Douban

At least now he has this major win, and I am quite happy for him.

As for the quality of this drama, on Douban it currently has a 7.5 out of 10, which is even higher than last month's The Road to Splendor.

For me, I will unequivocally say this is one of my favorite costume romance dramas of the year.

The quality, the acting, the cast, the themes of this drama are really great.

Overall, this drama failed to compete against Against the Current, or Lan Xiang Ru Gu.

It hasn't breached 7,500 on iQIYI's popularity index and barely breached 8,000 on Youku's popularity index.

This also only has a 5.4 rating on Douban.

It could be said that Yi Ou Chun, or this drama, just had poor timing because it went up against Against the Current at the same time.

In this episode, we are delighted to be joined by Na Zhong, a columnist for China Books Review who writes the What China's Reading column, a deep dive into the Chinese language books that are popular across the Sinosphere.

The What China's Reading column is an essential guide to dark horse books out of Douban, bestsellers that are spicing up literary salons in Beijing, and a host of other titles that we are delighted to share with you, often for the first time in English.

So listen in for a wide-ranging conversation as we discuss Na Zhong's various other literary endeavors, including her best-selling translations of Sally Rooney into Chinese, her new novella, Three, which is out in October, and the general process of writing across languages, whether in English or Chinese.

We're delighted to have Na Zhong on the podcast with us today, and we hope you enjoy our conversation.

Mm-hmm

... um, really, really beautifully.

So a question that I have for you is, how do you find all these books? I know that when I mention you to my Chinese friends, they say the equivalent of, "Oh my God, she's Douban famous." Um, do you use Douban, which is a social media site similar to Goodreads, uh, or how do you keep in track with Chinese literature?

Douban is definitely my home base when it comes to gathering information about Chinese publishing industry because alike Substack or Instagram, where a lot of editors are looking for new talents, Douban is the place where a lot of Chinese editors sort of, like, hang out to scout potential translators, potential writers to publish.

小组又是什么？

这个我知道。豆瓣小组是类似于兴趣小组的组织，在那里聚集着一帮有共同兴趣爱好的人。而且这些小组啊，只有你想不到的，没有你找不到的。比如我前两天看到一个我就是喜欢男二号小组，你说怪不怪？

豆瓣现在那么丰富多彩啊，我马上去看看。

快去吧，没准还能帮你找个女朋友呢。

豆瓣就是个小清新集合站啊，所以很容易在各种小组里找到朋友。

小组又是什么？

这个我知道。豆瓣小组是类似于兴趣小组的组织，在那里聚集着一帮有共同兴趣爱好的人。而且这些小组啊，只有你想不到的，没有你找不到的。比如我前两天看到一个我就是喜欢男二号小组，你说怪不怪？

豆瓣现在那么丰富多彩啊，我马上去看看。

There was this serial drama.

You could get it on Douban, YouTube, and other platforms.

It came out on Hunan TV in 2018 and was called Fengqiu Huang, Untouchable Lovers.

Liu Ziyue and Liu Chuyu are main characters in this series.

Mm.

Uh, one early example was a, like, mutual praise group created on social platform Douban in 2014 even.

In these groups, member just exchanged creative compliments and offered positive feedback to strangers online.

I, I've seen some of these.