Meteor Garden

-       Violence against women

In Meteor Garden we see many examples of violence against women, specifically against Shancai. Daoming Si doesn’t know how to control his emotions, he lashes out and hurts Shancai when she refuses to kiss him. He is physically and emotionally abusive towards her and makes her upset and fearful. We learn that Daoming Si lives alone without his parents or anyone to love him, we don’t learn why his Dad is not around but we know that his mum has a high profile job in London, she never rings or calls and as suggested by Shancai, he is lonely. Although his violence is not justified I feel that the lack of a parent in his life has left him feeling vulnerable and alone, he lashes out possibly as a cry for help but likely because he does not knw any better, In later episodes we find out that his older sister is also hot tempered and lashes out physically when mad, Daoming Si has most likely got his example from his sister and it is all he’s ever known.

 

Although it is  it violent we do see other examples of women not being respected in the show, at a party we see a young girl hit on by a much older man, we also see many examples of young women idolising men, this gives the impression that in this world men are in charge and women are treated as second class citizens, all the figures of authority that we see in the show such as the schools’ principal, are male. In general I do not think violence emotional or physical towards women is justified, however, I feel in this case that Daoming Sis actions are as a consequence of a cold and unloving childhood.

I think that he really does love Shancai however he needs to learn to control his emotions instead of using his past as an excuse.

Meteor Garden Propaganda

    The show meteor garden is basically just Chinese propaganda for western audiences, the purpose of this propaganda is to convince western audiences that China is just like every other nation in the west when it's not. 

    To start off, let's talk about the characters' appearances, the cast is all fairly tall and somewhat European looking. They do this to try and get us to subconsciously feel like the show familiar.

The show has several characters who are from wealth. 

    Characters from F4, specifically Daoming Si, are great examples of how the show uses this as propaganda. Even though Si comes from a family of wealth he was able to make a fortune of his own. This is almost exactly like he has made the American dream, he worked hard and now he is rich and popular. It works well as it feels familiar to our culture in having characters to look up to.

    This show is also structured like any other western  high school/college dramady, all the characters have western first world problems like social status and relationship things. This helps bring familiarity to it and it would help people feel like this show is like all the others but in a good way. The fact that the show feels familiar means that it is trying to make you feel that the setting is familiar.

    All of these elements coming together means it can make you view china in a different way, and not exactly the way hat is truthful to how it actually is.

 Si and Shancai's relationship:

I have chosen to write about Shancai and Si’s relationship during the first four episodes of season 1 of the show, Meteor Garden. I am going to write about their very first interactions with each other and important key moments of their relationship and how their relationship grows.

In the very first episode, it is Shancai’s first day at her new college. The school hallways are crowded of fans of the guest speaker. A popular guy from F4 (popular boy group), Daoming Si, steps on her phone and breaks it. Their first encounter is Shancai confronting Si to get her a new phone and apologise to her: Shancai walks straight up to F4 and recognises Si’s green shoes which was the person who stepped on her phone and broke it. Shancai confronts him in an angry tone and demands him to buy her a new phone. He obviously says no as he does not want to pay for her phone. This first interaction that Si and Shancai have is important as they almost start off on the wrong foot.

Shancai’s friend’s birthday is the next day, Shancai bakes her friends a cake and gives it to her. When the girls are taking pictures, her friend slips, and the cake lands all over Si’s head. Shancai’s friend tries to clean up the cake but he pushes her away and Shancai calls him a jerk. This shows they already dislikes each other from just two interactions. Shancai later receives a joker card. Most people envy F4 so they have set up a rule. They can only challenge them to a game of bridge if they receive a joker card. The loser then faces extreme punishments. This joker card represents that Si dislikes Shancai and wants to challenge her so she can leave him alone.

 In the same episode Shancai goes to deliver food from her mum’s takeaway restaurant, to an old warehouse. Si was the one who placed the order on purpose knowing it was Shancai’s family business as a revenge for the cake incident. She calls him names as he makes fun of her and the food. Then he throws a box of food at her. Shancai runs and cries home. He is almost beginning to bully Shancai.

The next day at school, Shancai sees Si, goes up to him and does a flying kick and knocks him out and throws the joker card at him, symbolising she isn’t going to play his games and she isn’t afraid of him.

In episode 2 Shancai gets invited to Si’s mansion. She gets a makeover and she is very confused why invited. Unromantically Si asks Shancai to be his girlfriend. He says she’ll be able to sit with him at lunch time and allowed to stand one metre behind him. She doesn’t know what all his stupidity is about and she throws her heel at him. Usually every girl wants to be with Si but Shancai doesn’t, so this is why Si is so asks her to be his girlfriend because he thinks he can get any girl fall in love with him.

  Shancai’s other friend, Chen Qinghe receives a joker card. HE receives a card because Si is jealous of him spending so much time with Shancai. Shancai goes to Si confronting him to stop annoying her and her friends. She gets bullied by Si as she accidentally trips and he makes fun of her and mocking her. He wants her to like him but yet he makes her feel bad.

Episode 3: Si is guilty for making fun of Shancai. Si then goes to apologise to her in person to her house. He acts all mannerly and polite infront of Shancai’s parents. He then becomes all caring for Shancai and checks her forehead if she still has a fever. This is the first time we see Si’s soft side especially towards Shancai. Shnacai is surprised with his gentle caring side as he usually isn’t like this.

Everyone is at a night party on the beach where students prepared where anyone could kiss eachother in the dark. It seemed like Si and Shancai didn’t want to kiss anyone. Someone accidentally bumps into Shancai and she falls on top of Si and they kiss accidentally infront of everyone. This is such a huge moment in this season as everyone notices them kissing. There is a photograph sent around to the whole school of their kiss. Everyone makes it a big deal as Si and Shancai dislike eachother. But everyone now thinks Shancai likes him.

In episode four, one of Shancai’s classmates takes a video of her wiping Lei’s hair to take out the chalkdust, and she shows it to Si. Si rushes to the rooftop. Shancai is also at the rooftop getting her notebook which she left there. Si starts getting angressive at Shancai, verbally and physically; by cornering her to a wall, pushing her against it, he then holds her arm to the wall so she is restrained and can’t move. He starts shouting and giving out to her right in her face. Shancai is asking her to stop and let her go. He punches the hard wall and his fists start to bleed and some on Shancai’s coat. Shancai pushes him and takes her chance and tries to run away. When she’s running she trips and falls. Si then comes after her. Shancai tries to slowly crawl backwards away for him. Si quickly grabs her collar and lifts her up and  shoves her against another wall and screams in her face again. In this scene we can see how scared Shancai is from the tears building up in her eyes. Si then tries to kiss her and forces the kiss, Shancai tries to pull away from him. He then forces the kiss again and Shancai slowly goes to the ground where she has her knees to her chest and is so fearful, crying and shaking. Si then realises what he should not have done. Si tries to comfort her and cradle Shancai. But Shancai is so upset and looks so vulnerable.

Economy in Meteor Garden

 There is a very clear economic divide present in Meteor Garden. Shancai lives in a very small bungalow with her family, whereas Si lives in a huge, very modern house. Another way this divide is especially present is when Shancai is nervous about buying new clothes, as she is worried that they are too expensive and that her parents won’t be able to afford them. When Si sees these clothes, he is upset at how ‘cheap’ he thinks they are as she thinks that she didn’t make an effort to look good for him. This shows their differing values of money and how materialistic Si is compared to Shancai.

In Meteor Garden there is also a very noticeable hierarchy within Mingh De, the University. F4, a group of wealthy, attractive seniors, are seen as the most elite students in the University. A contributing factor to their popularity is their wealth, this is because they can then afford to buy nice designer clothes and shoes which only increases their group’s exclusivity. Shancai and her friends are not as wealthy, so they can’t afford the luxuries that F4 may consider to be basics. This is one of the reasons that her friend group isn’t very popular. This hierarchy based almost entirely off of wealth, is known as a class hierarchy.

Si already came from a wealthy family, but he still worked hard and made some money of his own. Another character born into a wealthy family is Jing. Jing gave up her inheritance and separated herself from her family’s wealth to be on her own and to gain some sort of independence. Some people may have seen her choice as her being ungrateful, however, i can see where she was coming from. Her whole life, she has been taken care of and sheltered by her parents, and now she wants to know what the real world is like, without all of the money. She thinks that the only way to so this is to completely cut herself off from her family. This also shows that being rich doesn’t make your life perfect, she is so desperate to get away from the money that she is cutting her family off and moving to another country. Even though Shancai’s parents didn't have a lot of money, she loved them and appreciated everything they did for her, this shows that you don’t need money to have a happy life

Education

         

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.