🍦🍨🍧. Thanks again, @packmule3.

My husband made moussaka tonight because we love aubergine/eggplant but our daughters don’t. They are both away traveling right now, so we are eating all of the things they dislike. It’s only starting to be warm here; spring is late.

It sounds like you are craving hot weather food. Oh, I do love tabbouleh and I grow mint just to be able to chop it and add it in with the other spices. The Koobideh sounds good too. There is only one authentic Persian place near us. I haven’t tried it yet. But there is a Kurdish restaurant in town that has lamb kofta. Is that similar?

@grace, @Fern
Oh dear, same here! I’m always longing to have my favourite vege dishes but can’t. My family has a rather limited range of veges that they will eat. 😞😓😋

I felt that ZJ’s brush with death during the accident that killed her father, and the loss of her leg, have made her decide to be aggressively alive and successful. Shanghai was the symbol of her success, and I recall her friend Wang Xi Xia saying that it’s not so much that they like the city itself, but that they like who they are when they are in it. ZJ mentioned that when she walks in Shanghai, no one knows about her father or her leg.

I guess she has become so caught up in being independent and able to get on that she forgets that an engagement/relationship with a significant other means one has to include the other party in decision making. CMD knew she felt threatened by the risk that she’d lose her independence. He gave her lots of lee way so that she would not feel she was giving up what mattered to her, but she didn’t understand that for the big decisions, she could not just decide on her own.

CMD on the other hand is settled because he has Granny to take care of, and a job at which he excels in Nanping. However, his way of regarding people began with the expectation that they would walk out of his life. He had been affected not only by his parents’ divorce, but also when ZJ left when they were still teens. I’m not sure if his relationship with Song Yi meant all that much to him … I feel that when that he mentioned his first break-up, he might have meant more the separation from ZJ than the break-up with Song Yi.

In any case I felt that CMD’s attitude was fatalistic, and it was a defensive stance, ie he didn’t want to connect with people because it would hurt when they left him. It took a long time (turning point was Ep 5 and again in a later episode 6 or 7?) for him to decide to give ZJ a chance to prove that she would not leave him.

He did say he was okay with her working in Shanghai but not for years on end without a plan for their future together.

I find that even I, as an onlooker, might think she was frivolous or maybe someone with her own agenda. The quite aggressive way she approached him repeatedly, the fact that she was gone from Nanping for so long and suddenly came back like a long-lost friend to all kinds of acquaintances: it looked like she was putting on all that bon homie as a good salesperson out to get leads. Then there was the way she just kissed him in public. She was serious about him but her actions said something else.

I liked that both had their growth arc of sorts… at least CMD became less fatalistic, was able to let go more without being angry and looked forward to every second of living instead of thinking that death should be expected. ZJ was shaken out of her complacency, and I saw the beginnings of her being more considerate of CMD.

Yes, I like both actors. I enjoyed Nothing But You. Wu Lei did a great job convincing me that he was a pro sportsman.

I don’t think any of these main actors are under-rated. From the number of shows they do and from the many of them in which they have the leading roles, production houses know that these actors can deliver and they have their fans, hence they bring in the money.

It was a good watch, but no time to really rewatch unless I just want to re-visit certain scenes. 🙂

@grace and @Growing Beautifully, I agree with all that you have said above. I found that it’s not so much that ZJ was frivolous as she was perhaps a bit too used to being the only person making decisions in her life – self-centred in a natural sort of sense. She really did like CMD since they were young – she wasn’t a player.

In rl I think that conflict between careers is a huge source of stress in relationships, if the careers are important to a person’s identity and self-esteem. If one person has to give up or significantly alter their career to stay with the other person it can lead to problems later. Also, often it’s the woman who is asked to give it all up because women are often underpaid compared to men, so their career is less ‘valuable’. I don’t think that was the case in this drama, though. Both were well paid if we can judge by their properties.

I was really disappointed in ZJ for not telling CMD sooner about her plans – it was really a breach of trust. Not that he wasn’t expecting it, but that she went until the last minute and the scope of her time away was much more than he was expecting. I’m glad that CMD worked to get the medical tourism industry started in their area and I liked how Cui helped pass that information on to ZJ. In the end, they were together and hopefully would communicate better.

Did all of you watch the epilogue after the credits on the last episode? @Kate has been watching, although she isn’t on the blog atm. She messaged me because I had skipped it once the credits were rolling. 🥰

@Growing Beautifully, it also showed that the mother had a part in it. She said she left the gate open, but I think it was also possible that she contacted the goose farmer and possibly already paid for the gander, given that little glance she exchanged with ZJ.

My dear @Fern and @grace, that Epilogue which I believe many of us missed, actually is a beautiful, lyrical resolution. The whole series feels more complete now, because of that epilogue. They really should have put it in as part of the main ending and not after the credits!!!

Yes @grace, there seems to have been a bigger purpose… a comment is being made about being family, about acceptance even when people aren’t making big decisions as desired, about accepting differences, accepting without understanding everything first, accepting even the odd goose LOL.

@Fern, I am a bit uncertain about that gander … perhaps Jisan Goose had been brought back upon request, but the gander was an unexpected extra! The huge pillow for Jisan shows that Mother knew that at least Jisan was coming home.

In any case, I really liked the big family hug, the great embrace of love.

(This, you see, was what was missing in the finale of Queen of Tears. As simple scene like this would have made all the difference in giving greater resolution.)

Yes, the important thing for me in every character centred drama, is that enough characters grow, and grow sufficiently. I feel Mother grew far more than our leads or rather, their growth is too subtle to be very obvious, but I know they have changed too. So did ZJ’s brother and sister. It was very satisfying. 🙂

I suspected his “girl-friend trouble” woes has got to do with his sexuality. Interesting..this managed to pass censorship..or did it slip them!! But of course if you take it at face level, it isn’t. And if you try to read between the lines…
That’s sneaky smart scriptwriter….

CMD’s advice for Yan is wise.

@Bosuji, where can I find Branding in Seongsu? That is to say, is it Netflix, Viki or ???

Many thanks. I will look for a trailer.

What is it that you like about it so much?