Story of Minglan Rewatch - Episode 9

[laleia]

Episode 9

(Note re: any observations I make on English subtitles — I’m watching episode 9 on YouTube on the CN DRAMA channel.)

Scene - Papa Sheng tries to get Molan some classes!

• For all that Papa Sheng asserted last episode that he is the master of the household! He makes the decisions! When it comes to actually implementing this decision, he starts by wavering in front of Big Madam’s courtyard (weighing the odds of cajoling her), then decides that’s too difficult and goes to Grandmother instead.
• I don’t know why, but when Papa Sheng plays with the incense (if that’s what he’s doing?), he looks like a little boy trying to hide mischief. Maybe it’s the way he hunches his shoulders? The actor is very effective!
• He tries to be subtle, but Grandmother has his measure. I like how she deflects his first hint (that it’s inappropriate for Molan to be at the school with just her) by suggesting Molan should just stay home. When he says more explicitly what he wants, she punts to Big Madam. Not only does she not want to get in the middle of this, I think she also wants him to jump through some hoops because she, like Big Madam, is miffed about how he wronged Minglan, she’s just more subtle about it!

Scene - Manniang arrives, ugh!

• Nanny Chang is mean to Manniang (nowhere near as mean as the other actual mothers-in-law in this series though) because she thinks Manniang’s background is scandalous. She doesn’t yet know how batshit evil Manniang is!
• When Nanny Chang asks if Gu Tingye is going to make Manniang his legitimate wife, the camera goes to Manniang’s face for a quick second before Gu Tingye is like, of course not. Is this supposed to be our hint that what Manniang really wants is to be Gu Tingye’s main wife?
• On rewatch, it’s clear that the show is trying to signal to us how evil Manniang is from her very first appearance because that specific voice that Manniang does (the slightly-falsetto one) is one that only gets used by Bad Concubines in historical dramas.
• It’s very clear that part of the reason that Gu Tingye falls for Manniang’s wiles is because he desperately wants a family and love, and she provides that in spades.
• Nanny Chang makes clear that she’s not prejudiced against Manniang because of her background! It’s because she (like Minglan) clocked Manniang’s coquetry and knew she was bad news. Ugh, I can’t wait until Minglan takes down Manniang in like 10 episodes.
• Nanny Chang says that if she had stayed with Gu Tingye (instead of going back to Yangzhou), Gu Tingye wouldn’t have suffered but I think that if she had stayed, Madam Qin would 100% have gotten rid of her in a permanent way. So really, both she and Gu Tingye are incredibly lucky she left.

Scene - Papa Sheng gets Molan into lessons!

• I am in full agreement with Big Madam that if Molan is going to attend lessons with the momo, she should get punished first and kneel in the ancestral shine for a few days! I am still salty about that and am as filled with indignation as Big Madam! Sadly, this does not come to be.
• When Papa Sheng tells Big Madam she should not favor one party and slight the other, I want to punch him in the face. I fully understand why Big Madam screams at him the very next line, he is so aggravating.
• They are both lucky Liu-mama reminds them that Kong-momo is coming otherwise it would be very embarrassing if they fought in front of her.
• They translated “让你见笑了” as “You are cracking a joke” but it means something more like “We’ve given you cause to laugh at us [implied: because we’ve shown you something embarrassing].”
• Papa Sheng doesn’t even try to get Big Madam on board (which, granted, I don’t really see any universe where she would be on board), he presents her with a fait accompli. Very anticlimactic. (And also, generally speaking, bad for her power/authority in the household, but he sadly never pays enough attention to that.)

Scene - Lessons start!

• Minglan is sleeping! That is her Thing, that she is always sleepy. See my note in the prelude to the first chapter about the recurring theme of: Who has the power to sleep when they want to?
• Molan and Rulan fighting over the placement of their tables is so petty and so very them.
• The way Molan tries to kiss ass with her poetry and gets shot down is funny. The subtitles translate 抬举 (taiju) as curry favors (“You’re trying to curry favors with me”) whereas what Kong-momo really means is something along the lines of “You esteem me too highly. I don’t really understand poems, etc.”
• The way Kong-momo handles all three Lan sisters is great. On walking in, she observes their dynamics and immediately clocks what each sister is thinking and why they are upset. She has a very specific goal, to teach everyone equally and to quash inter-sibling conflicts. So she resolves the table conflict by making sure everyone’s table is even (making a very explicit point about equality as she does so), quashes Molan’s ambitions of being front of the class, and then immediately quashes Rulan’s sniping. Very even-handed. Papa Sheng and Big Madam could definitely learn something from her.

Scene - Minglan and her servants chat!

• Minglan is working on embroidery for Yanran. I wonder if this is the embroidery Yanran gifts back to Minglan at her baby shower her son’s 100 Days ceremony or whatever. Throughout this scene, she keeps on brushing the cloth with a flat stick. What is she doing???
• The subtitles say: “Why don’t I remember that you have already read it?” What Danju actually says: “Why do I remember you saying that you hadn’t read it?” I think that’s a pretty important distinction (which may be picked up from context based on the subsequent lines). Minglan lied (to her sisters? to Kong-momo?) about not having read the book so as not to create trouble with her sisters.
• Minglan and Xiaotao/Danju are so cute when Xiaotao suggests that Minglan’s sleeping in is because she is trying to feign ignorance but Minglan says it’s just because she has trouble waking up in the morning. (See again: Being sleepy is her Thing.)
• Also, Minglan’s expression when she learns Auntie Wei is coming is adorable.

Scene - Grandmother and Kong-momo gossip!

• Grandmother and Kong-momo are cute. In the novel, I think they both served a prior Empress (?) in the palace when they were young. The Empress had some sort of semi-tragic / bittersweet backstory that there was half a chapter devoted to, which strongly implied that the Empress had also transmigrated from the present day.
• The subtitles claim that Grandmother says “My household is unruly. Can I still be the head of this household? The others each have their own mother…” What she’s actually saying is “My household [i.e., the Sheng household] doesn’t abide by manners/rules. In my courtyard, I can still make the rules. The others have their own mother …”
• Kong-momo observes that Minglan took notes on all the key points in class. In the novel, this is because she transmigrated! And in her past life, she was a lawyer, and therefore when she was in law school she had to get really good at taking notes and summarizing the important points, which came in helpful in her present life in Kong-momo’s classes.
• The subtitles translate Grandmother’s words to say that Minglan attending Kong-momo’s classes is “equivalent to the Crown Prince studying with you.” What she actually says is that attending Kong-momo’s classes is equivalent to being the Crown Prince’s study partner. Per the historical webnovels I’ve read, historically the Crown Prince (and often other princes & important noble sons and daughters taking classes generally) would have one or more companions attending classes with them whose primary purpose was to help motivate the Crown Prince (or the relevant important person) to do better / study harder. It didn’t really matter whether the companion learned anything from the class, as long as the key person improved. Grandmother is implying that Rulan (and maybe Molan) need to attend the classes for their future and they’re important, that Minglan is just there to pad the numbers and motivate her sisters.
• They are very cute when Kong-momo tries to compliment Minglan and Grandmother tries to demur. It gets kind of heartbreaking though when Grandmother gets honest. She loves Minglan and she has authority but she is also very aware of her mortality and that Minglan would have a very difficult fight if she were to die before Minglan is married. The reason Minglan is as cautious and prudent as she is, is not just because she learned her lesson from Xiaodie’s expulsion, but also because she has learned from Grandmother how important it is to plan for the worst-case scenarios and that even if Grandmother wants to use her everything to shield her, Grandmother’s shielding has limits.
• Grandmother says “I’m worried about chaos and tolerance” (关心则乱) — I don’t actually know what that means and couldn’t give you a good translation (I think it just means “I’m worried about chaos” and the next line talks about being worried about tolerance?) but fun fact! That phrase is the pen-name of the author who wrote the Minglan webnovel!
• Kong-momo is so cute when she has to face Grandmother’s vulnerability and take back her fake-angry words from earlier.
• Kong-momo calls Fang-mama Su Qin! Is that the first (only?) time we hear Fang-mama’s name?

Scene - Rulan and Big Madam chat!

• Rulan mentions how hard brewing the tea is. AvenueX has a whole video about how the tea they are brewing in this drama is actually completely different from the tea that we brew in modern day; it’s more similar to the way Japanese people still make matcha, apparently, but an older variation that is largely forgotten and has to be recreated by historical reconstructionists.
• Rulan talks about how she doesn’t have to learn these things because she’s the legitimate daughter and doesn’t have to worry about impressing people the way concubine-born daughters do. Big Madam scolds her for doing so, but you know that the whole reason she thinks this way in the first place is because of Big Madam.
• Rulan also makes the case (early!) that she doesn’t want to marry into a noble family but wants to marry into a commoner family so she has power. She gets what she wants! It’s still not a perfect life for her (her mother-in-law is pretty awful), but honestly it was the only way. She would not have been able to handle marriage into a noble family, and she was self-aware enough to know this. She really did, even at her young age, recognize that she’s not good at ploys and stratagems and needs to be somewhere she has “hard power” (i.e., her birth household’s power and resources) rather than somewhere she has to rely on “soft power” (political capital / social capital / making a good impression / getting people to like her). Not sure how sacrilegious it is to use concepts from my International Relations undergrad classes to describe dynamics in the harem / back courtyard.
• Big Madam knows Rulan pretty well, though. Rather than appeal to her ambition, she first (1) appeals to her crush on Yuanruo (because she thinks Rulan actually cares about Yuanruo), and then (2) appeals to her desire to crush Molan.
• Big Madam tells Rulan that she must marry into a noble family and crush Molan, to avenge her mother for her mistreatment compared to Concubine Lin these past few years. Having been the recipient of a “You must do X to honor / avenge / achieve Y on behalf of your parents” conversation, that’s a lot to put on someone and can fuck them up. You can kind of tell that Rulan does not look happy about this being put on her.
• Note: See how Big Madam has been making tea throughout this conversation, and by the end, has successfully made some and wants Rulan to try again under her supervision.

Scene - Molan and Concubine Lin chat!

• Molan tries to make tea, and complains that the book is too poorly-written when she fails. (Rulan had blamed tea-making being too hard in general.)
• Concubine Lin explains that historical books are for context but not instruction manuals; Molan challenges her to make tea if she knows how.
• Xueniang reports that Auntie Wei has arrived. Concubine Lin is ~concerned~ her secrets will out.

Interlude - Legitimate and Concubine-Born Daughters

Note: I may have made this point before, and will likely make it again, because this is a long drama with recurring themes and I’m honestly not going to remember everything that I said before. In either case, I’m making it here and now.

Given we’ve just seen contrasting conversations between Concubine Lin/Molan and Big Madam/Rulan, I want to make an observation about the difference in how “legitimate” and “concubine-born” daughters are raised and what they are taught.

Historical webnovels in general, and Minglan in particular, often note that one of the reasons legitimate daughters are valued as wives over concubine-born daughters (other than the legitimacy issue in and of itself) is because legitimate daughters are more likely to be taught all the necessary skills by the main wife (their biological mother). Many novels even make a point of noting how if main wives are pissed at their husband’s concubines for being favored, they may make a point of raising those concubines’ daughters into uselessness, teaching them nothing and never taking them out out of the home so they never learn communication skills, or how to conduct themselves in public.

Big Madam is bad at wiles/ploys, but she knows the substantive things that make for an effective head of household and main wife. If nothing else, we see here that she can do things like making tea (a skill that is highly valued among noblewomen) and can give Rulan extra lessons and monitor her to make sure that she learns it correctly. Those skills may be relatively useless but the reason the Lan sisters are learning them now is because it’s an important skill if you marry into a fancy household. Separately and more importantly, she effectively teaches Rulan that the honor of the Sheng household matters, and her livelihood is dependent on the Sheng name.

In contrast, Concubine Lin is good at wiles/ploys, and she can and does teach that to Molan, but that’s all she teaches Molan. In this scene, for example, she says a little about the history of making tea but we don’t see her actually making tea (so we don’t know if she can do so according to Kang-momo’s standards, I guess?) and she doesn’t instruct Molan. Separately, she repeatedly teaches Molan that the Sheng name does not matter, all that matters is the three of them (Concubine, Molan and Changfeng). She teaches Molan selfishness.

In the novel, Molan is explicitly told that Countess Wu doesn’t like her, but likes Minglan, even though both are concubine-born, because Molan essentially thinks like a concubine and not like a wife. When her husband strays, her strategy is to overwhelm him with concubines so he’s not favoring Concubine Chun as much. But that’s what someone does whose primary motive is to retain / dilute her husband’s favor, and is only considering her individual position relative to the concubines. If she cared about her household (not just the Count’s household, but her husband’s future), she would be doing what she could to make sure he focused on his studies and could get a job (as opposed to distracting him with so many concubines he becomes a complete wastrel). She thinks like a concubine and not like a wife.

Now, we can (and I do) think that it’s unfair to ascribe Molan’s husband’s dissolute nature to something that she could change. He generally sucks. But in the novel, you can parallel Molan with Changfeng’s wife, who doesn’t show up in the drama, presumably because there are already too many characters to keep track of. Changfeng’s wife is not attractive (which is a big bone of contention) but she is able to completely reform Changfeng, which may not be something she wanted to have to do but something she nonetheless effectively did. She knew his future mattered if she wanted her future to not suck and changed him into someone who studied and cared about his family. That’s why when Molan wants Changfeng to get involved in her shenanigans post-Grandmother’s poisoning, Changfeng deliberately chooses not to get involved because he has a family that he cares about and he has reformed from the poor judgment and dissolute nature of his youth.

The Minglan drama and the Minglan novel both illustrate not just the concrete “skills” (making tea, financially managing the household) a main wife or a concubine might impart, but also the principles that Big Madam teaches her daughter vs. Concubine Lin.

As a side note, this is one of the biggest drawbacks of Papa Sheng allowing Concubine Lin to raise her children, even though it is a great kindness and favor he does her. (Even though Big Madam probably would have mistreated them (let’s be honest, Big Madam is not that good/kind, she’s only a little good/kind).) Setting aside the selfishness that Concubine Lin teaches Molan (which we know about but others may not), there’s a certain cachet associated with being raised by the main wife (rather than a concubine) that Molan did not get. Minglan being recorded under Big Madam’s name, while a fiction that was symbolic rather than real, was still useful. Later on, Minglan points out to the Empress’s brother that if he continues letting his concubine raise his daughters from his first wife, it’s detrimental to their future marital prospects.

In fact, that’s why all of the Lan sisters competed to be raised by Grandmother pre-timeskip. The cachet of being raised by Grandmother was measurable, because Grandmother came from a noble family, served in the palace (Kong-momo mentions that Grandmother was best at tea-making and these other little things), and is respected in the community. Especially for a concubine-born daughter, being raised by Grandmother would mean she learns (and society perceives her as having learned) “wife skills” and not just “concubine skills”. If Concubine Wei had lived and Minglan continued to be raised by her, even though Concubine Wei was great and would have taught Minglan as much as she could and would have taught her good principles, Minglan would have been at a disadvantage and fewer marriage opportunities would be available to her because of the general perception of a concubine-raised daughter vs. the perception of a girl raised by Grandmother.

Anyways, just thought that was interesting.

Scene - Auntie Wei arrives!

• Minglan and Auntie Wei are so cute!
• I once again point out that all the other servants of the same courtyard wear the same uniform, but Xiaotao and Danju get their own clothes because they are Special Named Characters and need audience recognition.
• LOL, Auntie Wei is so extra, being so protective about her bag, carefully re-washing everything and then testing for poison with her silver needles. (P.S. I googled it just now and I think the silver thing only works on certain kinds of arsenic; which would include most historical arsenic? IDK, I couldn’t find a concise article on it.) All the servants are so confused.
• OMG, there’s a fly flying around in this scene and I fully thought it was like a fruit fly flying around my computer and paused to look for it, before it showed up again later and I realized it was in the computer screen rather than on the computer screen.
• Danju and Xiaotao are so funny when they exchange glances when Auntie Wei does or says something weird; they’re clearly wondering whether this is a country bumpkin thing.
• Poor Minglan is so confused as well.
• Xiaodie showed up! (Even if offscreen.) I admit that on my first watch, I didn’t think she would show up again after she was booted out of the household.
• If you think about it, this is all stuff Minglan knew already. She knew that Xiaodie was innocent and was framed. I suppose that this is just the first time that it occurred to her what the potential implications were.
• Auntie Wei is cute, coming all this way just to warn Minglan that she should be careful. Her advice about testing for poisons is over the top but her advice about inventorying her rooms to make sure nothing was missing or added is actually pretty smart. It’s a common sabotage tactic in webnovels to either (1) steal someone’s stuff and use it to frame them, or (2) put something in someone’s room to frame them.

Scene - Xueniang overplays her hand!

• It’s cute how happy Minglan is at the beginning of this scene.
• Xueniang is so unsubtle here, I don’t understand what her and Concubine Lin’s ultimate game plan was. She says she wants to invite Auntie Wei to a meal but it’s not like Concubine Lin and Minglan are close so there’s no actual reason she would have done so in the ordinary course, so it’s SO OBVIOUSLY suspicious that she does so now. She’s so persistent too!
• Minglan has learned so much from this one conversation (and baited her trap) and Xueniang has achieved nothing.

Scene - More lessons!

• No real observations, but it’s very meditative to watch them do the lesson and honestly, Molan and Rulan are kind of cute when they bicker sometimes. (It’s cute when it doesn’t implicate Minglan.)
• Molan is so needlessly catty. Rulan acts the same but I would never characterize her behavior as catty, she’s too unsophisticated for that.
• Kong-momo is so effective she doesn’t have to speak to provide pointers, just tap her fan.

And that’s it for this ep! Episodes 10 & 11 coming up are two of my favorites!!!