I always hear people talking about popular Korean dramas, but they do not realize Chinese drama is also another colorful realm waiting to be uncovered. From vibrant story lines to unforgettable characters, Chinese drama made unforgettable impressions on its viewers and continues to improve throughout the years. Chinese drama is never about the main character, but instead his or her life is weaved into the life of many others and in the end when we look back we get something words cannot quite describe, but wonderful and magical. They make you laugh with them, cry with them, and hope with them.

As the largest consumer of television drama in the world, drama series are always a trending topic in China. From modern play of young love to wuxia series dealing with martial arts and chivalry, producers push out new series every week. Since the early 1990’s different genres and sub genres of drama has submerged in China, varying from young-adult dramas to sentimental family dramas to ancient palace drams. Love triangles, adapting to society, and family conflicts are also popular reoccurring themes. In ways they are similar to Korean dramas, but Chinese drama focuses more on the overall plot than everyday details.

Different from TV series of other countries, Chinese drama usually come to an end after twenty or forty episodes, resembling the limited-run of Mexican telenovela. Each episode usually lasts up to thirty to forty minutes. There are no multiple seasons and instead of renewing episodes every week, new episodes and upcoming episode trailers are added daily for impatient viewers to see. Most viewers choose to use online websites instead of TV to watch their favorite dramas. Those websites, such as Youku, Letv, and DramaFever are free with a huge variety of Chinese drama available in English subtitles and they even push out the newest Western shows and movies.

Chinese drama had a great start in 2016 with a raise of many young actors and actresses. The Nine-Tailed Fox is a recent Chinese drama I fell in love with. The Nine-Tailed Fox is a Chinese TV series based of the work by Pu Songling on different supernatural stories and folktales about fox spirits and ghosts. The drama is separated into six plots of each of their love stories. The plot is set into action when the magical Mei fruit is stolen from the Qing Qui where the fox clan dwells by Hui Er. The wolf demon’s wife tries to steal the fruit from Hui Er but was killed by his niece Chongting and the exorcist Shi Taipu. Changting pleads Shi Taipu for his protection from the angry wof demon and he stays behind in their mansion as a result. His presence forces all the foxes in the household to hide their identity but Shi soon become suspicious of the family’s behavior and realize the whole family is foxes. But later touched by Chongting’s kindness and love, he realized not all wild spirits are capable of evil. They soon get married but their love soon turned sour when Shi was poisoned by Chongting’s father on the night of the wedding. As both sides fought, Changting takes a deadly spell meant for Shi Taipu from her father and sacrifices herself to protect him. He saves her against his master’s wishes and the two later live happily together in solitude.
Summer is when most new Chinese dramas emerge.

After seeing some of the trailers, I would recommend these dramas for this upcoming summer: Ode to Joy, Love, Life, and Lie, and The Chroncle of Life. Summer is also a time where old time dramas re-air. Scarlet Heart, IPartment, and Palace I II III are among those popular classical been re-aired. With 1.3 billion viewers, C-drama is a huge market for producers and I do not think there is such a thing of being sick of too much drama. I say appreciating every culture’s differences starts with getting to know its television.