好好说话 (hao hao shuo hua) with guest Li Man

This week I sat down with my guest Li Man to discuss this very popular 2022 Rom Com and the role that talk shows and legal issues play in everyday life in China.

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Audio Transcript:

Jane: So hello and welcome to this very first episode of That Chinese Show. Our podcast is a conversation about Chinese TV and culture, and the format is very simple. Each week with a guest, I discuss a Chinese TV series. So rest assured if you are watching one of these shows, this is a no spoiler review. So we won’t be revealing any plot details, but we’ll be talking about themes and we’ll be talking about the characters of course, and the culture surrounding them. So this week for our very first podcast, I’d like to talk to you about Hao hao shuo hua or in English, this has been translated into Simmer Down. I’m not really sure why, but we can talk about that a bit later. So the series is very simple. It follows the adventures of talk show, host Yang Guang. And I’ll have to ask my guest to forgive me for massacring the Chinese on that, but. It’s very elegantly played by the actor Chen Xiao who mediates family [00:01:00 ] disputes. So you sort of think of the Shanghai version of Oprah or Dr. Phil it’s that kind of show. So without any further ado, I’d like to get into it. So thank you. Li Man for joining us, as our guest today. 

Li Man: Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

Jane: I’d like to start by letting Li Man introduce herself. So if you could just tell us a little bit about your life and your family. 

Li Man: I was born and grown up in a small town called Ping Yuan, which is in Northwest Shandong Province. My dad worked in the beer factory. My Mom left the family when I was very young. So I spent much of my childhood with my grandparents. And later on, I started and worked in Beijing from where I had the opportunity to come to London to work.

Okay. Great. Well, that is a super introduction, especially since I think a lot of elements of your life are very relatable in this show. I also think you’re being modest. I mean, just to let our audience know, Li Man studied at one of the best universities in China at [00:02:00 ] Bei Da. you’ll correct me if that’s wrong which is Beijing University. It’s one of the premier universities. And she was one of my very first teachers when I was in China. So how are you enjoying the show? 

 I enjoyed it but I was put in this way, I wouldn’t sit down to watch it, but it was good company when I was cooking.

Jane: Okay, great. Well we’re going to go a little bit further into detail with the show now. So perhaps you could tell me, I mean the show basically it’s billed as a romcom, so romantic comedy and you’ve got three love stories that sort of intertwine. So I’d like to know from you how realistic are the portrayals of the family relationships in the show?

Li Man: I think there are some exaggerations. For example, the relationship in Liao Wang which is the key character Liao Wang’s family, the working relationship between Yang Guang and his female superior Zhi Ling. They don’t really ring [00:03:00 ] true. The rest in general they’re quite realistic.

Jane: So for our listeners Liao Wang is a lawyer. So that’s the principle love interest of Yang Guang. And the twist in this is that she’s representing his estranged mother who’s trying to get back the family house basically. He did not grow up with his mother. He does not talk to his mother and this lawyer represents the estranged mother. So that’s how they come into contact with each other. So sort of a story of a guy who mediates family disputes, but you can tell he’s got a lot on his own plate. So Zhi Ling is his boss so this is Yang Guang’s female boss, you know, sort of a woman in her forties, a very strong character very beautiful. What is it about her that rings false to you? 

Li Man: The working relationship between Yang Guang and Zhi Ling. I mean, the relationship is just too relaxed. If you work in a media being quite a famous host for this talk show, I’m sure you have to work very [00:04:00 ] hard .

Jane: No, and I think you’re right. It’s something I noticed about this show too, is that you know, The focus are these love stories and so the characters spend a lot of time sitting around at their desks, talking about other things, you know, perhaps that this is impossible, it really can’t show how a working TV show would look like. Although I have to say on Apple TV+ “That Morning Show”, that’s a Western show for those of you don’t know. And that, that you do see a high octane early morning show and the way that people are just working themselves to death and I think China would be very similar and it is an extraordinarily relaxed atmosphere for a show that’s being aired on national TV. So I definitely join you in that reservation, but yeah, that’s true. So, their relationship is a bit more like a pretext. The next thing is how realistic do you find the love stories? Because they move in an extraordinarily slow pace in this show. I mean, this is a 40 some episode show so you do have to fill the episodes, but how realistic is that?

Li Man: I don’t find it developed [00:05:00 ] slowly. Not at all. I think it’s quite normal speed. I can’t speak for, for anyone of course, but maybe if you ask a person who is in their twenties or in their thirties, they would probably give you a different answer, but I’m in my early forties so I would say. It didn’t develop slowly at all, but we also believe if the relationship moved too quickly, too fast it won’t last long. 

Jane: Okay, this is interesting. Cause I think this points to a bit of a difference in, at least American entertainment, Chinese entertainment. I mean, it takes them 16 episodes to exchange WeChat, you know, most American TV shows have 16 episodes in the whole season. So the fact that we’re at episode 16, that, you know, he just gets her WeChat information. I wonder if this doesn’t point to a larger cultural difference. People do take a bit longer in China to get to know each other. Your background is important. What your family thinks is something that is very [00:06:00 ] important to the characters in this show. Would you say that’s also something you’ve noticed? 

Li Man: Yeah, I agree because it’s not only, you know, it’s two persons, It is also the two families and later on, so everybody has to be very cautious when they get into a relationship and we as a Chinese, we all know. And normally we will have, we have a saying say, when you get married, it’s not you and your wife or your husband get married, it’s your two families get married. So if you jump into that relationship too fast, you will have trouble later. So it’s a better to know the person or the family behind, more before you start a serious relationship. 

Jane: Okay. That’s interesting. I have to say. I felt like one of the reasons this moved so slowly was, and I really would be interested in getting your feedback on this, is that the characters are very slow to open up to each other, especially to share information. It’s quite obvious to me that some of these episodes could have completely disappeared if some [00:07:00 ] of the characters had just opened up or said, look, my family isn’t going to accept this. Let’s talk about it. How can we work this out? But a lot of the motors of action in the show are characters hiding things from each other. I’m thinking of a moment where Yang Guang goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure his family does not see the show in which, you know, his love interest is appearing because she sort of this enemy of the family, right.

Li Man: Actually I’m on your side in regarding this, this question, because personally I would just tell and share. But it’s, I think probably it depends on their characters and how the people behind how designed these characters.

Jane: But you didn’t find it unrealistic— 

Li Man: I don’t find unrealistic. I I’m aware of people around me who quite slowly to open up.

Jane: There’s a dimension to this show that I think our listeners might find really interesting is, you know, our, the love interest of Yang Guang is a lawyer. So law and [00:08:00 ] legal problems play a big role in the show. We don’t really know what that’s like. Could you address this for our listeners and tell us how the average Chinese person views the law in China and views lawyers in particular?

Li Man: I think this is a very interesting question because I think law actually plays an important role in ordinary Chinese people’s lives. The idea is hopefully we won’t need it, but it is important to understand it. An example came immediately into my mind is actually my granny, her favorite show is called, “Jing ri shuo fa”, which translated into English, it’s called Legal Report. It’s a daily program is from CCTV one. I have to say, CCTV is not cameras. CCTV is China Central Television. So that report uses real cases, but tell the audience, in a story, how can I say it presented like a [00:09:00 ] story, but it’s real cases. So Granny loves it. She watch it every day at lunch time. 

Jane: Wow. That’s really interesting. That’s a lot like our show actually. 

Li Man: Yeah. But w