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Review: Women in Beijing (北京女子圖鑑) (2018)
I was really pleasantly surprised this drama. It was entertaining and thoughtful. I'd definitely recommend this to people who like dramas about everyday life.
Spoilers.
Story
Our main character, Chen Keyi, had always dreamed of going to Beijing. She was from Sichuan but her mother was from Beijing and she'd always had a somewhat fantastical view of what Beijing would be like. The drama followed Chen Keyi in her career and love life. It was a drama about learning from life.
What I liked about this drama was that it wasn't super dramatic. What I mean by that is that Chen Keyi definitely stumbled through life, as we all do. But she would learn from both good and bad experiences, and use that knowledge to be a better version of herself, or a savvier version of herself. Yes, she went through bad breakups and made poor decisions at work, but nothing is ever the end of the world, and she learned to overcome those troubles to understand herself better and the world around her.
The show ended with Chen Keyi now striking out on her own, with both the career skills and professional and personal network she'd built up in her time in Beijing. She was single, but there was a man that she knew cared for her and perhaps it was enough to know that he cared.
Production
The production value of this drama was pretty good. Each episode began with a headline and the episodes (which were fairly short, only about half an hour) would quite efficiently focus on that topic. I thought the post-credits scenes were really interesting too as a supplement to the events of the episodes.
I thought the acting was pretty good too. I'd never watched Qi Wei but I thought she was a good fit for Chen Keyi, who at times was a stumbling girl, sometimes an arrogant one, and slowly grew into a mature woman who was better equipped to face the world. I also enjoyed the fact that the supporting cast was filled with actors I knew well and they really enriched the overall quality of the drama.
Characters
There are A LOT of characters so I'm going to try to go through them as efficiently as possible.
Chen Keyi
Chen Keyi was our main character, a naive girl who really wanted to make it big in Beijing. In her first days in Beijing, she was quickly disenchanted, seeing how cruel and cutthroat people in Beijing could be. But she decided that she had to be just as cutthroat to get where she wanted to be. She reinvented herself, calling herself Chen Ke, and choosing a Western name Evelyn. She hustled her way through jobs, and for most of the drama, she stayed in a job where she had room to grow, room to manage people, and a good boss.
In terms of her love life, it was a revolving door (over the course of many years), and through each of her boyfriends, she learned something about herself and her own dreams and hopes. Every time she broke up with a man, there was some understanding on her part why it didn't work out. I'll talk about the love interests below.
By the end of the drama, I think Chen Ke was ready to try something a little different. She'd tried jobs and she'd tried so many relationships. So it was time to try something outside the box. She'd try to start her own business, and she'd try being single for a while. And whether or not it worked, she wouldn't be too tied up about it, because life goes on regardless. And even if things didn't work out, it didn't diminish her worth because she had family and friends who cared about her.
Friends
Xiaoyun
Xiaoyun was Keyi's friend from back home. I don't remember her status at the beginning of the drama, but she clearly didn't have the same dreams as Keyi did.
During the course of the drama, she got married and had several kids. Chen Ke had caught her husband being way too cozy with another woman. Chen Ke had taken pictures and thought of showing them to Xiaoyun, but had changed her mind and deleted them after she had a talk with Xiaoyun, in which Keyi realized that things were more complicated for Xiaoyun, because she was a stay at home mom and hadn't worked for a while. Things were very different when she had kids to care for, and it wasn't just so simple as divorcing.
Later on, Chen Ke realized that Xiaoyun already kind of knew that there was something between her husband and the other woman, and at that point, I think Chen Ke had been glad that she hadn't exacerbated the situation, because clearly Xiaoyun wanted to deal with things in her own way.
At the end of the drama, Xiaoyun visited Keyi in Beijing with her kids and she seemed to be doing well. I assume she was still with her husband then, but I guess they cleared things up between them. Though Chen Ke loved Xiaoyun very much, the kind of traditional relationship that Xiaoyun had was very much not for Keyi, in which a woman was somewhat bound by her family commitments.
Wang Jiajia
Jiajia was one of Chen Ke's first friends in Beijing. As Chen Ke had run into major problems with her creepy roommate, Jiajia let her stay with her. Jiajia was a friend from back home, and she was hustling hard in Beijing. She was living in a small room in the basement of an apartment building. But Jiajia's theory was that in Beijing, all that mattered was how she presented herself to the outside world.
Jiajia had casual flings with men to get money from them in a sort of...sugar relationship? But very casual in that they were very short-term. Jiajia had introduced Chen Ke to this kind of relationship as a way to move up.
Though Jiajia was a bit of a risk-taker and always had her eyes on the glamourous, I think she did still care for Keyi, giving her tips and introducing her to friends.
Jiajia and Chen Ke lost contact and years later Chen Ke had found out that she went to Shenzhen (I think). When Chen Ke found out, she mused that she'd lost contact with this friend to the point that she didn't even know when she'd left the city.
Juzi
Juzi was one of the friends that Chen Ke had been introduced to by Jiajia. They'd met at a club. Juzi stuck with Chen Ke throughout her time in Beijing, and by the end of the drama, she was married and pregnant. She was also brought on to help Chen Ke with her business.
Benben
Benben was the other of the friends that Chen Ke had been introduced to at the club by Jiajia. She was portrayed as a bit more "uncouth" (judging by her name). But she was kind and open about her feelings.
During the drama, she got married to a man that Keyi and Juzi thought was a catch. He was handsome and seemed like he took things seriously. At the wedding, Benben had mentioned that she really hoped that Chen Ke found her love eventually. And when Chen Ke had gotten divorced, it was Benben who was really heartbroken for her.
Benben was also brought on to help Chen Ke with her business.
Yao Mei
Yao Mei was a coworker at one of Chen Ke's earlier jobs, who also became her roommate.
Yao Mei was an opportunist, always trying to be on the "right team" to lift herself up. In that job where they both worked, the team was headed by two managers, and while Yao Mei was very insistent that Liu Jing was the right political choice, though Chen Ke was very sympathetic to the other manager, Zhang Chao. In addition, Yao Mei got plastic surgery and successfully cozied up to Gao Fei to climb up the ladder, though she was gotten rid of after being found out by Gao Fei's wife.
Yao Mei disappeared, and she was only mentioned when Gao Fei told Chen Ke that Yao Mei had showed up to his parents' home with a child she said was theirs.
Years later, Chen Ke and Yao Mei bumped into each other again at a place that was kind of like a spa, which was owned and run by Yao Mei. Yao Mei had become a famous writer, though it was made clear that she wasn't actually a well-written person, just someone who'd written books that sold well.
She was brought on to Chen Ke's business at the end of the movie.
Lu Jiakai
Jiakai was an old school friend of Chen Ke's. He'd moved to Beijing as well and had become a real estate agent. They'd connected when Chen Ke was planning on getting a place of her own.
Over the years, they came to be really close friends, Jiakai supporting her emotionally but also with logistical stuff like helping out when her mom came to Beijing.
I really thought Jiakai was going to be the endgame love interest but I'm quite pleasantly surprised that they stayed good friends throughout.
He was also to help Chen Ke with her business at the end as he was good at networking.
Liu Xiameng
Mengmeng was Jiakai's girlfriend. When Chen Ke first met her, she was a bit eyerolly at Mengmeng because she acted very youngish and I guess Chen Ke thought it was a little cringe. But over time, when it became clear that Jiakai and Mengmeng were dating long term, we came to see that Mengmeng was kind and friendly, just a little overexcited.
Romantic Interests
Yang Dahe
Yang Dahe was Chen Keyi's boyfriend from university. At the beginning of the drama, Chen Keyi was trying to get a hold of him through phone, but he was busy at the hospital because his mom was ill. Eventually Dahe broke up with Keyi because he knew her dream was to be in Beijing and he couldn't tie her down to him because he foresaw that he'd have to be taking care of his mother back at home in the long run.
Dahe had told Keyi that he had found someone else he'd liked, implied to be a nurse at the hospital. However, years later, when Dahe and Chen Ke met, the wife (who was indeed the nurse), wanted to clear things up with Chen Ke and told her that they actually had only dated after Dahe had broken up with her.
Nonetheless, when Chen Ke met up with Dahe, there was a sense of longing and regret. She saw how loving Dahe and his wife were, that they even had kids. She'd just divorced then, so she was a bit sensitive about it. But it hurt that she gave up such a loving man for Beijing, and at that point, she was not in a good spot. But as well, if Dahe did not let her go, she might have resented him for being the one to tie her down from fulfilling her full potential.
Wu Hao
We first met Wu Hao through Jiajia. Jiajia and Chen Ke were shopping and Chen Ke saw a dress she liked, but it was too expensive so she didn't want to buy it.
What Jiajia did was call up Wu Hao, with whom she'd spent time with only once before. She then asked the worker at the shop to praise her when she wore the dress so that Wu Hao would then buy it for Jiajia, though the dress would actually be for Chen Ke.
Later on, Wu Hao called up Chen Ke again to spend time. They went to dinners which seemed to always be attended by rich men and random women. Through Chen Ke, we saw that those women, like Chen Ke, were all just there to suck up to the guys. They were forced to acknowledge facts that were straight up wrong, or do party tricks, etc.
Chen Ke was a bit disillusioned when she saw Wu Hao spraying down his clothes and he explained that it would be difficult to explain to his wife. And it was then that Chen Ke realized that he was already married. Nonetheless, Chen Ke used this get-together to jump up to a better job and she never saw Wu Hao again.
Zhang Chao
Zhang Chao was one of the two managers at the job she worked at with Yao Mei. While Liu Jing (the other manager) was shown to be well-liked, Zhang Chao was the workaholic who was always asking people to do overtime with him. However, because of these politics, Chen Ke came to sympathize with him. Eventually, they started a relationship.
Things started to fracture between them when he didn't seem to disapprove of her wanting to advance her career and make more money. Afterwards, things started to tumble one after the other.
On her birthday, Zhang Chao bought LV for her, but instead of the handbag she wanted to badly, it was a camisole. In a post-credit scene, it was shown that the handbag hadn't arrived in time for her birthday, and that was why Zhang Chao had rushed to buy the camisole for her. Nonetheless, it really ruined Chen Ke's mood for her birthday as it was extremely obvious that she wanted the bag (it was her desktop wallpaper). Later on in the night, they went to a buffet where Chen Ke just found Zhang Chao's behaviour kind of tasteless and unclassy.
But instead of breaking up with him to his face, she just left him without saying anything. Soon afterward, she had gone to the LV store and bought the bag for herself.
Yu Yang
Yu Yang was a client that Chen Ke and Gu Yingzhen were working on. At this point in time, Chen Ke was very wary of young men clients because she didn't want to have to sell herself to get the job. As such, Chen Ke avoided having to meet with Yu Yang alone and that enraged Gu Yingzhen because she had found out that Yu Yang had planned to go with another company. What happened was that Chen Ke met up with Yu Yang again to apologize. She had too much to drink and confessed that she needed to secure him as a client or else she would lose her job, and Yu Yang kind of took pity on her. I think at that point he did already like her a bit, and that was why he cut off his agreement with the other company (otherwise you don't just do that out of pity). Chen Ke was so drunk that she threw up in the LV bag.
Yu Yang later met up with Chen Ke to give her a new bag because she'd thrown up in the LV one, and it was kind of a symbol of a new relationship for Chen Ke, as she was so obsessed with the LV one during her relationship with Zhang Chao.
Yu Yang and Chen Ke began dating afterward, but it was supposed to be a secret. Chen Ke would join Yu Yang as he went to karaoke bars, but she was only introduced as his assistant. She would bring her laptop and work while he would sing and talk with people at the clubs.
During this period of time, Chen Ke was in a weird spot in which she had access to the high class life but she was also not part of it. She wanted to get her own apartment but even though she was dating Yu Yang, he was not going to buy it for her, and instead he just said he would buy a nice painting for her new apartment when she got it.
However, she'd also gotten a little too comfortable. There was a time when she was shopping with Gu Yingzhen and recommending her to check out the really expensive underwear, which is in bad taste because you're telling your own boss that you use nicer things than them. But Gu Yingzhen felt that dating Yu Yang was causing Chen Ke to look down on people. There was a point in the drama in which a client was late, and Chen Ke left the meeting when he finally arrived because she was so angry. It was revealed that the client was late because his mother was very ill, but the client had already blacklisted the company. I don't think her dating Yu Yang was the reason that happened, but I think it was a period of Chen Ke's life where she thought there was a way that things happened in the world and she didn't realize that things were not as they seemed. When it came to clients there was supposed to be room to be flexible, and in a similar way, she couldn't see that her relationship with Yu Yang wasn't what she thought it was.
Chen Ke had thought that she and Yu Yang would be dating to marry, but he did not feel the same way. In particular, he was only interested in marrying other people from the same class as him, as after he and Chen Ke broke up, it was revealed that he would be marrying a woman from a rich and well-connected family. Chen Ke was just entertainment for him this whole time.
Huang Yuebin
Huang Yuebin was a director that Chen Ke had met. There was to be product placement in a show, and Chen Ke was at the set to ensure the product placement shot went well.
Huang Yuebin was a huge film snob, and while dating him, Chen Ke became somewhat of a dramatized, overly romantic version of herself, using all sorts of pet names and trying really hard to fit his lifestyle. She started dressing differently, and despite Jiakai telling her that they were not a good fit, she wouldn't see it.
Chen Ke asked Huang Yuebin to film another commercial for their company. During the filming, he got into a huge argument about props and such, and went so far as to insult and put on blast the client company, which in term had Chen Ke's company blacklisted. Needless to say, the relationship did not work out.
Soon after, Chen Ke saw Huang Yuebin at the mall, dating a woman who seemed to be rich (judging by the expensive bag she was wearing), so it kind of put things into perspective that Huang Yuebin was maybe only dating rich women for financial gain (as at one point, Chen Ke did buy things for Yuebin).
Wei Qi
Wei Qi was a cousin of Xiaoyun. He was very handsome and nice. Not completely on th esame wavelength as Chen Ke, but very very nice.
At one point, Chen Ke was moving houses. Wei Qi had brought flowers to her old place, so he tried to call her, only to find that he could not reach her. I'm not sure why that happened, if Chen Ke had purposely tried to avoid Wei Qi, or if it truly had been an accident.
I think it would be more interesting if it was the latter, as the contrast to Wei Qi was He Zhi, the other man that Chen Ke was speaking with a lot at the time, who had delivered a gift to Chen Ke but brought it to the right house. And that's important because Chen Ke ended up marrying He Zhi.
He Zhi
He Zhi and Chen Ke met when they were both taking driving lessons. He Zhi was the one who was always trying to start a conversation with her, exchanging numbers with her, etc. As mentioned, when Chen Ke moved to her new place, He Zhi had sent her a gift, and it's implied that that was the beginning of their courtship, as they were married the next episode.
He Zhi worked for the tax agency, which was a stable job but didn't pay as much as Chen Ke's job in the private sector, but He Zhi was complacent.
His biggest vice was that he enjoyed gaming too much, mainly mahjong and other gambling-adjacent hobbies. In particular, he would invite his friends over and they would eat and smoke and play and that's all they would do. So when Chen Ke came hom tired and he told her to make food for them all, obviously it was a bit insulting.
Chen Ke tried several times to get him to stop. One time she pretended to get drunk so that He Zhi would stop playing and take care of her, but it didn't work. Chen Ke even called the police anonymously, reporting suspected gambling, but that didn't stop him.
What broke the camel's back was when Chen Ke talked about having a baby with He Zhi. She reasoned that if they wanted to have a child, they'd need to move into a bigger apartment. However, the apartment they were currently living in was under the name of He Zhi's father, which caused complications if they wanted to sell the apartment to put the money towards a new apartment. The struggle was that since the money from the old apartment belonged to He Zhi's father, then he should have a name on the new apartment. But Chen Ke also argued that she was currently footing much of the bills for both her and He Zhi's living expenses. It was messy, and during the argument, Chen Ke saw that He Zhi was not on her side.
They later divorced. He Zhi said that things would not have been like this if they'd had a baby, but Chen Ke said that divorcing would just have been more difficult. Benben later revealed to Chen Ke that He Zhi had called up all of her friends to try to help the situation though clearly it did not work.
Zhu Chaoyang
Zhu Chaoyang was a young man who worked at one of the clients' companies. He had delivered a sample of his company products to Chen Ke, and was extremely warm about it, going so far as to saying some things that were cutesy and a bit unprofessional (you probably shouldn't say momoda in a work text).
Zhu Chaoyang was hitting on Chen Ke HARD when they met up. He'd come from the gym, and flashed his abs to Chen Ke when taking off his sweater. Later, he invited Chen Ke to play badminton, which they did, and afterwards, he very aggressively invited himself over to her apartment, where he appeared to her without his shirt on and then made a move on her.
They started dating, but it became clear that they were not a good match. Chaoyang was incredibly possessive, to the point that he was blocking Chen Ke's business contacts on her phone so she wasn't receiving work messages. Chaoyang was also borrowing money from people to buy a car so he could pick her up from work. He'd gone through Chen Ke's phone (while playing games on it) and seen conversations in which he felt belittled for not being at a place in his life where he was well-matched with Chen Ke.
Chen Ke eventually of course had to break things off. Chaoyang tried to wait outside her apartment but she took an alternate route to go home. They were just too different people at this time.
Xu Siming
Dr. Xu was the doctor taking care of Chen Ke's mother back home. She'd met him towards the end of the drama. He was a single dad, and a pretty kind and easygoing guy.
When Chen Ke was preparing to go back to Beijing, Dr. Xu asked Chen Ke if she would wait for. She dodged the question, implying that she couldn't. But it wasn't because she didn't like him, but more because she couldn't let herself be tied down by a relationship in that way.
Instead, when Xu Siming came to visit her in Beijing, he continued to care for her wellbeing, and maybe that kind of care and love was enough for them.
Other
Mom
Chen Ke's mom was a Beijing woman who'd moved to Sichuan and had brought up Chen Ke as a single mom. At the beginning, she'd taken Chen Ke to meet guys but there were all kind of...unclassy. Eventually, Chen Ke's mom let her go to Beijing, implying that she knew she couldn't really do anything to stop her from dreaming and wanting to go.
Chen Ke's mom didn't really exert that much influence on her life. Of course, she liked it when she thought Chen Ke was dating nice guys, but otherwise, she didn't have a big say in her relationships, even when she got divorced.
Chen Ke's mom had health problems relating to her eye, and that was how Chen Ke met Dr. Xu.
Wang Tao
Wang Tao was the classmate that Chen Ke stayed with when she first got to Beijing. Though he was friendly with her, we soon saw that it was actually creepy behaviour.
While he was kind to Chen Ke, it was because he was already thinking of treating her like his girlfriend instead of as a friend. When he saw her cleaning up around his house, he was pleased because he felt like she was his girlfriend already.
He came onto Chen Ke which she obviously rejected, saying that she had a boyfriend (Yang Dahe). Wang Tao ignored it, but Chen Ke eventually got him off her with physical violence. Chen Ke obviously wanted to leave as soon as possible, but Wang Tao had found a job for her, which she took, even if it was a receptionist position, because she needed it badly.
Years later, when Chen Ke met Wang Tao again, he was married to a woman who was an interpretor. It seemed she was well-respected and they were to fly out the day after the meet up to go out of country. During that meet up, Wang Tao was extremely smug, clearly wanting to show off his wife to his friends and especially the woman who rejected him. What a creep.
Liu Jing
Liu Jing was one of the two managers at one of the first jobs that Chen Ke met. She was the manager that Yao Mei really put her trust behind.
When Yao Mei was found out by Gao Fei's wife, Yao Mei was of course very frazzled, but she took out her anger on Liu Jing. It was revealed in a post-credit scene that it was Liu Jing who had recommended that Yao Mei cozy up to Gao Fei. So of course when Yao Mei got into trouble because of it, she blamed Liu Jing.
Liu Jing was generally more well respected than Zhang Chao because of her family relations, but I believe her family relations kind of fell through later, which caused Liu Jing to stumble a bit as well.
Gao Fei
Gao Fei was an upper manager. Chen Ke had done some work for him, but she was extremely wary of the fact that he was prone to affairs, so she tried to steer clear of him, and that's how Yao Mei found an in.
There was a scene in which Gao Fei was helping Yao Mei with the zipper on her dress, which was clearly Yao Mei's attempt to cozy up. It was seen by Zhang Chao, Liu Jing, and Chen Ke who'd all just quietly waited outside. Gao Fei was eventually found out by his wife and the affair ended.
As mentioned, Yao Mei had showed up to Gao Fei's parents' place with their child but I think she was refused.
By the end of the drama, however, Chen Ke actually sought out Gao Fei to be a consultant to her business. She acknowledged that his personal life was a mess, but I think she still respected him as a business mind. It actually took me by surprise that she would still respect him, but I like that nuance, rather than a totally "good or bad" approach to people.
Gu Yingzhen
Gu Yingzhen was upper management at another company. Chen Ke had met her because Gu Yingzhen and Gao Fei were acquainted. Soon after, Chen Ke had hit up Gu Yingzhen to interview for her company. It was getting this job that began the fracture between her and Zhang Chao. But this job was where Chen Ke learned the most and stayed for the longest.
Gu Yingzhen was an important mentor to Chen Ke, particularly at the beginning when Chen Ke was making mistakes. Gu Yingzhen yelled at Chen Ke and was hard on her. We saw this multiple times, when she had nearly lost Yu Yang as a client, and when she had lost that client for not being sympathetic to his family situation. Through that all, Chen Ke valued her as a mentor.
Gu Yingzhen had been twice divorced, and during the course of the drama, she was married a third time. Her marriage was the kind of marriage that Chen Ke wanted to have, in which her husband respected her enough to put her name on shared property.
At the end of the drama, Gu Yingzhen was pushed out of the company due to changing upper management. Chen Ke left the company at that time too, as she was loyal to Gu Yingzhen.
Staff
Chen Ke had a few staff. I don't remember their names, but there was Ying'er, another woman with short hair, and a man who was young but had a kid lol. These were the staff that stayed with her the longest as manager.
Xu Sibo
Sibo was Xu Siming's son. He was a talkative boy and Chen Ke found him endearing.
Themes
Change
During Chen Ke's journey, she could only move forward. As she moved further along, she realized more and more that she couldn't return.
When Chen Ke went back home to get her papers in order for the trip to Hong Kong, she realized that all her friends were in different stages of their lives. For example, several of the female friends were talking about kids while she hadn't even gotten married yet. There was nothing to talk about. And just as Chen Ke's mom couldn't go back to Beijing, Chen Ke could not go back to Sichuan.
This was also the case in which Chen Ke learned about the truth of her breakup with Yang Dahe. At the time of the breakup, they still loved each other, but they can't go back now. Yang Dahe was married and had kids. And she now had her roots in Beijing.
Identity
When Chen Ke was still in Sichuan, others noted how Chen Ke always spoke in Mandarin and rarely in Sichuanese. Her mom explained to friends that she preferred it, and we know it was because she longed to go to Beijing and this was her way of connecting with the place.
However, I found it really interesting that Chen Ke started speaking a lot more Sichuanese after she went to Beijing, whenever she was visiting home. For example, she would almost speak exclusively in Sichuanese with Xiaoyun whereas she did not do that before.
Chen Ke didn't feel connected with her Sichuanese identity until she left Sichuan. When she was still in Sichuan, she was always thinking about leaving. But now that she was in Beijing, she felt that she was more Sichuanese than she knew. People would often ask her where she was from, and I'm sure her Sichuanese identity showed in other facets of her life too.
Dating
I thought this drama was really interesting in how it explored the various relationship mismatches between Chen Ke and her various boyfriends. Sometimes neither of them did anything wrong, it was just that they were incompatible, and I think that was why Chen Ke wasn't always super heartbroken over her relationships. She just knew that they were incompatible and not meant to be.
Yang Dahe was her first relationship. Unfortunately, they broke up due to circumstance. Dahe's mom was very sick and he knew that Chen Keyi wouldn't be able to fulfill her true potential if she was still attached to him and he was tied down there in Sichuan.
For Zhang Chao, it was several things, but I think the biggest thing that started the rift was their difference in opinion about Chen Ke moving up in the working world. I don't remember the specifics of his thoughts, but he basically didn't approve of Chen Ke moving up and possibly making more than him. Afterwards, all of the ugly things started to be more noticeable to Chen Ke, like how he didn't seem to realize that she'd been obsessed with the LV bag forever and thought that something else would be just as good, or when he didn't realize that she wasn't enjoying the buffet at all.
Yu Yang was definitely a huge learning experience for Chen Ke. For Chen Ke, I think she did kind of see Yu Yang as her way out. He was so rich and so well-connected that even if her career progress was moving slowly, he would still be her safety net. She did show signs of wanting to make it on her own (such as wanting to get her own place), but we saw that Yu Yang was not very helpful at all and almost kind of discouraging. It was kind of a hint of the fact that he just saw her as his entertainment, a pet. The problem was that Chen Ke thought that they were serious. I think maybe she saw herself as now a part of Yu Yang's world and that's why she started to act posh and forgetting herself. She'd heard stories from Gu Yingzhen and others about Yu Yang proposing to a girl but her not returning his feelings. Chen Ke thought that perhaps he was still reeling from that. But again, it was Gu Yingzhen who had to break it to her that Yu Yang had never thought of marrying someone like her, who was not of the same world as her. I think the relationship with Yu Yang showed Chen Ke to be more mindful of the fact that she has to find someone who has to be as serious as she was about a relationship, whether it was very serious, or not at all.
Yuebin's relationship with Chen Ke was supposed to be refreshing for Chen Ke. She was starting to see beauty and romance in the world. Except Yuebin had no regard for Chen Ke's lifestyle and basically ruined her work. They were just of totally different worlds.
He Zhi's marriage with Chen Ke was a tough one. To be honest, I was surprised that they got married because she didn't seem as interested in him as he was in her, but maybe at that age, Chen Ke had been convincing herself that this was her chance. But in terms of lifestyles, they were rather mismatched. Chen Ke was ambitious, while He Zhi was complacent. While Chen Ke tolerated some of He Zhi's lifestyle habits (like being completely useless at feeding himself), all of them together started to weigh down on Chen Ke, to the point that she knew He Zhi didn't love her, and just liked having a maid.
Zhu Chaoyang was honestly another blatant mismatch to me. He was so pushy at the beginning, when Chen Ke was just being polite. I felt like Chen Ke was just following along to see where the relationship would go. But like with Yu Yang, while Chen Ke was taking it easy and casually, Zhu Chaoyang was very serious about it, to the point that it was impeding on Chen Ke's lifestyle and also making her feel disrespected and unseen, since clearly Chaoyang didn't care about what she wanted, just what he wanted for her.
I normally don't really care for romantic shows or shows with a lot of dating but I thought the relationships in this drama were well-explored because they were all so different and they all very clearly highlighted personality and lifestyle differences that are realistically unreconcilable.
Class difference
I think there are class differences in different senses here.
I mentioned the kind of class difference that Chen Ke felt after she started to date Yu Yang. She was well-versed with luxury and started to look down on other people, like Gu Yingzhen, even if inadvertently. Just because you know the finer things in life doesn't mean you are better than a person in all facets of life. Gu Yingzhen not wearing the fanciest underwear doesn't say anything about her personality nor her capabilities. And wearing luxury items says nothing about Chen Ke's capabilities and goodness as a person. And honestly this is a mindset that we see all over the world. I personally (very unfortunately) know people who look down on others for wearing things that are not luxury brands. And to this day I have no idea how to deal with these people, because frankly I can't say that all of these people are as open to change or even meet enough people outside out of their own bubbles to be challenged.
When Chen Ke returned to Sichuan, her mom commented on her acting like her lifestyle in Sichuan was inferior, when Chen Ke herself had lived like that for years. There's another kind of superiority that comes from living in big cities. That, too, happens all across the world, where people from smaller cities or towns are looked down upon by people who live in megacities.
Working
Chen Ke learned a lot about navigating corporate politics during this drama.
When she was but a receptionist, she had to learn how to get people to pay her back, but using her boss' name.
At the next place, it was not so much a learning experience as it was Chen Ke just trying to navigate a shitshow. A team with two managers was never viable. The more well-liked one had nepotism behind her, and the less well-liked one was just trying to do better for the company. And then upper management was having an affair with staff, upon the encouragement of the nepotism manager? Not a normal workplace by any means.
The place where Gu Yingzhen worked was the place where Chen Ke finally learned some important lessons about working. As mentioned, Gu zong taught Chen Ke about proper ways to deal with clients, how you can't take things personally and how you have to be resilient.
But Chen Ke also learned to be a manager too. She had staff who were talking about her behind her back and she had to know how to respond when she was talked down to by said staff.
Fate
We saw how a lot of things in Chen Ke's life were subject to fate, and same goes for our lives.
It wasn't anyone's fault that Dahe's mom got sick. It just wasn't meant to be for Dahe and Chen Ke to be together.
Nothing specific caused Chen Ke's papers to be delayed back in Sichuan (except administrative personnel being slow). So it was just not meant to be for her to go to Disneyland Hong Kong with her staff.
A lot of things were just not meant to be, and Chen Ke will survive them.
Overall
I realy liked this drama! Well made with a good, interesting story.
Spoilers.
Story
Our main character, Chen Keyi, had always dreamed of going to Beijing. She was from Sichuan but her mother was from Beijing and she'd always had a somewhat fantastical view of what Beijing would be like. The drama followed Chen Keyi in her career and love life. It was a drama about learning from life.
What I liked about this drama was that it wasn't super dramatic. What I mean by that is that Chen Keyi definitely stumbled through life, as we all do. But she would learn from both good and bad experiences, and use that knowledge to be a better version of herself, or a savvier version of herself. Yes, she went through bad breakups and made poor decisions at work, but nothing is ever the end of the world, and she learned to overcome those troubles to understand herself better and the world around her.
The show ended with Chen Keyi now striking out on her own, with both the career skills and professional and personal network she'd built up in her time in Beijing. She was single, but there was a man that she knew cared for her and perhaps it was enough to know that he cared.
Production
The production value of this drama was pretty good. Each episode began with a headline and the episodes (which were fairly short, only about half an hour) would quite efficiently focus on that topic. I thought the post-credits scenes were really interesting too as a supplement to the events of the episodes.
I thought the acting was pretty good too. I'd never watched Qi Wei but I thought she was a good fit for Chen Keyi, who at times was a stumbling girl, sometimes an arrogant one, and slowly grew into a mature woman who was better equipped to face the world. I also enjoyed the fact that the supporting cast was filled with actors I knew well and they really enriched the overall quality of the drama.
Characters
There are A LOT of characters so I'm going to try to go through them as efficiently as possible.
Chen Keyi
Chen Keyi was our main character, a naive girl who really wanted to make it big in Beijing. In her first days in Beijing, she was quickly disenchanted, seeing how cruel and cutthroat people in Beijing could be. But she decided that she had to be just as cutthroat to get where she wanted to be. She reinvented herself, calling herself Chen Ke, and choosing a Western name Evelyn. She hustled her way through jobs, and for most of the drama, she stayed in a job where she had room to grow, room to manage people, and a good boss.
In terms of her love life, it was a revolving door (over the course of many years), and through each of her boyfriends, she learned something about herself and her own dreams and hopes. Every time she broke up with a man, there was some understanding on her part why it didn't work out. I'll talk about the love interests below.
By the end of the drama, I think Chen Ke was ready to try something a little different. She'd tried jobs and she'd tried so many relationships. So it was time to try something outside the box. She'd try to start her own business, and she'd try being single for a while. And whether or not it worked, she wouldn't be too tied up about it, because life goes on regardless. And even if things didn't work out, it didn't diminish her worth because she had family and friends who cared about her.
Friends
Xiaoyun
Xiaoyun was Keyi's friend from back home. I don't remember her status at the beginning of the drama, but she clearly didn't have the same dreams as Keyi did.
During the course of the drama, she got married and had several kids. Chen Ke had caught her husband being way too cozy with another woman. Chen Ke had taken pictures and thought of showing them to Xiaoyun, but had changed her mind and deleted them after she had a talk with Xiaoyun, in which Keyi realized that things were more complicated for Xiaoyun, because she was a stay at home mom and hadn't worked for a while. Things were very different when she had kids to care for, and it wasn't just so simple as divorcing.
Later on, Chen Ke realized that Xiaoyun already kind of knew that there was something between her husband and the other woman, and at that point, I think Chen Ke had been glad that she hadn't exacerbated the situation, because clearly Xiaoyun wanted to deal with things in her own way.
At the end of the drama, Xiaoyun visited Keyi in Beijing with her kids and she seemed to be doing well. I assume she was still with her husband then, but I guess they cleared things up between them. Though Chen Ke loved Xiaoyun very much, the kind of traditional relationship that Xiaoyun had was very much not for Keyi, in which a woman was somewhat bound by her family commitments.
Wang Jiajia
Jiajia was one of Chen Ke's first friends in Beijing. As Chen Ke had run into major problems with her creepy roommate, Jiajia let her stay with her. Jiajia was a friend from back home, and she was hustling hard in Beijing. She was living in a small room in the basement of an apartment building. But Jiajia's theory was that in Beijing, all that mattered was how she presented herself to the outside world.
Jiajia had casual flings with men to get money from them in a sort of...sugar relationship? But very casual in that they were very short-term. Jiajia had introduced Chen Ke to this kind of relationship as a way to move up.
Though Jiajia was a bit of a risk-taker and always had her eyes on the glamourous, I think she did still care for Keyi, giving her tips and introducing her to friends.
Jiajia and Chen Ke lost contact and years later Chen Ke had found out that she went to Shenzhen (I think). When Chen Ke found out, she mused that she'd lost contact with this friend to the point that she didn't even know when she'd left the city.
Juzi
Juzi was one of the friends that Chen Ke had been introduced to by Jiajia. They'd met at a club. Juzi stuck with Chen Ke throughout her time in Beijing, and by the end of the drama, she was married and pregnant. She was also brought on to help Chen Ke with her business.
Benben
Benben was the other of the friends that Chen Ke had been introduced to at the club by Jiajia. She was portrayed as a bit more "uncouth" (judging by her name). But she was kind and open about her feelings.
During the drama, she got married to a man that Keyi and Juzi thought was a catch. He was handsome and seemed like he took things seriously. At the wedding, Benben had mentioned that she really hoped that Chen Ke found her love eventually. And when Chen Ke had gotten divorced, it was Benben who was really heartbroken for her.
Benben was also brought on to help Chen Ke with her business.
Yao Mei
Yao Mei was a coworker at one of Chen Ke's earlier jobs, who also became her roommate.
Yao Mei was an opportunist, always trying to be on the "right team" to lift herself up. In that job where they both worked, the team was headed by two managers, and while Yao Mei was very insistent that Liu Jing was the right political choice, though Chen Ke was very sympathetic to the other manager, Zhang Chao. In addition, Yao Mei got plastic surgery and successfully cozied up to Gao Fei to climb up the ladder, though she was gotten rid of after being found out by Gao Fei's wife.
Yao Mei disappeared, and she was only mentioned when Gao Fei told Chen Ke that Yao Mei had showed up to his parents' home with a child she said was theirs.
Years later, Chen Ke and Yao Mei bumped into each other again at a place that was kind of like a spa, which was owned and run by Yao Mei. Yao Mei had become a famous writer, though it was made clear that she wasn't actually a well-written person, just someone who'd written books that sold well.
She was brought on to Chen Ke's business at the end of the movie.
Lu Jiakai
Jiakai was an old school friend of Chen Ke's. He'd moved to Beijing as well and had become a real estate agent. They'd connected when Chen Ke was planning on getting a place of her own.
Over the years, they came to be really close friends, Jiakai supporting her emotionally but also with logistical stuff like helping out when her mom came to Beijing.
I really thought Jiakai was going to be the endgame love interest but I'm quite pleasantly surprised that they stayed good friends throughout.
He was also to help Chen Ke with her business at the end as he was good at networking.
Liu Xiameng
Mengmeng was Jiakai's girlfriend. When Chen Ke first met her, she was a bit eyerolly at Mengmeng because she acted very youngish and I guess Chen Ke thought it was a little cringe. But over time, when it became clear that Jiakai and Mengmeng were dating long term, we came to see that Mengmeng was kind and friendly, just a little overexcited.
Romantic Interests
Yang Dahe
Yang Dahe was Chen Keyi's boyfriend from university. At the beginning of the drama, Chen Keyi was trying to get a hold of him through phone, but he was busy at the hospital because his mom was ill. Eventually Dahe broke up with Keyi because he knew her dream was to be in Beijing and he couldn't tie her down to him because he foresaw that he'd have to be taking care of his mother back at home in the long run.
Dahe had told Keyi that he had found someone else he'd liked, implied to be a nurse at the hospital. However, years later, when Dahe and Chen Ke met, the wife (who was indeed the nurse), wanted to clear things up with Chen Ke and told her that they actually had only dated after Dahe had broken up with her.
Nonetheless, when Chen Ke met up with Dahe, there was a sense of longing and regret. She saw how loving Dahe and his wife were, that they even had kids. She'd just divorced then, so she was a bit sensitive about it. But it hurt that she gave up such a loving man for Beijing, and at that point, she was not in a good spot. But as well, if Dahe did not let her go, she might have resented him for being the one to tie her down from fulfilling her full potential.
Wu Hao
We first met Wu Hao through Jiajia. Jiajia and Chen Ke were shopping and Chen Ke saw a dress she liked, but it was too expensive so she didn't want to buy it.
What Jiajia did was call up Wu Hao, with whom she'd spent time with only once before. She then asked the worker at the shop to praise her when she wore the dress so that Wu Hao would then buy it for Jiajia, though the dress would actually be for Chen Ke.
Later on, Wu Hao called up Chen Ke again to spend time. They went to dinners which seemed to always be attended by rich men and random women. Through Chen Ke, we saw that those women, like Chen Ke, were all just there to suck up to the guys. They were forced to acknowledge facts that were straight up wrong, or do party tricks, etc.
Chen Ke was a bit disillusioned when she saw Wu Hao spraying down his clothes and he explained that it would be difficult to explain to his wife. And it was then that Chen Ke realized that he was already married. Nonetheless, Chen Ke used this get-together to jump up to a better job and she never saw Wu Hao again.
Zhang Chao
Zhang Chao was one of the two managers at the job she worked at with Yao Mei. While Liu Jing (the other manager) was shown to be well-liked, Zhang Chao was the workaholic who was always asking people to do overtime with him. However, because of these politics, Chen Ke came to sympathize with him. Eventually, they started a relationship.
Things started to fracture between them when he didn't seem to disapprove of her wanting to advance her career and make more money. Afterwards, things started to tumble one after the other.
On her birthday, Zhang Chao bought LV for her, but instead of the handbag she wanted to badly, it was a camisole. In a post-credit scene, it was shown that the handbag hadn't arrived in time for her birthday, and that was why Zhang Chao had rushed to buy the camisole for her. Nonetheless, it really ruined Chen Ke's mood for her birthday as it was extremely obvious that she wanted the bag (it was her desktop wallpaper). Later on in the night, they went to a buffet where Chen Ke just found Zhang Chao's behaviour kind of tasteless and unclassy.
But instead of breaking up with him to his face, she just left him without saying anything. Soon afterward, she had gone to the LV store and bought the bag for herself.
Yu Yang
Yu Yang was a client that Chen Ke and Gu Yingzhen were working on. At this point in time, Chen Ke was very wary of young men clients because she didn't want to have to sell herself to get the job. As such, Chen Ke avoided having to meet with Yu Yang alone and that enraged Gu Yingzhen because she had found out that Yu Yang had planned to go with another company. What happened was that Chen Ke met up with Yu Yang again to apologize. She had too much to drink and confessed that she needed to secure him as a client or else she would lose her job, and Yu Yang kind of took pity on her. I think at that point he did already like her a bit, and that was why he cut off his agreement with the other company (otherwise you don't just do that out of pity). Chen Ke was so drunk that she threw up in the LV bag.
Yu Yang later met up with Chen Ke to give her a new bag because she'd thrown up in the LV one, and it was kind of a symbol of a new relationship for Chen Ke, as she was so obsessed with the LV one during her relationship with Zhang Chao.
Yu Yang and Chen Ke began dating afterward, but it was supposed to be a secret. Chen Ke would join Yu Yang as he went to karaoke bars, but she was only introduced as his assistant. She would bring her laptop and work while he would sing and talk with people at the clubs.
During this period of time, Chen Ke was in a weird spot in which she had access to the high class life but she was also not part of it. She wanted to get her own apartment but even though she was dating Yu Yang, he was not going to buy it for her, and instead he just said he would buy a nice painting for her new apartment when she got it.
However, she'd also gotten a little too comfortable. There was a time when she was shopping with Gu Yingzhen and recommending her to check out the really expensive underwear, which is in bad taste because you're telling your own boss that you use nicer things than them. But Gu Yingzhen felt that dating Yu Yang was causing Chen Ke to look down on people. There was a point in the drama in which a client was late, and Chen Ke left the meeting when he finally arrived because she was so angry. It was revealed that the client was late because his mother was very ill, but the client had already blacklisted the company. I don't think her dating Yu Yang was the reason that happened, but I think it was a period of Chen Ke's life where she thought there was a way that things happened in the world and she didn't realize that things were not as they seemed. When it came to clients there was supposed to be room to be flexible, and in a similar way, she couldn't see that her relationship with Yu Yang wasn't what she thought it was.
Chen Ke had thought that she and Yu Yang would be dating to marry, but he did not feel the same way. In particular, he was only interested in marrying other people from the same class as him, as after he and Chen Ke broke up, it was revealed that he would be marrying a woman from a rich and well-connected family. Chen Ke was just entertainment for him this whole time.
Huang Yuebin
Huang Yuebin was a director that Chen Ke had met. There was to be product placement in a show, and Chen Ke was at the set to ensure the product placement shot went well.
Huang Yuebin was a huge film snob, and while dating him, Chen Ke became somewhat of a dramatized, overly romantic version of herself, using all sorts of pet names and trying really hard to fit his lifestyle. She started dressing differently, and despite Jiakai telling her that they were not a good fit, she wouldn't see it.
Chen Ke asked Huang Yuebin to film another commercial for their company. During the filming, he got into a huge argument about props and such, and went so far as to insult and put on blast the client company, which in term had Chen Ke's company blacklisted. Needless to say, the relationship did not work out.
Soon after, Chen Ke saw Huang Yuebin at the mall, dating a woman who seemed to be rich (judging by the expensive bag she was wearing), so it kind of put things into perspective that Huang Yuebin was maybe only dating rich women for financial gain (as at one point, Chen Ke did buy things for Yuebin).
Wei Qi
Wei Qi was a cousin of Xiaoyun. He was very handsome and nice. Not completely on th esame wavelength as Chen Ke, but very very nice.
At one point, Chen Ke was moving houses. Wei Qi had brought flowers to her old place, so he tried to call her, only to find that he could not reach her. I'm not sure why that happened, if Chen Ke had purposely tried to avoid Wei Qi, or if it truly had been an accident.
I think it would be more interesting if it was the latter, as the contrast to Wei Qi was He Zhi, the other man that Chen Ke was speaking with a lot at the time, who had delivered a gift to Chen Ke but brought it to the right house. And that's important because Chen Ke ended up marrying He Zhi.
He Zhi
He Zhi and Chen Ke met when they were both taking driving lessons. He Zhi was the one who was always trying to start a conversation with her, exchanging numbers with her, etc. As mentioned, when Chen Ke moved to her new place, He Zhi had sent her a gift, and it's implied that that was the beginning of their courtship, as they were married the next episode.
He Zhi worked for the tax agency, which was a stable job but didn't pay as much as Chen Ke's job in the private sector, but He Zhi was complacent.
His biggest vice was that he enjoyed gaming too much, mainly mahjong and other gambling-adjacent hobbies. In particular, he would invite his friends over and they would eat and smoke and play and that's all they would do. So when Chen Ke came hom tired and he told her to make food for them all, obviously it was a bit insulting.
Chen Ke tried several times to get him to stop. One time she pretended to get drunk so that He Zhi would stop playing and take care of her, but it didn't work. Chen Ke even called the police anonymously, reporting suspected gambling, but that didn't stop him.
What broke the camel's back was when Chen Ke talked about having a baby with He Zhi. She reasoned that if they wanted to have a child, they'd need to move into a bigger apartment. However, the apartment they were currently living in was under the name of He Zhi's father, which caused complications if they wanted to sell the apartment to put the money towards a new apartment. The struggle was that since the money from the old apartment belonged to He Zhi's father, then he should have a name on the new apartment. But Chen Ke also argued that she was currently footing much of the bills for both her and He Zhi's living expenses. It was messy, and during the argument, Chen Ke saw that He Zhi was not on her side.
They later divorced. He Zhi said that things would not have been like this if they'd had a baby, but Chen Ke said that divorcing would just have been more difficult. Benben later revealed to Chen Ke that He Zhi had called up all of her friends to try to help the situation though clearly it did not work.
Zhu Chaoyang
Zhu Chaoyang was a young man who worked at one of the clients' companies. He had delivered a sample of his company products to Chen Ke, and was extremely warm about it, going so far as to saying some things that were cutesy and a bit unprofessional (you probably shouldn't say momoda in a work text).
Zhu Chaoyang was hitting on Chen Ke HARD when they met up. He'd come from the gym, and flashed his abs to Chen Ke when taking off his sweater. Later, he invited Chen Ke to play badminton, which they did, and afterwards, he very aggressively invited himself over to her apartment, where he appeared to her without his shirt on and then made a move on her.
They started dating, but it became clear that they were not a good match. Chaoyang was incredibly possessive, to the point that he was blocking Chen Ke's business contacts on her phone so she wasn't receiving work messages. Chaoyang was also borrowing money from people to buy a car so he could pick her up from work. He'd gone through Chen Ke's phone (while playing games on it) and seen conversations in which he felt belittled for not being at a place in his life where he was well-matched with Chen Ke.
Chen Ke eventually of course had to break things off. Chaoyang tried to wait outside her apartment but she took an alternate route to go home. They were just too different people at this time.
Xu Siming
Dr. Xu was the doctor taking care of Chen Ke's mother back home. She'd met him towards the end of the drama. He was a single dad, and a pretty kind and easygoing guy.
When Chen Ke was preparing to go back to Beijing, Dr. Xu asked Chen Ke if she would wait for. She dodged the question, implying that she couldn't. But it wasn't because she didn't like him, but more because she couldn't let herself be tied down by a relationship in that way.
Instead, when Xu Siming came to visit her in Beijing, he continued to care for her wellbeing, and maybe that kind of care and love was enough for them.
Other
Mom
Chen Ke's mom was a Beijing woman who'd moved to Sichuan and had brought up Chen Ke as a single mom. At the beginning, she'd taken Chen Ke to meet guys but there were all kind of...unclassy. Eventually, Chen Ke's mom let her go to Beijing, implying that she knew she couldn't really do anything to stop her from dreaming and wanting to go.
Chen Ke's mom didn't really exert that much influence on her life. Of course, she liked it when she thought Chen Ke was dating nice guys, but otherwise, she didn't have a big say in her relationships, even when she got divorced.
Chen Ke's mom had health problems relating to her eye, and that was how Chen Ke met Dr. Xu.
Wang Tao
Wang Tao was the classmate that Chen Ke stayed with when she first got to Beijing. Though he was friendly with her, we soon saw that it was actually creepy behaviour.
While he was kind to Chen Ke, it was because he was already thinking of treating her like his girlfriend instead of as a friend. When he saw her cleaning up around his house, he was pleased because he felt like she was his girlfriend already.
He came onto Chen Ke which she obviously rejected, saying that she had a boyfriend (Yang Dahe). Wang Tao ignored it, but Chen Ke eventually got him off her with physical violence. Chen Ke obviously wanted to leave as soon as possible, but Wang Tao had found a job for her, which she took, even if it was a receptionist position, because she needed it badly.
Years later, when Chen Ke met Wang Tao again, he was married to a woman who was an interpretor. It seemed she was well-respected and they were to fly out the day after the meet up to go out of country. During that meet up, Wang Tao was extremely smug, clearly wanting to show off his wife to his friends and especially the woman who rejected him. What a creep.
Liu Jing
Liu Jing was one of the two managers at one of the first jobs that Chen Ke met. She was the manager that Yao Mei really put her trust behind.
When Yao Mei was found out by Gao Fei's wife, Yao Mei was of course very frazzled, but she took out her anger on Liu Jing. It was revealed in a post-credit scene that it was Liu Jing who had recommended that Yao Mei cozy up to Gao Fei. So of course when Yao Mei got into trouble because of it, she blamed Liu Jing.
Liu Jing was generally more well respected than Zhang Chao because of her family relations, but I believe her family relations kind of fell through later, which caused Liu Jing to stumble a bit as well.
Gao Fei
Gao Fei was an upper manager. Chen Ke had done some work for him, but she was extremely wary of the fact that he was prone to affairs, so she tried to steer clear of him, and that's how Yao Mei found an in.
There was a scene in which Gao Fei was helping Yao Mei with the zipper on her dress, which was clearly Yao Mei's attempt to cozy up. It was seen by Zhang Chao, Liu Jing, and Chen Ke who'd all just quietly waited outside. Gao Fei was eventually found out by his wife and the affair ended.
As mentioned, Yao Mei had showed up to Gao Fei's parents' place with their child but I think she was refused.
By the end of the drama, however, Chen Ke actually sought out Gao Fei to be a consultant to her business. She acknowledged that his personal life was a mess, but I think she still respected him as a business mind. It actually took me by surprise that she would still respect him, but I like that nuance, rather than a totally "good or bad" approach to people.
Gu Yingzhen
Gu Yingzhen was upper management at another company. Chen Ke had met her because Gu Yingzhen and Gao Fei were acquainted. Soon after, Chen Ke had hit up Gu Yingzhen to interview for her company. It was getting this job that began the fracture between her and Zhang Chao. But this job was where Chen Ke learned the most and stayed for the longest.
Gu Yingzhen was an important mentor to Chen Ke, particularly at the beginning when Chen Ke was making mistakes. Gu Yingzhen yelled at Chen Ke and was hard on her. We saw this multiple times, when she had nearly lost Yu Yang as a client, and when she had lost that client for not being sympathetic to his family situation. Through that all, Chen Ke valued her as a mentor.
Gu Yingzhen had been twice divorced, and during the course of the drama, she was married a third time. Her marriage was the kind of marriage that Chen Ke wanted to have, in which her husband respected her enough to put her name on shared property.
At the end of the drama, Gu Yingzhen was pushed out of the company due to changing upper management. Chen Ke left the company at that time too, as she was loyal to Gu Yingzhen.
Staff
Chen Ke had a few staff. I don't remember their names, but there was Ying'er, another woman with short hair, and a man who was young but had a kid lol. These were the staff that stayed with her the longest as manager.
Xu Sibo
Sibo was Xu Siming's son. He was a talkative boy and Chen Ke found him endearing.
Themes
Change
During Chen Ke's journey, she could only move forward. As she moved further along, she realized more and more that she couldn't return.
When Chen Ke went back home to get her papers in order for the trip to Hong Kong, she realized that all her friends were in different stages of their lives. For example, several of the female friends were talking about kids while she hadn't even gotten married yet. There was nothing to talk about. And just as Chen Ke's mom couldn't go back to Beijing, Chen Ke could not go back to Sichuan.
This was also the case in which Chen Ke learned about the truth of her breakup with Yang Dahe. At the time of the breakup, they still loved each other, but they can't go back now. Yang Dahe was married and had kids. And she now had her roots in Beijing.
Identity
When Chen Ke was still in Sichuan, others noted how Chen Ke always spoke in Mandarin and rarely in Sichuanese. Her mom explained to friends that she preferred it, and we know it was because she longed to go to Beijing and this was her way of connecting with the place.
However, I found it really interesting that Chen Ke started speaking a lot more Sichuanese after she went to Beijing, whenever she was visiting home. For example, she would almost speak exclusively in Sichuanese with Xiaoyun whereas she did not do that before.
Chen Ke didn't feel connected with her Sichuanese identity until she left Sichuan. When she was still in Sichuan, she was always thinking about leaving. But now that she was in Beijing, she felt that she was more Sichuanese than she knew. People would often ask her where she was from, and I'm sure her Sichuanese identity showed in other facets of her life too.
Dating
I thought this drama was really interesting in how it explored the various relationship mismatches between Chen Ke and her various boyfriends. Sometimes neither of them did anything wrong, it was just that they were incompatible, and I think that was why Chen Ke wasn't always super heartbroken over her relationships. She just knew that they were incompatible and not meant to be.
Yang Dahe was her first relationship. Unfortunately, they broke up due to circumstance. Dahe's mom was very sick and he knew that Chen Keyi wouldn't be able to fulfill her true potential if she was still attached to him and he was tied down there in Sichuan.
For Zhang Chao, it was several things, but I think the biggest thing that started the rift was their difference in opinion about Chen Ke moving up in the working world. I don't remember the specifics of his thoughts, but he basically didn't approve of Chen Ke moving up and possibly making more than him. Afterwards, all of the ugly things started to be more noticeable to Chen Ke, like how he didn't seem to realize that she'd been obsessed with the LV bag forever and thought that something else would be just as good, or when he didn't realize that she wasn't enjoying the buffet at all.
Yu Yang was definitely a huge learning experience for Chen Ke. For Chen Ke, I think she did kind of see Yu Yang as her way out. He was so rich and so well-connected that even if her career progress was moving slowly, he would still be her safety net. She did show signs of wanting to make it on her own (such as wanting to get her own place), but we saw that Yu Yang was not very helpful at all and almost kind of discouraging. It was kind of a hint of the fact that he just saw her as his entertainment, a pet. The problem was that Chen Ke thought that they were serious. I think maybe she saw herself as now a part of Yu Yang's world and that's why she started to act posh and forgetting herself. She'd heard stories from Gu Yingzhen and others about Yu Yang proposing to a girl but her not returning his feelings. Chen Ke thought that perhaps he was still reeling from that. But again, it was Gu Yingzhen who had to break it to her that Yu Yang had never thought of marrying someone like her, who was not of the same world as her. I think the relationship with Yu Yang showed Chen Ke to be more mindful of the fact that she has to find someone who has to be as serious as she was about a relationship, whether it was very serious, or not at all.
Yuebin's relationship with Chen Ke was supposed to be refreshing for Chen Ke. She was starting to see beauty and romance in the world. Except Yuebin had no regard for Chen Ke's lifestyle and basically ruined her work. They were just of totally different worlds.
He Zhi's marriage with Chen Ke was a tough one. To be honest, I was surprised that they got married because she didn't seem as interested in him as he was in her, but maybe at that age, Chen Ke had been convincing herself that this was her chance. But in terms of lifestyles, they were rather mismatched. Chen Ke was ambitious, while He Zhi was complacent. While Chen Ke tolerated some of He Zhi's lifestyle habits (like being completely useless at feeding himself), all of them together started to weigh down on Chen Ke, to the point that she knew He Zhi didn't love her, and just liked having a maid.
Zhu Chaoyang was honestly another blatant mismatch to me. He was so pushy at the beginning, when Chen Ke was just being polite. I felt like Chen Ke was just following along to see where the relationship would go. But like with Yu Yang, while Chen Ke was taking it easy and casually, Zhu Chaoyang was very serious about it, to the point that it was impeding on Chen Ke's lifestyle and also making her feel disrespected and unseen, since clearly Chaoyang didn't care about what she wanted, just what he wanted for her.
I normally don't really care for romantic shows or shows with a lot of dating but I thought the relationships in this drama were well-explored because they were all so different and they all very clearly highlighted personality and lifestyle differences that are realistically unreconcilable.
Class difference
I think there are class differences in different senses here.
I mentioned the kind of class difference that Chen Ke felt after she started to date Yu Yang. She was well-versed with luxury and started to look down on other people, like Gu Yingzhen, even if inadvertently. Just because you know the finer things in life doesn't mean you are better than a person in all facets of life. Gu Yingzhen not wearing the fanciest underwear doesn't say anything about her personality nor her capabilities. And wearing luxury items says nothing about Chen Ke's capabilities and goodness as a person. And honestly this is a mindset that we see all over the world. I personally (very unfortunately) know people who look down on others for wearing things that are not luxury brands. And to this day I have no idea how to deal with these people, because frankly I can't say that all of these people are as open to change or even meet enough people outside out of their own bubbles to be challenged.
When Chen Ke returned to Sichuan, her mom commented on her acting like her lifestyle in Sichuan was inferior, when Chen Ke herself had lived like that for years. There's another kind of superiority that comes from living in big cities. That, too, happens all across the world, where people from smaller cities or towns are looked down upon by people who live in megacities.
Working
Chen Ke learned a lot about navigating corporate politics during this drama.
When she was but a receptionist, she had to learn how to get people to pay her back, but using her boss' name.
At the next place, it was not so much a learning experience as it was Chen Ke just trying to navigate a shitshow. A team with two managers was never viable. The more well-liked one had nepotism behind her, and the less well-liked one was just trying to do better for the company. And then upper management was having an affair with staff, upon the encouragement of the nepotism manager? Not a normal workplace by any means.
The place where Gu Yingzhen worked was the place where Chen Ke finally learned some important lessons about working. As mentioned, Gu zong taught Chen Ke about proper ways to deal with clients, how you can't take things personally and how you have to be resilient.
But Chen Ke also learned to be a manager too. She had staff who were talking about her behind her back and she had to know how to respond when she was talked down to by said staff.
Fate
We saw how a lot of things in Chen Ke's life were subject to fate, and same goes for our lives.
It wasn't anyone's fault that Dahe's mom got sick. It just wasn't meant to be for Dahe and Chen Ke to be together.
Nothing specific caused Chen Ke's papers to be delayed back in Sichuan (except administrative personnel being slow). So it was just not meant to be for her to go to Disneyland Hong Kong with her staff.
A lot of things were just not meant to be, and Chen Ke will survive them.
Overall
I realy liked this drama! Well made with a good, interesting story.