Our main character Dong Shancai is 18 years old and beginning her first year at university. She will be attending Mingde University in Shanghai which she describes as the “best school”. There may already be pressure for her to do well because of the fact she is going to a very good school. She has decided to get into the Nutrition Department so that she can expand her mother’s catering business. Right off the bat we can see that Shancai’s family are close-knit. Shancai cares about her mother and is willing to dedicate her time at university to learning about nutrition because she believes that everyone should get to enjoy her mother’s food. Both Shancai and Xiaoyou got into the college they desired with Xiaoyou getting into the Tea Culture department at another college. This offers an interesting insight into how tea is incorporated into education. It is offered as a course you can take and there are career opportunities available. Students learn about tea marketing, design of tea ware and tea brewing techniques. Tea is a very important part of Chinese culture, so much so, that it is included in schools across the country.
Getting into Mingde is huge for Shancai. She is in awe on her first day and describes the school as legendary. Education will become a much bigger part of her and her family’s life, as her parents are very invested in her journey. This is an important accomplishment for her mother and father also. Their daughter has gotten into one of the best schools in Shanghai. Her mother tells her to work hard as her future starts here. Education is a steppingstone to bringing honour to her family and Shancai is ready to start the newest chapter in her life and make her family proud while doing it.
All is going well for Shancai at her new school. Her best friend from high school, Chen Qinghe was also accepted into Mingde and is very excited about it. They meet another friend from high school, Li Zhen where it is quickly shown that Shancai and Qinghe are very firm friends. They are so close that they applied to the same universities because they didn’t want to be apart. It is also apparent that that education is not as important to Qinghe as it is to Shancai. It doesn’t matter what he majors in because he will be taking over the family business, a banana processing factory. He already has his career planned out for him. We can see that a person’s intelligence is respected and noticed by other people when Qinghe describes Li Zhen as the “quiet girl in the other class with the best grades”. Li Zhen’s performance in high school is known by Shancai and Qinghe suggesting that grades are important.
After a lecture by a guest called Mr. Bobbit, Shancai, Qinghe and Li Zhen emerge from the lecture hall and are greeted by a bustling crowd around a group of four boys, following them as if they are celebrities. As they get a closer look, Shancai’s phone is knocked out of her hand onto the floor and a shoe steps on it, cracking it. She runs after the crown to find the person, grabs Mr Bobbit’s arm and is tackled to the ground by a security guard, resulting in everyone thinking that she tried to attack him. At the same time she realises that the shoe who cracked her phone belongs to one of the four celebrity boys. She is told by a senior that the mysterious boys are called F4 and are an elite group of four senior students at the school. They are all handsome, talented and outgoing and are the pride and joy of the school. They excel in their majors and all have their respective talents. This scene establishes a sort of hierarchy system within the school. F4 are like kings while everyone else are their servants. They are looked up to and admired by the students and even the professors and people of authority are proud to have them in school. However, all this attention inevitably makes them arrogant and continues to let them believe that they can have anything they want (including any girl). Later in the series we will see that Shancai grabs the attention of the boys because she is not like the other girls and doesn’t fall at their feet. It is interesting to see how the school has become a sort of kingdom for the boys, they can do whatever they want and get whatever they want. It shows how different of an environment school can be for people, for F4 they are all already from rich families and do not have to worry about providing for themselves but for Shancai school is a place to work hard and make both herself and her family proud and support her mother’s small business.
