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waitmyturtles · 10 months

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Pain, Suffering, and Narratives in Some Asian Dramas/BLs (An Utterly Un-Scholastic, Highly Personal Big Meta)

I’ve been meditating on the topic of pain and suffering in dramas over the last few weeks, as conversations across Tumblr have been taking place regarding the success (or not) of the Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars episodes. I can’t help but connect these thoughts to some of the fabulous older shows I’ve been watching in my Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist project, where I’m catching up on older Thai BLs in order to better understand the fabulous works that we’re seeing airing now. This Big Meta in part comes out of my having just watched He’s Coming To Me and Dark Blue Kiss, but I was also very deeply inspired by a Japanese BL that many of us here have fallen in love with, Our Dining Table, that features a poignant moment recognizing that feeling pain is a necessity in feeling love for another person -- that accepting pain and suffering is a part of the life we decide to live, from an Asian cultural perspective.

I’m using some big generalities here, so let me explain where I’m coming from. During certain large portions of my life, I’ve explored either becoming a Buddhist, or at least practiced Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism. While the world of Western capitalism has unfortunately taken up the majority of my current time/life, I do still have a desire to learn more about the history of Buddhism and try to incorporate some kind of practice in my daily life.

The reason why I offer that caveat is that a core of teaching in at least the spaces of Buddhism that I’ve been privy to, is the recognition of pain and suffering in one’s life. Suffering is a core tenet of Buddhism, one of the Four Noble Truths, and one that a human being does good deeds or makes merit in light of (as we see quite often in our beloved BLs) in order to receive “good” karma for a happy existence in this life or the next. (Again, mad generalizations here, but you get the point.)

I’ve been thinking about this because I often wonder if us Western viewers (I count myself as one, as an Asian-American) are too demanding for linear, clean, direct, and/or happy communication, narratives, and endings, particularly in the realm of Asian BLs, in regards to either romantic love and/or love from one’s nuclear parents/family. I think about this very much in the context of the Asian BL genre, where queerness -- as accepted, OR NOT, in Asian societies, friend groups, and families -- may indicate an existence that is not necessarily a happy one.

There are other issues by way of demands from fans that often determine the outcome of a BL script, such as shipper demands for overtly sexual content. What I’m proposing here is that, in my opinion, some of the best dramas/BLs from Asia are rooted in a reflection and acceptance of the tenets of suffering as a natural part of Asian life and, subsequently, Asian art. I further propose that because of that acceptance of suffering, that we — Western viewers — are often left potentially feeling unsatisfied or unfulfilled by a particular ending of a drama. I posit that the linear/binary/clear outcomes that Western audiences so often demand are limiting in comparison to the non-binary, non-linear journeys and conclusions of art that Asian filmmakers can reach in their work, vis à vis à general cultural understanding that pain and suffering are a part of daily life.

Before I give a drama example, let me use one from real life, that is so very often reflected in art: filial piety. I wrote about filial piety quite a bit in my reviews of Double Savage, a non-BL from Thailand that focused on the plight of a discarded son who was judged by his father as a jinx.

When I try to explain to Western friends that Asian parental love is very often conditional (I myself have experienced it, and my experiences mirror those of my friends), I experience a lot of denial.

“There is NO WAY your parents don’t love you.” “There is NO WAY your parents will ever give up on you. Even if they treat you badly, they love you.” “In the West, we ALWAYS end up loving our children. That’s what society demands of PARENTS. We’re CONDITIONED to be like that.”

A major cultural competency issue that Western therapists face with Asian clients is when Western therapists say to Asian clients who are having family issues, “why don’t you just talk to your parents about what you’re feeling?” Talking to Asian parents about a child’s feelings, in MANY instances, is not realistic. The language of that kind of emotion may not even exist. AND, there are unspoken social boundaries AGAINST children having those conversations with their parents in the first place. To have those conversations would very well ROCK the foundation on which Asian families are structured.

My parents may love me — the dad in Double Savage mayyyy have loved his son? — but an Asian parent like that, so rooted in their JUDGEMENT AGAINST an offspring, will often not budge. Time and time again, my Asian friends and family will talk about how they felt unloved as a child -- especially if their skin was darker, if their siblings were more successful in school, if they were a middle child, etc. VERY often, our Asian parents don’t know what us children do by way of work -- my parents don’t know anything about my work, for instance.

The Western perspective and social demands for a STYLE of loving one’s children in a very particular, involved, and empathic way -- those cultural expectations don’t necessarily exist in Asia. So we see parents like, say, Non’s father in Dark Blue Kiss; or Korn’s father in Double Savage; or ESPECIALLY Uea’s mom in Bed Friend, a fantastic example of an Asian parent who takes PERSONALLY every aspect of her son’s social and sexual “differences,” blames him for those differences, and accuses him of ruining HER life vis à vis how he was born to be the way that he is.

And yet, at least for Korn and Uea -- we see those children, for the majority of their dramas, continuing to devote themselves to their parents. Because filial piety -- the Asian cultural and social demand for RESPECTING one’s parents above all else -- is existent and EXPECTED of almost EVERY living Asian, no matter where you live on the continent or your various diasporas.

The equation is: even if you suffer at the hands of your parents, even if you don’t receive unconditional love and empathy from your parents, you must sacrifice in order to respect and serve your parents. You can imagine how much therapy even one individual would need to process that -- if that individual even ALLOWED themselves to think about what was happening, which oftentimes doesn’t even happen.

I’m not saying that filial piety EQUALS suffering. What I’m saying is that the practice of filial piety will almost always ASSUME a level of suffering that one must undertake to participate in the practice of honoring one’s parents.

Where I felt this *assumption* most strongly and recently was in my viewings of three Aof Noppharnach shows: He’s Coming To Me, Dark Blue Kiss, and Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars, but I think Double Savage and Bed Friend also fall into this category as well. Very quickly:

1) HCTM was rooted in storytelling around the practice of Thai-Chinese Buddhism. Thun’s suffering was apparent: he was fatherless, he was gay, and could see ghosts. AS WELL, Med’s suffering was that he didn’t know how he had died, and why he was being held in purgatory before moving on to his next life.

2) Dark Blue Kiss was rooted in internalized homophobia. My big review of DBK is coming next week, but quickly, between the two main couples (PeteKao and SunMork), you had internalized homophobia playing various roles of emotional INTERPLAY, that AFFECTED the external emotional demonstrations of the character -- particularly in Pete, who was viscerally working on becoming a calmer person, but was triggered by Kao’s internalized homophobia to not be open about their relationship, and Pete’s jealousy subsumed him. DBK is the only show I’m mentioning here that has a clean happy ending for all couples involved, but more on that in a second.

3) OS2 x BBS x ATOTS, on the Pat and Pran side, was rooted in a clear but indirect conflict between Pat and Pran about openness and independence. If Pat and Pran had been open about their relationship (à la Pete and Kao) -- would Pat have needed to sound tough to his engineering friends that Pran *depended* on Pat to close loops? And on the Tian and Phupha side -- there is plenty we don’t know about Phupha’s past to make judgements, but I think it’s safe to say that he grew up in such a rural environment in Thailand as to make him assume that coming out and meeting his partner’s parents was an non-reality for the majority of their relationship, until the end of the OS2 series. The journey to get to the point of the ring was a tough one, particularly for Tian, who wanted more openness.

4) Both Double Savage and Bed Friend seem to end happily, especially for Uea and King in Bed Friend. But: Uea loses his parent. Yes -- he NEEDED to lose his mom, because of how toxic she was. But from an Asian family structure perspective -- he only has his sister by the end of that traumatic journey, which is not necessarily an IDEAL or complete ending. The bonds among Korn, Win, and Rung are permanently affected by the behavior of Korn and Win’s dad in Double Savage. The ending is a copacetic one -- they have survived, and will learn to survive together, after all the trauma they have lived through. But it’s not necessarily a HAPPY one. Both of these endings do not necessarily reflect the holistic ideal of the Asian family structure.

I emphasize all of this because, as I said earlier: I think a Western demand to CLOSE LOOPS in Asian dramas is unrealistic.

In Asian life (big generalization, but let me roll with it): you are angry at your parents, and you process it internally, very often without any help, and after a couple days, things go back to the way they were. The children do not demand change from their parents.

In OS2 x BBS, what I DIDN’T SEE -- and, from this framework, what I argue that I DIDN’T *NEED* TO SEE -- were any clarifying conversations between Pat and Pran about how either of them would CHANGE for their relationship. The biggest confession we got was Pat telling Pran, “without you, there is no me,” and Pran quietly agreeing (thank you to @lurkingteapot and @dimplesandfierceeyes for the incredible post on the improved translation of “I can’t live without you”).

But throughout the episodes, we saw their existence together, and arguably, their conditions -- how each of them has organized himself to comport to the other’s immediate needs. How Pran’s larger burden of keeping in the closet to keep his nuclear family structure stable kept them from being totally out, and how Pran designed fibs to be able to have at least one public demonstration of love between him and Pat on stage. They know they cannot solve intergenerational trauma in the span of a series. They’re still closeted two years later. And throughout all of this: how Pat digests Pran’s needs, and keeps his (Pat’s) own needs for openness at bay. We know he feels pain, too, when he makes his confession to Pran in Pha Pun Dao. We know he’s watching Pran as Pran hesitates to put on the bruise cream.

I feel that Pat’s acceptance of this existence is both heart-rending and utterly beautiful from the perspective of seeing Aof’s work as *Asian* art. I feel like, as an Asian, that I KNOW, that PAT KNOWS, what Pran has to lose. Pran has A LOT to lose. And so, Pat -- instead of demanding for outing and openness -- will hold what Pran needs him to hold. He knows when Pran is grumpy, and needs to be grumpy. And Pran’s got a lot to deal with. He’s got so much that he’ll need to go to Singapore, likely to get separation from his mother -- and that will result in him and Pat being separated (and I’m intentionally not analyzing Pran’s need for space from Pat here, but I think we can safely argue that, too, as Pat’s helpful attitude may smother Pran at times) (and there’s also the issue of the nuclear pain that Pat himself may feel at losing trust in his father for his father’s past foibles).

After the OS2 episodes, I didn’t need to know THE REASONS, the stark REASONING for why Pran needed to go to Singapore -- because, indirectly, it was already very clear to me that these young men were already holding tremendous burdens. Singapore, for Pran AND for Pat, could have ultimately been a motivator for growth. But I don’t need to know this. All I know is that they continue to have various levels of pain that they will be dealing with in their nascent adult lives.

While Dark Blue Kiss ULTIMATELY had happy endings -- how it got there was PAINFUL. Kao was ROOTED in fear that he would upend his family’s stability, while being the breadwinner. He was held back by extremely traditional role expectations of an older son. And he had no communication with his mother about straying from those roles. Pete’s dad served as the first -- and, I’d argue, maybe BL’s first -- paradigm-breaker as a parent, being SO open about his son’s queerness as to encourage healthy sex practices. But what I argue in this thesis is that up until the very last, bitter end, Kao was relegated to ASSUME that he would live in pain. His expectation was that Pete would ride with him. Pete couldn’t take it anymore and bubbled over. And Kao was forced to make a decision, for Pete’s sake, literally, to BE open, and to save the relationship. That shit ain’t easy.

Lots of folks who have read my posts on this site know that I appreciate a good Asian drama rooted in family and/or community trauma, like 10 Years Ticket. It’s the way in which Asian filmmakers depict this trauma that speaks very much to my life, my culture, and my viewpoint on what’s realistic in this world, and how that reality can be depicted in art. What I’ve found in watching Asian dramas is... I don’t always want clean endings. I don’t always want loops closed.

Sometimes, Asian kids can’t talk to their parents (Pran, Kao). If you grow up like that, you don’t immediately learn the language of intimacy for your family members, your friends, your lovers (Pran’s struggles after BBS/ep5, Thun’s coming out and not knowing the words for it). It might be EASY, or culturally UNQUESTIONABLE, to not argue with your parents about the ways in which they engage with their children (Korn, Win, Pran). Sometimes, to make a break in order to survive, you need to leave a toxic family member behind, which is NOT an ideal scenario (Uea).

Sometimes, you lose the love of your life (Ueda-san in Our Dining Table). Sometimes, you fall in love with someone — and you find that you can’t *exist* without them (Pat to Pran). And you have to live with the pain. I might even posit that the risk of that pain makes the love you have, either for the person living or the person passed, that much more meaningful to you.

I watch Asian dramas because I don’t feel like Asian filmmakers are subject to the Western demand to clean up all emotionally questionable loose ends. This is not When Harry Met Sally. Harry and Sally should have only remained friends, and not gotten married -- even Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner knew that -- but they also realized that Western audiences would not accept such an ending.

“The script initially ended with Harry and Sally remaining friends and not pursuing a romantic relationship because she felt that was "the true ending", as did Reiner. Eventually, Ephron and Reiner realized that it would be a more appropriate ending for them to marry, though they admit that this was generally not a realistic outcome.”

If I don’t get clean clarity in Asian dramas, I’m okay with it. My mind switches to the pain POV, that relativity mindset. Everyday life in Asian cultures can handle the weight of the painful and sufferable unknown. And that’s why I love these shows.

And, OF COURSE, not ALL Asian dramas are like this! Cherry Magic ended wonderfully. Old Fashion Cupcake ended beautifully. KinnPorsche ended sexily, if not a little confusedly (are they related? kinda? or not? whatever?). Minato’s Laundromat ended happily -- although we’ll see their relationship pain points in the upcoming second season. And we see relationship pain points in the ongoing drama of Shiro and Kenji’s relationship in What Did You Eat Yesterday -- all while they share their happy nightly meals together at their kitchen table.

Life is complicated. I posit that Asian dramas, for my taste, satisfaction, and cultural relativity, do a much better job at depicting that complicatedness than the West can ever do, and that’s why I stand so often on my soapbox to encourage Western viewers to understand these Asian cultural touchpoints more -- to learn about how we’ve accepted pain and suffering as an automatic given in our Asian lives, from our cultures, our spiritual practices, and from living amongst each other.

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