Winter Begonia 鬢边不是海棠红

Yin Zheng as Shang Xirui in the TV drama Winter Begonia

(Warning: the following review contains spoilers on the Chinese TV drama Winter Begonia)

The thick divide between the original title and its rendering in English for the international audience has always been one of the strange mysteries of Chinese culture: books, films, even records, often bear two names  ̶  one in Mandarin, one in English  ̶  which barely resemble one another, sometimes exploring completely different concepts.

Take Winter Begonia, for example, one of the highlights of Chinese entertainment in the year 2020: while the English title tends to be very vague, its meaning never fully disclosed as the plot steadily unfolds (apart from a fleeting moment with the two protagonists taking a picture together in a Shanghai photo studio), the Mandarin title is both dream-like and melancholy, hinting at the meaning of the whole story without giving it away completely  ̶  a typical feature in Chinese culture called “indirect strategy”. Bin bian bu shi haitang hong 鬢边不是海棠红, which is the original title in Mandarin, may be translated as “the hair on my temples is not crabtree-flower red”; though at first this may just seem a poetical sentence, it ultimately tells us more about the hidden meaning of the whole drama than the English title does.

Based on a popular 2010 gay-themed web novel of the same name (published in printed format in 2019), 鬢边不是海棠红 tells the story of two men’s lives crossing paths in 1930s Guomindang-run Beiping, the city we know today as Beijing. Cheng Fengtai 程凤台 (Huang Xiaoming 黄晓明), who everyone respectfully calls Er ye 二爷 (“second master”, the title ye marking his status as a rich man), is a handsome and warm-hearted Shanghai businessman running the local Company of Transports in Beiping and his wife’s textile factory in Shanghai; Shang Xirui 商细蕊 (Yin Zheng尹正, whose performance in the show is absolutely astounding), is a whimsical, stubborn danjuer 旦角, a male singer performing female roles in Chinese opera and a very talented one, well versed in martial arts too, though being an outsider in Beiping may prevent him from becoming the great star he knows he is destined to be. The two casually meet during one of Xirui’s stunning performances and a spark suddenly lights up their heart and soul: Er Ye immediately becomes Xirui’s zhi 知 (“intimate friend”, or “confidant”), and though the show is devoid of any explicit gay contents to get around CCP censorship, there’s no doubt a form of intense, asexual love takes hold of them both completely.

Apparently shrewd and interested only in money, Fengtai actually becomes intoxicated with Chinese opera and with the performances of “Shang laoban” 老板 (“Boss Shang”, a polite and respectful way to address opera troupe leaders), so much as to help him conquer the heart of Beiping financing his company, the Shuiyun lou 水云楼 (The Watery Cloud Tower). Lost in a dream-like trance, Fengtai sees Xirui turn into the living representation of Yang Guifei楊貴妃 (Yang the worthy favourite), legendary beauty of the Tang dinasty era celebrated in many famous literary works and cherished concubine to Emperor Xuanzong玄宗, who neglected all state affairs to watch her dance performances and spend some time with her. Soon overwhelmed by the long-gone memories of his youth as a passionate would-be writer, Er Ye realizes he will give every slice of energy he has to this fascinating figure transcending the here and now of physical constraints, Xirui himself growing more and more loyal to their precious friendship, all the while cultivating his art to perfection. Fame may well be just around the corner, but war is too, the Japanese troops inexorably closing in on most urban areas of China, including Beiping. What started off as a lavish, motley fairy tale could any day crumble to dust, like petals falling from a lover’s hair, suddenly turned white.

Which brings us back to the original title’s meaning: “the hair on my temples is not crabtree-flower red”. This may all seem like a silly game at first, but it’s not; the opera glitter may look like a flower blooming for just one night to vanish in the end, a bright-burning illusion pinned on the concubine’s hair, but it’s not. Red is real, not just a shadow. It’s the red of pain and blood rending skin and soul apart. It’s war splintering life into fragments which one must learn how to let go, as one learns patience and courage, to finally reach wisdom. After all, as Xirui says to Er Ye, “I’m not a damsel in distress who needs to be saved, I’m a hero”, and a hero can only be larger than life, eventually transcending life itself through discipline and selflessness.

As all his desperate cries dry up in memory and regret, I imagine Xirui secretly uttering these words to himself, and to Er Ye’s reflection:

“Art may seem but a pale mirror of life, a shadow emotion leaving nothing but empty memories, but it’s what I chose and would still choose over you, over everything. I crossed the path dividing life and death severing all my ties with them both just to reach perfection, so that I could save you forgetting me, and there’s no turning back from this. My voice, like a siren in reverse, was the only thing that could finally set you free, my whole body a channel bringing you back to breathing and meaning. But you’ll never know, because I can’t allow ordinary life to stand between my art and me.”

This, I think, is the dilemma all artists are faced with sooner or later: giving in to the safe shelter of stability (though becoming a de facto concubine finally “accepted” by the official wife is not exactly a perfect ending, is it?) or transmuting into creativity, your craft, body and heart becoming one with the universe, like Cook Ding becoming the knife becoming the ox becoming the cut simultaneously in Zhuangzi’s daoist story. Which path would you choose?

Winter Begonia (鬢边不是海棠红), directed by Hui Kaidong 惠楷栋, written by Yu Zheng 于正 and Shuiru Tian’er 水如天儿, available on the Iqiyi 爱奇艺 streaming platform in China and on Rakuten Viki in the rest of the world.