Meteor Garden - Blog Posts

lovely-ateez

4 years ago

I HAVE BEEN WAITING TO RANT ABOUT THIS.

⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️

So okay.

Si and Shancai decided to go on a sort of food strike in order to show Si’s mom that they love each other and have no purpose without each other. Si is locked up in his room by his mom and Shancai remains unmoving outside his house. Si’s mom refuses to give in until Yuanzi (the girl Si’s mom was trying to force him to marry) tells her that she will never marry Si.

Si’s mom finally sees how much they love each other and lets Shancai into Si’s room. At that point, it had been days since either had had food or water. Shancai walks into Si’s room and they see each other. Shancai walks towards Si and collapses. She dies from starvation. Si dies shortly after, from lack of food and water yes, but from a broken heart.

Everything that happens after takes place in a parallel universe. The girls that were mean to Shancai in the first universe weren’t mean to her in the next one, hence why they were at her wedding with Si and why Si’s mom was so accepting of the two being together.

Earlier in the show, Si and Shancai mention that they’d be together in the next life, too. If you notice, there are two scenes in which Si and Shancai are together and playfully running though grass. The first one is in Shancai’s dream, before they die. Pay attention to their attire. The second scene shows Shancai wearing Si’s jacket from that scene. It’s both an Easter egg and something to tie the universes together.

Also, depending on how you pronounce Si in Mandarin Chinese, it can mean death. The most direct translation of Si to English means the number four (F4 sound familiar?). Four is a traditionally unlucky number due to how close the pronunciation is to death.

Essentially, it’s a modern Romeo and Juliet but with parallel universes and 100x better because hot boys.

If you want me to go into detail explaining the wedding scene I totallyyy can and I totallyyy will. I love that show more than most people.

It’s been a year since I’ve watched meteor garden and I still don’t understand the last episode

~ I Found A Long-Lost Part Of Myself While Watching 'Meteor Garden' ~

Here's a fact: you can never get over the first drama you've watched.

Every drama-lover I know confesses this lovingly. So, as I waited for being lovestruck yet one more time, I was drama-struck by Cupid instead.

My very first drama happened to be 'Meteor Garden’ (2018) a Chinese remake of the popular K-drama 'Boys Over Flowers'. Like the blink of an eye, I didn’t realize when I was already forty minutes into the first episode.

That's how the drama bug got me.

The Story:

Meteor Garden revolves around the story of two Ming De university students, Daoming Si (Dylan Wang) and Dong Shancai (Shen Yue). While a typical rich brat meets a poor but badass girl, the story also pans out to accommodate a great cast of secondary characters.

~ I Found A Long-Lost Part Of Myself While Watching 'Meteor Garden' ~

Beginning with the 'F4', Ming De's most popular boy-group starring its leader Ah Si (fierce, smart heir to the Daoming Group of industries), Huaze Lei (musical genius), Ximen Yan (tea god) and Feng Meizuo (art lover with an unbeatable memory).

There’s Dong Shancai's adorable mother and father, her best friends, Chen Qing (banana expert) and Xiao You (bubble-tea partner).

Over a span of 49 episodes, we watch Shancai and Si's unexpected love bloom, we celebrate the spirit of 'family' -- both in blood and otherwise, we cherish friendship as true as the color of a clear sky and we come face to face with a bounty of life-lessons as we fall deeper and deeper for the characters that make the show.

My favorite learnings from the drama:

1. Dong Shancai's character is a far cry from your typical C-drama heroine. She's strong, confident, boisterous and unafraid of speaking her mind. I absolutely love the way she teaches you to own who you are. To own your whole person --- your strengths, your weaknesses and to keep going exactly when you want to give up.

2. Meteor Garden celebrates love in different forms. The love between a mother and daughter, that between between two lovers, two friends, two almost-lovers-but-now-lifetime-BFFs, the kind of love that hurts because it isn't yours to claim, the kind of love that teaches you how to love with a big heart and then, the kind of love that you must let go of so that you can meet a love you deserve.

3. The F4 sum up the following sentence: find your tribe and love them hard. Their lifelong kinship reminds you that 'family' goes way past DNA and some of the best people in your life today, could have once-upon-a-time been complete strangers. They support, encourage, guide and hold each other up.

4. As a typical C-drama lead, you'd expect Daoming Se to totally own his privilege without acknowledging its side-effects. But Si's transformation from exactly this sort of person to someone who is open to changing for the better is refreshing. What blows my mind is how Si shows courage to write his own story, not the one that's expected of him.

5. While we're used to 'voicing' our opinions, Shancai taught me it's better to let your actions and virtues do the talking. Because, a pure heart may not always be a loud one but it will be seen nonetheless, since it is true to itself.

6. And then you have my favorite learning of all time: LOVE IS WORTH IT ALL.

It is worth growing into, growing for and fighting with every ounce of your soul.

I've watched many love stories and read quite a few too, but I am unabashedly biased towards Si's pure, magical love for Shancai and vice versa.

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Image Credits | Netflix

Image Art | Doodle Shape (Android App)