#dfdgr

From the first episode, where the salesman boss mocks Yang Ling for his accent, then to him casually speaking in dialect...

The hints of Li Yuchun breaking into dialect when we first meet him...

Their full-blown HILARIOUS fight when Ningyan full on snaps and they start yelling at each other in dialect (because their actors are both from Sichuan, meta meta).

And as they begin to actually grow close, their small, occasional exchanges where they reassure each other in dialect.

I truly, truly cannot stand the weird standard Mandarin-washing in most films nowadays. C-dramas demand perfect Beijing-esque dialect even when it makes zero sense. Wang Yibo is literally from Luoyang, let the boy pop in a few dialect words in 风起洛阳 (Luoyang). Liu Yuning is from the northeast, homeland of the Manchurians, him voicing himself in his normal accent would actually spice up the narrative more in 天行健 (Heroes).

And before you say "well, that's harmless," it's happening in international films too, like Ip Man 4 and Shang-Chi -- films where it actually makes more sense to talk with southern accents and languages because Chinese diaspora is still mostly southern. I loved Ip Man 4 (hot take, I know, may or may not go into that one day), but dubbing standard Mandarin over a Chinese American girl born and raised in San Francisco is not it. If there is anywhere in the world where a westernized/Cantonese hybrid has basically become its own dialect, it's Chinatown. That is literally erasure within our own communities facing gentrification and displacement.

when he said "dai lao" in cantonese i SPAT

one thing i'm loving about this show is when wang hedi's lines sometimes have modern/ modernISH terms mixed into it which the english subs don't show the nuances of

also don't get me started on the poem thing i smelled it happening before it did

im fucking hysterical im laUGHING SO BADLY AHAHAHAHAHAHAA FUCKING WANG HEDI ONLY HE CAN ACT THIS SCENE HAHAHAHAHAHAA

at first i had a fleeting thought at this scene: wow they also celebrate 端午 (dragon boat festival) in dafeng?

but as the episode progressed i realised the symbolism of choosing this festival in particular especially with zheng xinghuai's story. another one of those subtle things not explained in international subs

for those who don't know: Dragon Boat Festival (duan wu jie) is strongly associated with the legend of Qu Yuan, a poet and court official who drowned himself in 278 BCE to protest imperial corruption. Dragon boat racing is said to originate from the villagers who rushed out in boats to rescue Qu Yuan and who thrashed the water with paddles to prevent his body from being eaten by fish. [x]

and... the parallels don't stop there: qu yuan was from the state of chu during the warring states period - the period just before qin shihuang unified china under the qin dynasty. and the chinese character for the state of chu is 楚... which is the same "chu" as the one for chuzhou 楚州 (where zheng xinhuai eventually settled) in the show. also, the king he served under in the state of chu before his exile was king huai of chu (楚怀王)... which is the exact same title of the northern king in the show 🤔

anyway qu yuan was also a poet and the themes his poems covered included lamenting over the decline of the state of chu, the corruption and weakness of the government, and his helplessness in the face of it all. in modern day china he's viewed as a patriot and is the only person in the whole of Chinese history who is fully entitled to be called "the people's poet" [x]