Be Yourself

By Tiffany Imparato

This week I was challenged to watch a movie or tv series from another culture in language other than English and utilize subtitles. I selected a Chinese series I found on u tube called 机智的上半场 or Be Yourself; which is a college aged drama following four very different young girls being their journey at school. First we are introduced to Xia on a her journey to school on a crowded subway through the city as she anxiously awaits arriving at the university. The city that she is traveling within is build up with massive sky scrapers and seems to have very modern architecture. Throughout her journey she is texting and taking many selfies which I think is universal for young women no matter what culture they are raised in. Xia appears to be a shy type of girl that is dressed very humble and may be considered a “tom boy,” by American standards. Next we meet Fan who is dressed very stylish and has people adoring over her she appears to be wealthy and privileged. One thing that I found odd is all the students appear to be checking into school alone in our culture often parents help children on move in day as it is an important event. When Fran arrives at her dorm she meets Yang who is a nerd type girl that is very inviting. The dormitory is cold and give a jail like feeling in my opinion they are not very homey. We finally meet the fourth roommate Huangfu who is a very shy girl that is very sad as she is missing her family. It should be exciting to see these three different girls cohabitate as they are obviously from various backgrounds. Some differences I noticed was the oddly small washer in the college laundry room, and the extremely modern buildings and structures throughout the episode. I also found it odd that they were required to pay for utilities in a dorm room on campus. The food that I saw in the episode was very different to me and I honestly was not able to make out what was on the plates. Some things I noticed that were similar was the weather and that the campus had nice grassy areas for the students to relax. Even though the girls are from an extremely different culture it was obvious that they enjoyed texting, nice things, and boys just like girls from many different cultures. There was however an unspoken hierarchy amongst the girls where Fran because she has money and nice things was treated a bit better I wonder if this is true of Chinese culture. Watching this show opened my eyes to many differences and similarities in just one episode and hope to continue to follow the journey of the girls and learn more.