Because it’s Friday, here’s a bimbotic blog entry for my lovely readers who are out there. Many thanks to those of you who dropped me a note to say you’re still reading! 🙂
So you’re probably asking what’s with the strawberry? Well, a month ago I was watching this Taiwanese idol drama series (偶像劇) online. The drama series was called 败犬女王 and its English title was My Queen. As with all idol dramas, it’s always about a romance between pretty boy and pretty girl. My Queen is about the romance between a 25-year-old guy, who’s still studying to become a heart surgeon, and a 33-year-old career woman who works as an editor of a tabloid magazine.
One thing to mention about the series title is that, if the Chinese title were literally translated, it would actually be ‘The Queen of Failed Dogs’. The term 败犬 (Bai4 Quan3) literally translates to ‘failed dog’. 女王 means ‘queen’. In Taiwan, 败犬 is used to refer to a woman who’s still single after the age of 30. The term was ‘imported’ from a Japanese novel published in 2003 that referred to a beautiful, capable yet single woman (and with no prospectors in sight) above 30 as a 败犬. Like a stray unwanted by families, a 败犬 is discriminated against by society.
Well, as far as derogatory terms referring to singlehood go, this one has to be one of the most demeaning of all! I was very indignant after I learnt about it. Hey, at least being called a ‘bitch’ carries a modicum of spunk in its connotations. 败犬 is like a dog walking away in defeat and shame with its tail hanging between its legs. Hmmmpfff!
Anyway, the drama series is about the romance between this younger man and older woman. It’s a well-written drama and single women over 30 can definitely identify with the issues faced by the female protagonist played by Cheryl Yang (楊謹華). The male protagonist is played by the oh-so-cute Ethan Ruan (阮經天) who has an impish smile that can melt all female hearts. He’s currently the king of idol dramas by the way. His oh-too-perfect character is so sweet and I think the writers are just out to give us single women over 30 some hope and tell us not to write off younger men.
After a series of events and the female protagonist fighting off her own – and society’s – resistance to the older woman-younger man romance, the two of them eventually get together. She endearingly calls him her ‘小草莓’ (Little Strawberry). For those of you who don’t know, the Taiwanese call people born between 1980 and 1991 the Strawberry Generation (草莓族) – an allusion to strawberries being fragile and getting bruised easily. Hence it refers to the fact that people born in that time period having been overly protected by their parents, and having grown up in a time of economic prosperity, they have never known hardship. They are thus unable to withstand pressure or endure hard work. So basically they are the kind of people whom you’d want to say ‘Please harden the f**k up.’ to.
But hey, if little strawberries came in the form of Ethan Ruan, please send me a crateful of them, thank you very much!!!!