded with stereotypes, though, and much of the humour comes from this fact. You have the Shanghai hubby who cooks and listens obediently to the strong, dominating Shanghai wife, while their daughter is busy shopping, one hand holding a boyfriend, the other one a mobile phone.

This is like halfway between a soap opera and a sitcom, and I found it more entertaining than I expected. I still don't know if I'll take the plunge and look at all of this, but I think that it's worth a look, so I may download a few more. If I'm not jotting down vocabulary and writing things up, it will probably be even more enjoyable.

Edited February 9, 2010 at 02:09 PM by renzhe

[xinxin]

Lovely contribution from renzhe. The show is quite funny and very realistic (at least the scenes in the 1st episode). Worth to watch a bit more. The only difficulty might be the strong Shanghai accent. Also the girl（胡丽鹃）talks in a too cute way.

[imron]

Apparently, her parents lent them 300k,

搞错了吧。应该是130k吧。

Haha, favourite line:

对了，尤其当我妈的面儿，你千万别老你妈你妈地叫着

哦，我改成他妈他妈的

[renzhe]

搞错了吧。应该是130k吧

哎呀！真不好意思！

[muyongshi]

Haha' date=' favourite line:

对了，尤其当我妈的面儿，你千万别老你妈你妈地叫着

哦，我改成他妈他妈的

That was my favorite line too!!!!! I was laughing for five minutes.

The second episode is equally amusing as the first and even thought they are fighting the way the girl feels towards her husband is very interesting as she does it because of how much she "loves" him. (or something like that). The fights are very "fake" in the sense that they are just little spats and quite entertaining (see above quote )

The second episode is worth a watch as well as it introduces his parents. One scene that sticks out is how when his mom is there she is asking where everything is in the kitchen and is asking 胡丽鹃 where everything is and 胡丽鹃 continually asks 亚平 where the things are. Quite a good way to develop the characters through a very entertaining sceen (the mom didn't quite catch on to the fact that she is not the "traditional" role woman).

[imron]

I just finished watching the last episode of this then. I really liked this show at the beginning, but not so much towards the end. It starts out quite light-hearted and amusing, but later on, it just keeps getting more and more depressing.

[Hanyu'sWay]

毛脚 is totally different from 毛手毛脚！

毛脚女婿 is a daughter's boy friend who has been approved by the parents and is likely to become a son-in-law.

毛手毛脚 describes, usually a man, who makes unwelcome physical contact with a woman.

[renzhe]

Thank's for the correction, Hanyu's Way

I just finished watching the last episode of this then. I really liked this show at the beginning, but not so much towards the end. It starts out quite light-hearted and amusing, but later on, it just keeps getting more and more depressing.

Yeah, I stopped watching after a while. It turns into a family drama, and then it gets worse (more depressing) from there.