Why you should watch 乘风破浪 and 披荆斩棘 to learn Chinese
What are these shows?
Both 披荆斩棘 and 乘风破浪 follow the same basic format: 30+ celebrity contestants, mostly actors and singers ages 30+, form teams and compete in singing and dancing over several rounds. Viewers vote on their favorite performances and contestants, and 1-3 contestants are eliminated each round. The top contestants form a temporary "group" and appear on a follow-up reality show.
Why you should watch
1. Exposure to different accents
Contestants come from all over the Chinese-speaking world: Dongbei, Sichuan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and even Malaysia. I can personally say that watching these shows has vastly improved my ability to understand the Hong Kong Mandarin accent.
2. Pop culture knowledge
Because the contestants are celebrities, you'll be introduced to dozens of famous actors, singers, etc. Also, you'll hear the many iconic songs that they cover. I've impressed several native speakers with my with knowledge of pop culture and music.
3. Branch out to new media
These shows serve as a gateway to Chinese music, movies, and TV. if you really like the contestants who are actors, you can check out their shows and movies. If you enjoy a certain song or like a contestant who's a singer, you can explore more music.
4. Casual and formal registers
You’ll get to hear casual, unscripted speech while watching the behind-the-scenes and rehearsal clips. But you’ll also get to hear more formal speech when they’re announcing rules and also from the MC who hosts the actual live performances.
5. Incredible talent
Also, you should watch for the awesome performances and general fun. I love seeing the contestants' friendships, and I’m also obsessed with the amazing sets. There are some incredibly talented performers on these shows, and I love getting to see them shine.
Where to watch
All seasons are free to watch on YouTube! Sometimes clips may be muted or missing, probably due to YouTube's restrictions. But the vast, vast majority is available, and when a clip is missing, you can usually do a separate search and find it. I also pay for a Mango TV subscription, which is $1.99 USD/month.
乘风破浪 full episode playlist links:
乘风破浪的姐姐1
乘风破浪的姐姐2
乘风破浪3
乘风2023
乘风2024
披荆斩棘 full episode playlist links:
披荆斩棘的哥哥1
披荆斩棘2
披荆斩棘3
披荆斩棘4
To help you get started, below is a YouTube playlist of my some of my favorite performances (5 per season, except for the most recent season of each). Cause why not! Also, below the cut I'll put more details along with direct links to my favorite performances.
And if you're a fellow fan emotionally preparing for the 披荆斩棘4 finale 🥲, feel free to message me and commiserate!
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Sisters Who Make Waves
Chinese title: 乘风破浪的姐姐 (S1-2) / 乘风破浪 (S3) / 乘风 (S4-5)
English title: Sisters Who Make Waves (S1-3) / Ride the Wind (S4-5) *I call it Sisters for short
This series is the original, having started in 2020. The focus was on female empowerment, particularly of women 30+. A lot of the celebrities had slowed down in their careers, and the show served as their reintroduction to audiences. While female empowerment is still a theme today, I do feel it has lessened in prominence.
Season 1
The original, iconic season. You can tell they had a limited budget and not a ton of space, but it doesn't detract at all thanks to the incredible talent and energy of the contestants. And they had no idea what a phenomenon the show was going to be! Many of my most rewatched performances come from the season.
得不到的爱情
大碗宽面
相爱后动物感伤
FLOW
新物种
Season 2
This season has a special place in my heart as the first one I watched! It's the only one I've seen twice (when it originally aired and rewatched with friends). Compared to season 1, you can definitely tell they had a bigger budget and started to refine the format. Also, some of my all-time favorite contestants are from this season.
现在不跳舞要干嘛
归零
快乐宝贝
给自己的歌
我
Season 3
This season was the first with the show's "modern" and fully-developed format, which remains to this day. For example, they started to include more complex sets and recruited more diverse contestants, such as dancers, an athlete, etc. Also, my favorite performance of the entire series, 雾里, is from this season.
雾里
梦中人
山海
孤独颂歌
有吗炒面
Season 4
This season was the first time I felt there wasn’t improvement over the previous season. I think the stage design took a step backward, and I didn't love the international focus. It was hard to identify my favorite performances because I didn't feel strongly about many. That being said, my friends and I still enjoyed this season.
从头
千里万里
下个，路口，见
归途有风
I'm Not Yours
Season 5
Though this season has already ended, I'm not done yet. I watch with friends, so we move at a slower pace. So far, it seems largely in line with season 4. I'll update this post after we finish.
Call Me By Fire
Chinese title: 披荆斩棘的哥哥 (S1) / 披荆斩棘 (S2-3)
English title: Call Me By Fire *I call it Brothers as a nickname
A show about female empowerment gets a male spin off? Out of skepticism, I did not plan to check out this show when it premiered in 2021 (after Sisters S2). But at some point I changed my mind, mostly because I had to run out of other shows. Little did I know I would arguably become a more devoted fan of this show than the original!
Season 1
This season had too many iconic performances to count, and in particular, the Hong Kong contestants really took the world by storm. Due to scandals, they edited out 2 contestants (Huo Zun and Li Yundi), which admittedly does make for an awkward viewing experience at times, but you should totally watch anyway.
凄美地
MMA
飞云之下
达拉崩吧
如果还有明天
Season 2
Looking back, season 2 did not have as many stand out performances as season 1, but it does boast my favorite performances of the entire series, 新地球. It also features a fantastic group of contestants, probably my favorite overall cohort of the show.
新地球
袖手旁观
私人生活
理想
凤毛麟角
Season 3
This was the first season to air after I started watching, though I didn't watch it live because I was still on season 2. While it's probably impossible to top the iconic status of season 1, I think season 3 was an improvement over season 2 in terms of memorable performances. We also got the iconic 0713 (2007快乐男声全国13强) contestants.
行走的鱼
爱人错过
Joker
走麦田
有没有一首歌会让你想起我
Season 4
This season is sadly coming to an end, although I have not started the finale yet. I'll start this weekend and update this post in the future after I've had some time to gather my thoughts.
Now I have to go finish 披荆斩棘4 episode 11 so I can watch the finale. Bye!!!
After the first manned balloon flights, ballooning became a popular obsession, especially in its homeland of France. One man wrote,
Among all our circle of friends, at all our meals, in the antechambers of our lovely women, as in the academic schools, all one hears is talk of experiments, atmospheric air, inflammable gas, flying cars, journeys in the sky.
Balloons were everywhere, especially on consumer goods. It seemed that everybody wanted images of balloons in their homes.
They adorned snuffboxes:
Watches:
and tea caddies:
Even far from France, you could find images of balloons everywhere. In Japan, a country that wouldn’t have its own manned balloon launch for almost a century, you could buy a hot-air balloon plate, manufactured in 1797:
{WHF} {Ko-Fi} {Medium}
Inside the 18th century obsession with hot air ballooning
A terracotta kernos – a vase that held offerings to the gods – dating to around 2200 BCE. This vessel would have held flowers or food. It was found in the Cyclades islands by a British naval officer in 1829, who kept it for a while until his widow donated it to a museum.
Indonesian fiber artist Mulyana has taken over the Fisher Museum of Art with colorful, hand-knitted and crocheted aquatic life.
With the duality of life and death as a recurring theme, Mulyana crafts a tactile, mystical world in which fish, whales, and coral reefs coexist with sea monsters and slow states of decay.
Read Renée Reizman’s review of Mulyana: Modular Utopia.
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theartofmadeline
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titsay
dededos
