After two years, "The Cultivation of Ordinary Women 2" has returned.
This Taiwanese drama that makes people cry and laugh, the first episode of the return just started broadcasting, scored a high score of 9.6 on Douban.
The 39-year-old Chen Jialing has been working hard in Taipei's big city for more than 20 years, but at a critical moment in her life, she ran back to her hometown in Tainan with a kick in her life, and she was scrappy and ready to start the second half of her life.
But the start to the second half of her life wasn't as smooth as she thought.
I want to turn the "haunted house" I bought into a home by myself, but because of this, I was injured four times a month and went to the hospital, and I was also suspected by the doctor of being abused by my boyfriend, so that my boyfriend was innocently carrying the pot.
Chen Jialing knew in her heart that everyone was laughing at her for buying this house, but because the more everyone laughed at her, the more she wanted to prove to everyone that she would be able to make this house a perfect new home.
I didn't expect that after such a long time, she was still so stubborn.
It's like feeling that I have never been a beautiful woman in my life, so I fiercely hit hyaluronic acid, and the result is that the beauty does not see it, but it is even uglier.
But so what? Shaking her head, Chen Jialing still accepted herself. It is still Chen Jialing, who is a "common woman" and not a "lady".
Look, how much courage that is. It's like everyone is being pushed by society, and only you are rushing back in the opposite direction, how different it is!
I have to say that when the whole society is in the inner volume, Chen Jialing's "anti-inner volume" is really cool.
The nostalgia and growth of "common women"
As a female growth drama, "The Cultivation of Ordinary Women" is not the same as imagined, it does not tell you how women should be self-reliant, nor do they tell you how women should live to be right. Instead, it simply tells the story of how a "common woman" was raised.
As the granddaughter of the president of Chinese medicine who grew up with Taiwan's great construction period, Chen Jialing grew up in the expectations of her family. After finishing university in Taipei, he stayed in the big city to work and live.
Dressed brightly every day, he has a seemingly decent secretarial job, but is actually the boss's "nanny". On the one hand, he had to help hide from the boss lady, and on the other hand, he had to help coax Xiao San.
However, she also has a boyfriend, and soon she can get married and settle in Taipei and become a real "Tianlong Guoren". But after four years of falling in love, there seems to be no passion between them.
Suddenly, one day, in the face of a chicken feather job and a boyfriend who resembles a roommate, Chen Jialing doesn't want anything — whether it's work, husband or house.
She resolutely resigned and slapped the boss lady and broke up at her boyfriend's marriage proposal ceremony. Although she seems a little rebellious, the choices she makes follow her heart.
After returning to her hometown in Tainan, Chen Jialing bragged in front of her family about how well she lived and how happy she was about to become.
But all of this collapsed after receiving a wedding invitation from her ex-boyfriend. At this time, in the eyes of the whole family, she became a female "loser" who achieved nothing.
Chen Jialing remembered that when she was a child, her mother tried to make herself a piano teacher, so she bought an expensive piano with the money her father wanted to buy a new car. And his own inability and lack of talent also shattered this "lady's" dream.
It turned out that I had always disappointed my parents, both when I was a child and now.
But none of this seems to be as bad as it seems. Just as when he was a child, Chen's father and mother Chen were relieved after accepting that their daughter was not suitable for playing the piano in Lotte, and took their daughter to eat a delicious meal happily.
Now That Chen Jialing has no husband and no job, the family has quickly accepted this fact. Grandma began to be busy finding a new partner for her, and Mother Chen also tried to mobilize relatives and friends to find new jobs.
In this way, Chen Jialing, who originally only wanted to go home to recuperate for a few days, mistakenly stayed in her hometown in Tainan.
She joined the campaign of her young friend Cai Yongsen, and although she knew it was a game that was doomed to lose, she stayed.
Although forty-year-old Chen Jialing did not grow up to be what her family expected, fortunately, her family has always received and will always love her. Because of their love, Chen Jialing also began to gradually love herself, accepting her ordinary and tacky self.
After helping the deceased grandmother fulfill her wish to "be back to Li Yueying", Chen Jialing also faced a difficult choice: whether to stay in Tainan or return to the high-paying workplace in Taipei.
In the end, she made her choice.
"I'm going home." In the face of her friend's questions, Chen Jialing said with a frank laugh.
Go home, go back to the "tacky" life. Although there is nothing in the present, it is not so terrible, just like the "haunted house" that I was afraid of when I was a child, it is only an imaginary "haunted house".
Fortunately, she has the company of family and friends, and fortunately, she can be the real Chen Jialing.
In the following time, Chen Jialing told herself that she did not have to force herself anymore, followed her own heart, and calmly became a "common girl".
Do the counter-currents of ordinary life
Like many current urban life dramas, "The Cultivation of Ordinary Women" takes Chen Jialing's life as a "sample" and explores many topics of social concern.
The labels of "40 years old" and "women" have become like the titles of some blockbuster articles, coupled with the workplace, marriage and love, each topic will step on the pain points of some people.
If you only understand this drama in the form of labels, then it does look like a "hot search drama".
Xie Yingxuan's understanding of "Common Girl 1" in the interview
But this drama is unique in its nostalgic temperament, in the face of problems, Chen Jialing chose to draw inspiration from childhood memories and find answers to her current life.
In Tainan life at the end of the 1980s, time slowed down, families were intimate, neighbors helped each other, children had pure friendship, and people could even invite kind strangers to dinner.
Although Chen Jialing's family has not read many books and visited many places, they are unexpectedly enlightened and loving.
Time passes, and then back to the hometown, these emotions seem to have not changed, but people have become older.
If you're familiar with East Asian pop culture, you're sure to think of the "Please Answer Series," which also takes the nostalgic route, and the last of the trilogy, "Please Answer 1988," focuses on the family stories and neighborhood feelings of five families living in Sungmun-dong, Dopong-gu, Seoul.
"Please Answer 1988" is very popular in China, is the highest rated Korean drama on Douban, and many people have found their youth in it or yearn for such a life because of it.
Judging from the popularity of the above series, many people living in the city yearn for the good feelings of the old times.
In the present, the meaning of nostalgia may still be this: there are still occasional gaps in a society that is always moving upwards.
Grandpa molded Chen Jialing's essay on "dreams" written when she was a child, and inscribed on the back of the composition paper: "A day of peace and a day of clothing, all roads lead to Rome." ”
So Chen Jialing, an atypical life sample, took a sharp turn at the 40-year-old threshold, took a new road, and returned to the warm place in her memory.
A few years ago, I might have said, "By worldly standards, 40-year-old Chen Jialing is not doing well." ”
Now, after experiencing the working life in a big city, I have found that there are so many worldly standards, and the most important thing is to be happy.
Ji Nanjia's interpretation of "success" in "I'm Fine In Other Places"
Interestingly, the social environment has also changed rapidly. While the concepts of "social animals", "996" and "inner volume" are widely circulated, living, working and marrying in big cities is no longer a consensus of happy life, and people are increasingly recognizing the diversity of lifestyles.
When you feel tired and confused, it is also a good choice to retreat into progress.
Just like at the end of the first season, Chen Jialing spent all her savings to buy a "haunted house". As a result, at the beginning of the second season, she accidentally lived the life that contemporary social animals yearn for: she had a house, a job, a family, and a boyfriend in her hometown.
If Chen Jialing opened a post to share her life in the Douban group, she would definitely get the support of many people.
Of course, returning to your hometown does not mean that you have solved all your troubles. At the beginning of the new season, she still stumbled, and there was still a lot of confusion in the face of life.
But I know that she will definitely get answers from people and things in the present or in the past, constantly reconcile with herself, and continue to grow in the 40s.
She will continue to do the counter-currents of ordinary life, showing us how cool nostalgia and "anti-involution" are in an era of rapid development.
END
Today's Duty Editor:
Linzy、Lobster
The original article was first published on the public account of "New Weekly" "Universal Addiction Holic"