I was literally grinning from ear to ear every time I see Lucky Tang and Lu Zhiyi. Their scenes made my heart flutter and they were undeniably cute together.
This may be another cliche story but I had a great time watching the drama.A lot could have happened in the span of 24 episodes which mostly revolves in getting rid of a clingy ex,getting second chances at love and company rivals. Nonetheless the story could have been better.
The only difference between He Qiao Sheng and Lu Zhiyi is that they have different intention and for Qiao Sheng he wanted Lucky Tang to contribute her talent and expertise for the benefit of his company yet he fell for her in the process.Meanwhile Lu Zhiyi wanted her to be by his side because he loved her dearly and not because she was a successful senior software engineer. Lucky Tang yearns for freedom and wanted to find her own happiness.
The OSTs were a music to my ears. I am quite familiar with the actors in this drama as I've seen their previous works before.The three male leads have worked in a previous drama together. I only saw the drama called Lonely Planet alongside actors Xu Kai Xin and Yang Shi Ze . Also,Estelle Chen is now playing a lead role and I got to see new faces as well. Gu Ling's character as the shady ex girlfriend adds so much tension and conflict in Lu Zhiyi's new relationship. It appeared to me that Zhiyi was very firm about his decision and undoubtedly loved Lucky Tang for real.That is why I understand now why you should cut ties with your ex and how important closure is in a relationship rather than a messy breakup.When It's over its definitely over.
Selection from An Evening at the Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret in Seattle, by Don Paulson and Roger Simpson, 1996. Note this takes a rather negative view of roles as parroting heterosexuality, which isn’t how I would describe them.
As their numbers grew [during WWII and after], Seattle’s gay men and lesbians devised ways to meet that were relatively safe. Such protected meetings not only permitted romantic alliances, but allowed men and women to begin to explore the condition of being gay or lesbian consciously. Bars, after-hours clubs, and parties allowed men and women to meet freely. For many gay men, cruising had developed into an art form in an era when there were few sanctioned ways of meeting other men for sex or companionship. Cruising took place on street corners, in bathhouses, public restrooms, city parks, and all-night movie-theater balconies (which separated men and women). In Seattle, choice pickup spots were the Winter Garden, Colonial, and Green Parrot (also known as the Dirty Bird) movie theaters, and parks where tunnels through dense bushes facilitated encounters. Servicemen could be picked up at any bar, gay or straight, as long as one remained discreet. Cars steadily circled the block once occupied by a J.C. Penney department store. And the Greyhound bus station, like all the others around the country, was a risky, but popular spot.
Working-class lesbians formed their relationships in different ways. They were more likely to meet in their jobs or in social settings, such as church or neighborhood gathers, although a few women also met in bars. Athletic women joined city-sponsored “fast-pitch” softball teams or played in basketball leagues. A few joined motorcycle clubs. Denied some of the freedom of movement men enjoyed, women found it harder to form relationships, and couples stayed together for longer periods. The social institution that best supported the lesbians was the house party. Seattle women said they went to house parties as frequently as once a week, and emphasized that the parties were attended mostly by lesbian couples in relationships.
Lesbians were highly conscious of their roles. “These were the days of butch and femme,” according to Pat Freeman, who is a program manager to Boeing’s maintenance training department. The butch’s role was to make love to the femme and “be the man of the house,” she said. The femme had to be passive. In groups as well as in bed, the role-conscious lesbians seemed to be trying to live up to the expectations fostered in the straight community. Butch and femme roles were tightly defined, and anyone who defied the role was a subject of gossip and derision. “Unfortunately, the sexism of the period was emulated, too,” Freeman said.
In the 1940s, young lesbians began to break out of rigid role-playing. The older women would be shocked, Freeman said, when a butch would leave a femme to be a femme to another butch. Some of the young lesbians rebelled against the isolation they experienced as teenagers when they were often frozen out of social networks because older women ran the risk of jail for associated with underage women. Committed women were so numerous that single women often had to find new partners by attracting those already in relationships. Indeed, some women gained reputations for breaking up established couples.
Gay male roles also were influenced often by straight stereotypes. “Queen” was the term for a gay man who was the passive partner--or “bottom”--of a very masculine gay or straight man, or “butch.” The role-playing dictated that a butch and a queen pair up, parroting the man-woman pair in heterosexual relationships. The roles weren’t always maintained, however; ki-kis were queens who had sex with each other. Other queens ridiculed ki-kis, and said they were “piss elegant” or part of the “cuff-link crowd” because they gathered in elite, safe straight havens such as the Marien Room in the Olympic Hotel. The issue sometimes brought into conflict the rigid working-class role-playing and the more casual assumptions of upper-class men. The common put-down from a role-playing queen to a ki-ki was, “What’s the matter, honey? You can’t get a man? You have to go out with your sister?” The recollections I heard about such exchanges had the judgmental tone even though both working-class and upper-class men revealed in other ways that their relationships had been transformative. Female impersonators were known for defying the role stereotypes. They usually took the role of “top” or active partner in sex, ran the households, and made the decisions.
“Make music with no expectations and just be locked away in a house for like...a week just to make music that I want to make with no one’s opinions, with nothing”.
