Maybe she was feeling a sense of loss, too: Surprisingly, she began to watch along with me. At that point, my sister and I only texted once every few months, usually to discuss our father’s caretaking. One day, I decided to text my sister what I might have normally told my mother - that she had to watch this show.
All about my mom viki full#
I began to understand why Asian dramas are so popular: While Asians are often relegated to bit and stock roles in American television, these shows put Asians at the heart of the action, participating in the full spectrum of human drama.Īll the while, as I watched “Yanxi Palace,” I found myself missing my mother more than ever. After all, American culture and Hollywood have long been the lingua franca of global entertainment. Whiteness came to organize my consciousness, as it has for large swaths of the world.
I grew up in a mostly white town where survival meant assimilation. Within two weeks I watched 70 episodes.įunny as it might seem, what moved me most was the simple fact of seeing an entire cast speaking Mandarin. Along the way, she falls in love with Fuheng, a palace guard, becomes a concubine of the emperor and gets entangled in all the deceit and machinations of palace life. “The Story of Yanxi Palace” takes place during the 18th century in Beijing and tells the story of Wei Yingluo, a palace maid who enters the Forbidden City to investigate her older sister’s death. I started with one of the most popular dramas. While Asians are often relegated to bit and stock roles in American television, these shows put Asians at the heart of the action. Apps such as Rakuten Viki and iQiyi have been feeding this bottomless appetite, with the subscription base of Rakuten Viki growing by more than 80 percent since the pandemic began.
All about my mom viki tv#
China is the second-largest market for TV programming after the U.S., and Netflix has been ramping up production of Asian dramas because of booming demand. One research firm estimated in 2019 that over half the world’s new TV dramas were now coming from China. Without my realizing it, Chinese TV - which dates back to 1958 - had become an enormous export over the past decade. Perhaps these dramas were a form of escape, her only connection to her childhood in China and Taiwan. Before my mother died, she was constantly hunched over her laptop, mesmerized by her favorite shows. When I was young, she and her friends would share entire VHS tape sets of shows sent from Taiwan. That felt natural: My mother also loved watching dramas. When the pandemic descended, I turned to Chinese dramas to ease my anxiety. After our mother died in 2015, it was hard to imagine that our relationship could ever improve. Because I lived closer to my parents, I managed all the day-to-day caretaking from afar, my sister lobbed suggestions that felt like criticisms. My relationship with my sister soon worsened. Around the same time, our mother found out she had pulmonary fibrosis. Twelve years ago, our father had a stroke and suffered from aphasia. For years we weren’t especially friendly and spoke only when necessary. While my sister and I have always gotten along, our relationship bears the tension of that childhood dynamic. Because my sister was more obedient and a better student than I was, I perceived that she was the favored child. When we were young, I barreled through Michigan forests on my bike while she buried her head in Nancy Drew books. The joke is true, but my sister and I have never been close. Others joke that my parents got busy fast.
When I tell people my sister is 14 months older than me, some marvel at how close we must be.
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