So...my agent called the other day and asked if I would maybe be interested in putting together a proposal / writing a MG book featuring Chinese mythology / ghosts / mystery. Because it'd be a topical thing to tackle these days. And I am interested in it, though I had immediate misgivings. As Asian as I probably appear to him, I am half-Chinese. I didn't grow up speaking Chinese (well, not more than a few words). While a lot of my upbringing was definitely Asian, we didn't observe a lot of the traditional stuff. In fact, I probably know more about any of that than my mom did. Before she died, I certainly knew more Chinese than she did.
But...I know more Korean and Japanese than I do Chinese mostly because I...ahem...watch a lot of dramas and anime. I've talked about this before. I do feel a bit of guilt about that. Shoot, I even cook more Korean and Japanese food than Chinese food.
So, I do have some possible ideas to explore and I will write up a proposal / synopsis and maybe a couple of chapters to see if I can get into the head of the character. Might as well as I'm still waiting on edits on book 2 (which they've had for nearly a year now). But, along with the ever-present author imposter syndrome feelings, this also gives me am-I-Asian-enough feelings.
Which is a VERY long introduction to me deciding I ought to make an effort to learn more Mandarin AND watch more Chinese language dramas instead of Korean ones.
So I randomly picked a few interesting ones on Netflix to download an episode of and watched the first one of 2 Fathers today during exercise. And...well...this one seems okay so far, but it was put out in 2013 and I gotta say that the age of it shows. It's...not shiny as Kaylee would say. It might just be a stylistic thing, where it's a bit over-act-y (which is a problem I've had with Taiwanese shows before that I've tried).
The brief synopsis is that, seven years ago, two men were called to the hospital where they find out they might be the father of a newly abandoned baby (we never see the mother; apparently she had a dream she was going to follow). All they have is the letter from the mum saying she doesn't know who the father is. So they both try to claim the little girl (how refreshing) and say they'll get a DNA test. Then, weirdly, it goes into a big montage of them BOTH raising her together through her babyhood and toddler stage, etc. until it's up to the present time where she's 7 and in school. They all live together. There's a lot of jokes where people think the two dads are a couple -- where they alternate between being thoroughly affronted by that (they argue a lot) or playing up to it to annoy the gossipers.
One is a florist who is the strict dad, but seems sweet. The other is a lawyer who is the pushover dad who will buy ALL the chocolate.
They both have a run in with a woman who winds up being their daughter's new teacher and her impression of florist dad is good and definitely not-so-good of lawyer dad. Obviously, she's gonna be the love interest of one of them, though it could honestly be either at this point.
Honestly, they all seem okay, if over-act-y. The whole thing about them both being her dad is confusing. Did they take a DNA test? Was it inconclusive? What?? Because she has the last name of the lawyer one, I think. So...if he's her real dad (though she insists to her teacher she "has two real dads"), why would the Florist dad stick around? Because it also seemed like lawyer-dad was the boyfriend of the mother and the florist-dad was a fling? Maybe?
So...I'll probably give it another episode or two and see. I think I have to think of it like it's a 30 minute sitcom vs. an hour long drama show. The girl is adorable though.
Edit: Holy Crap. I just looked online to see if I could find a non-spoilery review and I did...but it mentioned that they'd never watched a long episode drama before...so...I looked up how many episodes there are and OMG there are 73!!! Erm. That's almost 55 hours worth (the episodes are about 45 minutes long). And...uh...I can't say I liked the first episode well enough to sit through that many episodes. Oh man. So, yeah. I guess I'll be giving up on this one now.
No comments:
Post a Comment