Themed Week: School Era Romances
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cnovelsForeword:
It's October and for most places around the world, school is back in full swing, so of course that means it's a good time to talk about school era romances in cnovels! I'll gush about why I love this setting and then discuss three novels in depth with representation from Danmei, Baihe, and Yanqing (BL, GL, and BG respectively) but the rest is up to everyone else if you want to discuss specific works, tropes, authors, etc.
——
I will start this off by noting Her Mountain, Her Sea is my introductory it baihe novel so I will be 1000% biased towards it. Well, I'm pretty biased towards all of these titles so.
Her Mountain, Her Sea mostly follows the high school years of our two main characters, Chi Tang and You Yu, although focusing on Chi Tang's perspective more. Because Chi Tang sounds like 'pond' in Chinese and You Yu sounds like 'swimming/wandering fish', I will affectionately refer to these two as 'Fishpond' .
Both Chi Tang and You Yu come from rather traumatic familial backgrounds. You Yu is from the villages where outright misogyny is practiced due to the backwards culture, and she was nearly denied the right to attend school. You Yu works extremely hard and is the top student precisely because she knows that she has no other way out than schooling and education, but she's shunned in class because of her impoverished status and unique background. On the other hand, Chi Tang's parents are divorced and they clearly spare no love for her, so she is reserved and closed off as a transfer student during the first year of high school. Because of various circumstances, Chi Tang and You Yu become desk mates, and friendship blossoms between them. With each passing year of high school, they become closer and closer, until they finally realize that 'love' would be the better word to define them.
You Yu seems like an archetypal stellar student with a difficult background, but she's written in such a way that it doesn't matter. When she starts getting closer with Chi Tang, the two have various cute moments together, and through interacting with Chi Tang, You Yu learns more about what friendship, love, and family are supposed to be like. With her resilience, she vows to be take care of Chi Tang since Chi Tang has been so caring towards her in her time of need.
Chi Tang isn't the best student and is very withdrawn at the start of the story, making friends with only the music on her phone and earbuds. Upon realizing that You Yu needs help, her kindness shines through in everything she does. Chi Tang has a type of assertiveness that I wish I had at her age, and despite everything that she goes through, she is able to look forward to her future with You Yu by her side.
Her Mountain, Her Sea also starts discussion on gender differences. First, with You Yu's background, there's the acknowledgement that in China and various places of the world, women still can't receive an education despite their wishes. Finally, there's a specific incident that vaguely discusses the social status of lesbians compared to gay men but I will stop here to avoid spoilers.
Fishpond truly will always hold a soft spot in my heart because of their nascent love and that there can be a person who grows to understand you from youth or any age. Their love is You Yu helping Chi Tang with her studies, or Chi Tang pulling You Yu away from her misogynistic dad. Fishpond are also the start of my awakening love for the baihe genre, so I will forever be 1000% biased and thankful.
Danmei: Through the Straight Gates (过门; Guomen) by Priest
"The gay man gives toast to continued health and freedom."
Guomen has both the fortunate and unfortunate fate of being authored by priest. It's fortunate because without priest's way of writing, this story definitely would not have stayed with me as much as it has. The unfortunate thing about it being by priest is that priest has such an impressive collection of works that Guomen, being a mostly realistic, somewhat bittersweet piece, is very much overshadowed.
The majority of the story follows Xu Xilin and Dou Xun throughout their high school and college days. Despite being the same age, Dou Xun is so ahead academically that he is taking the gaokao a year early, but his family is so split (his parents are going through a very messy divorce) that his mother brings him to her friend's house. Dou Xun's mother's friend happens to be Xu Xilin's mother, so Dou Xun and Xu Xilin become inhabitants of the same house and classmates at school. At first, they think that the other is either arrogant or annoying, but become closer and closer.
Dou Xun has a very stubborn personality because of his troubled upbringing in his broken family, so once he and Xu Xilin break the ice and they start getting friendly, Dou Xun latches onto that, and then he later realizes that he's fallen in love. On the other hand, Xu Xilin is quite well tempered, and when faced with this "problem", he first tries to solve it before falling to Dou Xun's advances. However, life steamrolls everyone and due to the strain of everything from their own quarrels to society, they break up in the most bitter of ways. (The reason why this isn't spoilers is because, well, it's the first chapter.)
Reconciliation is a slow and coincidental process, but with ten years more worth of life experience under their belts, Dou Xun and Xu Xilin finally make it. At long last, when at a table surrounded by friends, Xu Xilin can speak his identity and give toast to the important things, health and freedom.
Dou Xun and Xu Xilin seem like a mismatched pair at first but the more I've thought about it I think that as an older pair, they really do complete each other. Dou Xun brings fire and enthusiasm, while Xu Xilin brings calmness and water to the relationship, even if they are not this type of personality in other aspects of life/at work (in fact they are the opposite at work with Xu Xilin being the workaholic and Dou Xun being a distant researcher/assistant professor). I especially enjoy reading about Xu Xilin taking care of problems, and his character makes me understand why Dou Xun is so stubborn sometimes (he's very precious duh). They are a pair that has truly worked through a lot of things, everywhere from the internalized homophobia of their student era to their differing considerations for each other and the future. A key point that I will note was that when I was reading at some points I genuinely wished for their younger, college student selves to break up because they were causing each other and me pain (geez the emotional damage). In the end, though, I'm very glad it all worked out, and Guomen is a story that I will be remembering/reviewing for many years to come.
PS: if someone could double check the tags I've got that'd be great~
It's October and for most places around the world, school is back in full swing, so of course that means it's a good time to talk about school era romances in cnovels! I'll gush about why I love this setting and then discuss three novels in depth with representation from Danmei, Baihe, and Yanqing (BL, GL, and BG respectively) but the rest is up to everyone else if you want to discuss specific works, tropes, authors, etc.
So why school romances?
Because I love the descriptions of youth that undoubtedly will wiggle into these works. Going to school, especially high school and college, is such an important time during a person's life and growth. There's always complaints about how much homework we have, questions about the future, wishes to grow up quicker, just a little bit quicker. While in school, time goes by slowly and quickly; autumn leaves rustle as students bemoan exams; snow lands on the windowsill next to desks as finals are turned in. Spring comes with renewed vigor, and then students escape from school to listen to the crickets chirruping in the summer evening. Perhaps it's because I had a rather plain schooling experience (and marred by COVID as well) that I look to these works as a type of comfort. I also just genuinely enjoy reading about these characters growing up, sharing and relating to their emotions, laughing along when they joke with their friends, and experiencing their young love or first crush, no matter their gender/pairing type.
Especially in cnovel-land, individual stories of growing up, coming of age and finishing high school can have a very dramatic climax in that everyone has to take the gaokao (College Entrance Exam, one of the hardest in the world), and thus many fates and relationships are changed from that one test. There are also various other decisions like deciding which college to go to, whether or not to continue to get a masters in China with another brutal test (考研 kao yan), going abroad, or just having futures that don't overlap that serve as common 'conflict inducers'. I think that these generally embody why a lot of young relationships don't make it, so watching characters having the ideal ending is just satisfying (yes I'm shallow).
School romances also handily lend themselves to one of my other favorite tropes: reconciliation after a long time (the tag is 破镜重圆 po jing chong yuan). For example, a pair had feelings for each other in high school or college, but because of their respective futures/happenings of life/young attitudes, they break it off, only to meet each other by chance years later. When they realize that their affinity is not yet done and they can work on their relationship together, I feel happiness myself because yes, it's idealistic that people who had broken up would meet each other by chance, but the catharsis that I earn with their happy ending after the initial heartbreak is on another level.
Side note- this is slightly off topic but the official JJWXC tag for school/young love is 花季雨季 (hua ji yu ji), or the season of rain and flowers, which is very POETIC and fitting and I love it.
Anyways, now I'm going yap about three specific books. Do note that I had to agonize a bit over picking these three books and there are so manyyy other great books with school era romance elements that others can discuss. The following introductions/summaries of the books are mostly broad and avoid specific spoilers; however, everyone's spoiler threshold is different so please read/avoid accordingly.
Case Studies
Baihe: Her Mountain, Her Sea (她的山她的海; ta de shan, ta de hai) by Fu Hua
Case Studies
Baihe: Her Mountain, Her Sea (她的山她的海; ta de shan, ta de hai) by Fu Hua
——
"Being liked by a girl... would you find it strange?"
...
"Would you find liking a girl strange?"
"No."
"Then I don't think it's strange."
——
light trigger warning: mentions of misogyny
I will start this off by noting Her Mountain, Her Sea is my introductory it baihe novel so I will be 1000% biased towards it. Well, I'm pretty biased towards all of these titles so.
Her Mountain, Her Sea mostly follows the high school years of our two main characters, Chi Tang and You Yu, although focusing on Chi Tang's perspective more. Because Chi Tang sounds like 'pond' in Chinese and You Yu sounds like 'swimming/wandering fish', I will affectionately refer to these two as 'Fishpond' .
Both Chi Tang and You Yu come from rather traumatic familial backgrounds. You Yu is from the villages where outright misogyny is practiced due to the backwards culture, and she was nearly denied the right to attend school. You Yu works extremely hard and is the top student precisely because she knows that she has no other way out than schooling and education, but she's shunned in class because of her impoverished status and unique background. On the other hand, Chi Tang's parents are divorced and they clearly spare no love for her, so she is reserved and closed off as a transfer student during the first year of high school. Because of various circumstances, Chi Tang and You Yu become desk mates, and friendship blossoms between them. With each passing year of high school, they become closer and closer, until they finally realize that 'love' would be the better word to define them.
You Yu seems like an archetypal stellar student with a difficult background, but she's written in such a way that it doesn't matter. When she starts getting closer with Chi Tang, the two have various cute moments together, and through interacting with Chi Tang, You Yu learns more about what friendship, love, and family are supposed to be like. With her resilience, she vows to be take care of Chi Tang since Chi Tang has been so caring towards her in her time of need.
Chi Tang isn't the best student and is very withdrawn at the start of the story, making friends with only the music on her phone and earbuds. Upon realizing that You Yu needs help, her kindness shines through in everything she does. Chi Tang has a type of assertiveness that I wish I had at her age, and despite everything that she goes through, she is able to look forward to her future with You Yu by her side.
Her Mountain, Her Sea also starts discussion on gender differences. First, with You Yu's background, there's the acknowledgement that in China and various places of the world, women still can't receive an education despite their wishes. Finally, there's a specific incident that vaguely discusses the social status of lesbians compared to gay men but I will stop here to avoid spoilers.
Fishpond truly will always hold a soft spot in my heart because of their nascent love and that there can be a person who grows to understand you from youth or any age. Their love is You Yu helping Chi Tang with her studies, or Chi Tang pulling You Yu away from her misogynistic dad. Fishpond are also the start of my awakening love for the baihe genre, so I will forever be 1000% biased and thankful.
Check out the 110% human translation that my friend auspice is updating here
And here is one the ending theme songs for the audio drama (it doesn't have an Eng sub version, someone remind me to make one someday)
Read the original novel here
Read the original novel here
Danmei: Through the Straight Gates (过门; Guomen) by Priest
——
"The gay man gives toast to continued health and freedom."
——
light tw: mentions of internalized homophobia
Guomen has both the fortunate and unfortunate fate of being authored by priest. It's fortunate because without priest's way of writing, this story definitely would not have stayed with me as much as it has. The unfortunate thing about it being by priest is that priest has such an impressive collection of works that Guomen, being a mostly realistic, somewhat bittersweet piece, is very much overshadowed.
The majority of the story follows Xu Xilin and Dou Xun throughout their high school and college days. Despite being the same age, Dou Xun is so ahead academically that he is taking the gaokao a year early, but his family is so split (his parents are going through a very messy divorce) that his mother brings him to her friend's house. Dou Xun's mother's friend happens to be Xu Xilin's mother, so Dou Xun and Xu Xilin become inhabitants of the same house and classmates at school. At first, they think that the other is either arrogant or annoying, but become closer and closer.
Dou Xun has a very stubborn personality because of his troubled upbringing in his broken family, so once he and Xu Xilin break the ice and they start getting friendly, Dou Xun latches onto that, and then he later realizes that he's fallen in love. On the other hand, Xu Xilin is quite well tempered, and when faced with this "problem", he first tries to solve it before falling to Dou Xun's advances. However, life steamrolls everyone and due to the strain of everything from their own quarrels to society, they break up in the most bitter of ways. (The reason why this isn't spoilers is because, well, it's the first chapter.)
Reconciliation is a slow and coincidental process, but with ten years more worth of life experience under their belts, Dou Xun and Xu Xilin finally make it. At long last, when at a table surrounded by friends, Xu Xilin can speak his identity and give toast to the important things, health and freedom.
Dou Xun and Xu Xilin seem like a mismatched pair at first but the more I've thought about it I think that as an older pair, they really do complete each other. Dou Xun brings fire and enthusiasm, while Xu Xilin brings calmness and water to the relationship, even if they are not this type of personality in other aspects of life/at work (in fact they are the opposite at work with Xu Xilin being the workaholic and Dou Xun being a distant researcher/assistant professor). I especially enjoy reading about Xu Xilin taking care of problems, and his character makes me understand why Dou Xun is so stubborn sometimes (he's very precious duh). They are a pair that has truly worked through a lot of things, everywhere from the internalized homophobia of their student era to their differing considerations for each other and the future. A key point that I will note was that when I was reading at some points I genuinely wished for their younger, college student selves to break up because they were causing each other and me pain (geez the emotional damage). In the end, though, I'm very glad it all worked out, and Guomen is a story that I will be remembering/reviewing for many years to come.
The audio drama adaptation of this work is also great; here is the first season ED with English subs. Note that the lyrics are written very well and it's a tearjerker.
Read the original novel here
Yanqing: At Our Best (最好的我们; zui hao de wo men) by Ba Yue Chang An
Read the original novel here
Yanqing: At Our Best (最好的我们; zui hao de wo men) by Ba Yue Chang An
The web drama: With You; same name in Chinese.
——
"He was at his best back then, but I only became my best later; our entire youth divided our best times. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't catch up with that youth anymore, so I could only wave it goodbye."
...
"I suppose it was worth it for me to hold that 'grudge' for so many years."
——
I'll talk about the novel first, and then mention the web drama further along.
This particular novel is the most unique out of the three in that it is written from the first person perspective of Geng Geng, the female main character of the story, in online diary format.
The bulk of the story takes place circa 2002 - 2005 since the SARS epidemic in China is mentioned within the opening two paragraphs of the story. Geng Geng notes that it was because of the outbreak and thus easier exams, along with a pinch of pure luck was she able to get into Zhenhua, the most prestigious high school within her city. When school starts though, she realizes that she is miles behind her peers academically and thus often has low self esteem because of it. However, Geng Geng's struggles in school are somewhat offset by the fact that she has a great deskmate- Yu Huai.
Geng Geng's affinity with Yu Huai starts with their names - the first day they report to high school, they both chuckle at the pun on the name board when their names are next to each other - "耿耿余淮 = 耿耿于怀" "Geng Geng Yu Huai" being an idiom that means 'holding a grudge' or 'holding troubles in one's heart'. Being in the same class, they become desk mates, and as school goes on, Geng Geng finds herself developing a crush on Yu Huai. She supposes that it's very normal, since Yu Huai is a great student, pushing for placement in the national physics olympiad, aiming to go to Qinghua University, and has great looks.
Throughout their three years of high school and being desk mates, they both go through highs and lows. Geng Geng goes from a teenage girl unsure of what she's doing to a brave woman able to do what she really wants, but within that growth, she's always chased after Yu Huai, and in the end, she finally achieves her goal.
The novel has been adapted to both web drama and movie, but as I don't have a high opinion of the movie from what I remember, I will only note the web drama instead. The only large difference in adaptation is that the web drama created a completely new character in Lu Xinghe, an art student who chases after Geng Geng very overtly and creates the School Love Triangle tm with Yu Huai. However, it is done in pretty well so Geng Geng/Xinghe also have a lot of fans and in general I think that the main themes of the story are kept very intact, along with multiple notable scenes and quotes.
Geng Geng's narrative is a very classic coming of age story, but there are a lot of sayings in her entries that are full of nostalgia and read like poems. I personally love the first person perspective of the book; there's a lot of 2000s to 2010s humor and out of all of the 'really good student characters' that one may typically see within school romances, Geng Geng is the most relatable as a struggling student. (I struggle with physics like she does). Additionally, with Ba Yue Chang An being well known for her Zhenhua series where 4 couples get together, Geng Geng and Yu Huai have cameos in the other books of the series, which are great easter eggs to find.
The bulk of the story takes place circa 2002 - 2005 since the SARS epidemic in China is mentioned within the opening two paragraphs of the story. Geng Geng notes that it was because of the outbreak and thus easier exams, along with a pinch of pure luck was she able to get into Zhenhua, the most prestigious high school within her city. When school starts though, she realizes that she is miles behind her peers academically and thus often has low self esteem because of it. However, Geng Geng's struggles in school are somewhat offset by the fact that she has a great deskmate- Yu Huai.
Geng Geng's affinity with Yu Huai starts with their names - the first day they report to high school, they both chuckle at the pun on the name board when their names are next to each other - "耿耿余淮 = 耿耿于怀" "Geng Geng Yu Huai" being an idiom that means 'holding a grudge' or 'holding troubles in one's heart'. Being in the same class, they become desk mates, and as school goes on, Geng Geng finds herself developing a crush on Yu Huai. She supposes that it's very normal, since Yu Huai is a great student, pushing for placement in the national physics olympiad, aiming to go to Qinghua University, and has great looks.
Throughout their three years of high school and being desk mates, they both go through highs and lows. Geng Geng goes from a teenage girl unsure of what she's doing to a brave woman able to do what she really wants, but within that growth, she's always chased after Yu Huai, and in the end, she finally achieves her goal.
The novel has been adapted to both web drama and movie, but as I don't have a high opinion of the movie from what I remember, I will only note the web drama instead. The only large difference in adaptation is that the web drama created a completely new character in Lu Xinghe, an art student who chases after Geng Geng very overtly and creates the School Love Triangle tm with Yu Huai. However, it is done in pretty well so Geng Geng/Xinghe also have a lot of fans and in general I think that the main themes of the story are kept very intact, along with multiple notable scenes and quotes.
Geng Geng's narrative is a very classic coming of age story, but there are a lot of sayings in her entries that are full of nostalgia and read like poems. I personally love the first person perspective of the book; there's a lot of 2000s to 2010s humor and out of all of the 'really good student characters' that one may typically see within school romances, Geng Geng is the most relatable as a struggling student. (I struggle with physics like she does). Additionally, with Ba Yue Chang An being well known for her Zhenhua series where 4 couples get together, Geng Geng and Yu Huai have cameos in the other books of the series, which are great easter eggs to find.
Here is my favored theme song for Geng Geng Yu Huai with Eng subs
It has a locked, half finished online original on JJWXC, but it seems like it was officially published in print in its entirety.
It has a locked, half finished online original on JJWXC, but it seems like it was officially published in print in its entirety.
——
Anyways geez I've blabbed on for more than 2k words so I will stop here. Discussion of all school romance related novels are welcome, including series and the authors, and feel free to throw me recommendations as well! Hope everyone has a great day, and for those who are in school (including myself), hope you ace all tests, midterms and finals and enjoy your time in school~
Anyways geez I've blabbed on for more than 2k words so I will stop here. Discussion of all school romance related novels are welcome, including series and the authors, and feel free to throw me recommendations as well! Hope everyone has a great day, and for those who are in school (including myself), hope you ace all tests, midterms and finals and enjoy your time in school~
PS: if someone could double check the tags I've got that'd be great~
