What was your first American drama?
It is "Prison Break", which has set off a craze for watching dramas around the world and is regarded by countless people as a divine drama;
It is "Modern Family", which gives almost perfect answers to all the questions about family affection;
Or the elevator is finally repaired, Sheldon and Amy win the Nobel Prize, penny's pregnant "The Big Bang Theory";
Or "Friends" that has gone through ten years of ups and downs...
And the American drama that Bajie wants to recommend today seems to be different from what everyone imagines - "First Arrived"
Adapted from Chinese-American chef Eddie Huang's memoir Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir, "Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir" is the first American sitcom in nearly 20 years to feature an Asian-American family, with all the main characters being Asian actors.
After the first season of the sitcom aired in 2015, it received a rating of 1.5 among viewers aged 18-49 (the peak episode received a rating of 2.2), which was a bold achievement that was close to the network's highest-rated star show, "The Voice of America".
Many viewers thought it was not only about the life of a Chinese-American family, but also a microcosm of the integration of other minority immigrant families in the United States into the United States.
Set in 1995, "The First Arrival" tells the story of a family from Taiwan who moved from Washington, D.C., to Orlando, Florida.
Interestingly, the actors in this drama are from Tianjin, their father is Korean, and their mother is from Taiwan. Such a combination together seems to be quite in line with the immigrant family.~
Dad, Louis (Randall Park), with an American dream in mind, moved his family to Orlando, opened a Western restaurant, and ambitiously wanted to start his own business here.
He is kind, optimistic, tolerant of employees, attentive to customers, and able to communicate and mingle with his children on an equal footing.
Mother - Jessica (Wu Tianmin) is a typical Chinese "tiger mother", with a hot temper and a tough personality, and firmly believes that strict love can cultivate talents.
The protagonist's eldest son, Eddie (Yang Shengde), is a small fat paper who likes hip-pop music and basketball, and loves the girl next door. He is a bit rebellious and obedient, but he can always show the spirit of a little man at the key moments.
Eddie also has a grandmother and two cute and well-behaved younger brothers
Compared with other American dramas, "The First Arrival" is more of a humor to highlight the racial problems of the United States in the last century and reflect cultural differences.
For example, the characters in the play talk about eating culture - "Americans pay attention to eating food on the disc, Chinese pay attention to leaving more on the plate to be decent."
When Eddie's family came to see relatives who had not been seen for a long time, Eddie's parents chose to burn their heads in order to show off, because they felt that the hot heads were a symbol of wealth;
Another example is the educational difference - the mother rushed to the school with the transcript of Eddie's all-A and shouted: "The curriculum is too simple, is there any after-school tutoring or Chinese learning center?" ”
Eddie's dad curated a restaurant TV commercial with a sharp racial meme, and in order to show the authentic taste of the steak, dad hired a white waiter with a southern accent, and the ads emphasized words such as "white skin" and "own people".
This drama incorporates many laughs of ethnic and cultural conflicts, which makes people feel happy and understand the difficult life of Chinese immigrants in the last century.
Eddie's parents sent him to a private school in Orlando, where he was the only Chinese child, and as he tried to integrate into the local school life, he encountered many embarrassing things that Chinese children had experienced.
Eddie was ostracized at the new school because of the traditional Chinese lunches her mother made, and he asked her to change the lunch menu for him, first to integrate them and then change the rules.
Tiger Mother Jessica was originally very domineering and wanted to stick to her long-standing culinary ideas, but later, in order to integrate her children into the group, she compromised and began to learn to cook Western food.
It can be seen from here that this family has compromised and concessionated in the cultural conflict, but it has always had its own insistence and proposition, and wants to let the child maintain a certain national cultural identity.
The series does not deliberately vilify anyone's image, but in many places shows recognition and praise for the Chinese family concept, so that the show does not have much to criticize.
But it is also undeniable that the whole drama does have exaggerated elements, for example, when Grandma went to the bank, she quietly brought home the flower pots in the bank, which was too frugal.
There are also some tagging settings for the characters, such as the mother's meticulous calculation, Wangzi Jackie Chan, etc.
However, when we see these, we must not be sensitive to think that this is another TV series that has come to blacken us.
In fact, from the first season to the sixth season, "The First Arrival" is to show a Chinese family into The Life of Orlando and realize their dreams. It is through the form of humor that the "injustices to minorities" in life are presented in a funny and relaxed form.
In the face of the conflict and integration between American culture and their own culture, the Eddie family never inferior, but optimistic and confident to face, in their own way to fight injustice and discrimination, to resolve the troubles caused by cultural conflicts.
Mom gradually integrated into the lives of the neighbors, made like-minded good friends, and her real estate agency career also flourished;
Dad's restaurant is also getting better and better, often full; several children have adapted to it, all integrated into school life, and everyone has witnessed the growth and change of everyone in the family for six seasons.
While the family interpreted the story of laughter to the point of spitting rice, they also showed us the struggle of Asian families to break stereotypes and gain a place and win self-esteem.
Although it is a comedy, after laughing, you will also experience some insights: immigration is not difficult, the real difficulty is to integrate into the mainstream culture of a foreign country.
But fortunately, the protagonist's family never gives up, tenaciously using their unique wisdom and humor to resist and resolve the injustices around them, which also reflects the Chinese flexible survival emotional intelligence.
*Some image sources are online
Editor-in-Charge / 5yan
Editorial Assistant / Ran Ran