Ni hao! How’s life & drama-watching, friends? 🙂 I apologize for not being a prolific blogger recently as I have turned into more of a prolific napper and drama-watcher (which I should be blogging about anytime soon!). But at least I’m here today to write one of the most frequently-asked questions that I get as a drama fan.
“WHY do you watch Taiwanese dramas?!”
It’s a question that isn’t supposed to bug me so much until I got too full from hearing people’s comments about it. I have always believed that people should never be judged according to their tastes or even have to justify just because they’re being judged about it. To settle the score, I have listed down the top five (not in any order) reasons why I watch Taiwanese dramas.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post are solely made by me as Dramarian and does not reflect the views and opinions of this blog. The photos are not mine as well.
1.) ORIGINALITY
We have to acknowledge the fact that Taiwan basically started the Asian drama craze all over the world since 2001 thanks to Meteor Garden. Of course we also have to thank Japan for this as their mangas have become the inspiration of most idol dramas. Someone told me that I should be watching K-dramas instead because they have better dramas. The word better is problematic here because when I asked her if she has ever tried watching a Taiwanese drama, she said no *facepalms*.
I told her that I’m definitely open to it except that I still have so many dramas that I want to watch. For the record, I’ve already watched Kdramas such as “Lovers in Paris”, “Save the Last Dance for Me”, “Stained Glass”, just to name a few. I’m the type of drama-watcher (or maybe as a person in general too) who doesn’t watch something just because it’s the “cool” or “in” thing. Don’t get me wrong because I always ask for recommendations too then I end up watching the shows that I find interesting.
We also have to remember that a lot of Taiwanese dramas have already been remade into Korean dramas such as the following:
Taiwan’s “Meteor Garden” (2001) & Korea’s “Boys Over Flowers (2009)
Taiwan’s “It Started With A Kiss” (2005) & Korea’s “Playful Kiss” (2009)
Korea’s “To The Beautiful You” (2012) & Taiwan’s “Hana Kimi” (2006)
Taiwan’s “Fated to Love You” (2008) & Korea’s version (2014)
Taiwan’s “My Queen” (2009) & Korea’s “Witch’s Romance” (2014)
Korea’s “The Time We Were Not In Love” (2015) & Taiwan’s “In Time With You” (2011)
There will be no “better” K-dramas if it weren’t for those genius Taiwanese scriptwriters/directors.
2.) LANGUAGE
“Whaaat? Taiwan has dramas? what language do they speak?”
“That’s so weird, I can’t imagine, why are you watching that”
Just some remarks that I got from people whenever they learn that I love to watch Taiwanese dramas. Trust me, there’s more and I may have missed some worse remarks and these came from people living in a country which is just almost 2 hours away from Taiwan *facepalms again*
After watching so many Taiwanese dramas, the Mandarin language became music to my ears. As opposed to most people who are uncomfortable listening to their language, I fell in love with it. I can confidently say that I can play Candy Crush and watch a Taiwanese/Chinese drama at the same time without having to look at the English subtitles all the time *pats self on the shoulder*. Through this addiction, it became one of my major goals to stay in Taiwan or China to take some language lessons.
3.) CULTURE
The culture they have is a bit similar to my country’s culture in terms of having close family ties. Let’s take 30 year-old Chen You Qing of “In Time With You” as our example. She still lives with her parents and it’s funny when I saw so many comments on Viki asking if this was a normal thing in Taiwan because according to them, “Isn’t she too old to be living with her parents?”. Welcome to East Asia, friends!
Let us also not forget Liang Mu Cheng of “Autumn’s Concerto” who raised her son Xiao Le with a set of family rules. I still wish they provided us a full set of the rules but just to name some which were mentioned in the drama, Liang family rule #5: Always be nice to your friends and my favorite rule which is #13: Do what you can and never trouble others.
I could list a lot but that would require me to write another article about Taiwan’s culture and society. Let’s see next time!
4.) ACTORS/ACTRESSES + FAN SERVICE
“Why don’t you watch K-dramas? Korean actors & actresses are so cute and perfect!”
Again, those remarks came from someone who has never watched Taiwanese dramas… I’m not bashing those perfect-looking actors but…
They obviously haven’t seen the people above and there’s more to where they came from!
Another major reason why I love Taiwanese dramas is their concern for their fans through cast reunions and their willingness to share it to their fans.
Just to name some reunions aka fan service in the past few years:
It’s not obvious that I love Autumn’s Concerto way too much… haha!
Van Ness Wu & Ady An reunited for V’s “Ai Ya” MV back in 2011 then had cast reunion in 2013 and just a few months ago (read more here)
Jerry Yan & Barbie Hsu had dinner together back in 2015 to celebrate the new year
Let us also not forget the reunion that made me go crazy recently! Read more here 😉
Rainie Yang reunited with her male leads Show Luo, Wilber Pan, and Mike He just recently for her new MV
5.) HEARTSTRINGS
I love watching dramas or anything that gives me endless feels and I have to say that most Taiwanese dramas give me what I want.
I’ve been watching a lot of Chinese & Japanese dramas until I decided to watch some Taiwanese dramas again. It made me realize that they will always have a special place in my heart.
Nothing can soothe my soul the way a Taiwanese drama does so being judged just because I prefer their dramas over any other country’s dramas is unacceptable for me. Trust me, I don’t do the same to other people because I always respect other people’s preference 😉 I could give more reasons or justifications but a wise blogger friend of mine told me that most people are only willing to read up to 5 points in a blog. If you want to know more or to share your opinions, then feel free to leave some comments below!
SkimmedMilkDRAMA 
Omg….I feel pretty much the same about Taiwanese dramas. ^^
LikeLiked by 1 person
Glad to know I’m not alone! 😊
LikeLike
Hola guapisima, siento no escribirte en inglés -.-
Me encantó tu post, te conoci gracias a Back in time y me enamoré del blog *_*.
Ha sido maravilloso leer esta entrada, sobre todo porque yo también amo cada dia mas los dramas taiwaneses, es mas, acabo de ver Mars y he quedado hechizada.
Entre mis dramas favoritos estan Bromance, Prince of wolf, Mars, Murphy’s law of love, Taste of love. También me gustan Skip beat, y Im Sorry i love you. Y también vi Love cousine, Moon river, Just you, Refresh man, Fated to love you, Devil bedide you, In time with you…
Taiwan cada dia me enamora mas y mas, con todo. Actores, ambientación, tramas, etc. No todos sus dramas me gustan pero es un pais que tiene mucho por aportar *_* y me encanta como suena el mandarin.
Te aplaudo por tener tan buen gusto y disfrutar de aquello que amas ^^
Mayu.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hola Mayu! Muchas gracias por el maravilloso mensaje! I’ve only watched Mars, Bromance, Just You, Fated To Love You, and In Time With You from your list and will watch the rest sometime 🙂 It’s true that Taiwan has so much to offer and just like you, I also got to watch some that I didn’t like. Thank you so much and you definitely have good taste too! No one can ever stop me from watching Taiwanese dramas 😉
Hope to get to talk to you again here!
LikeLike
Aww, what a cute post! Gonna agree with you, even as I start watching more korean dramas and get exposed to ‘cute and perfect korean actors/actresses’, the taiwanese stars always have a special place! Korea can have cute & perfect celebrities, but we have cute-r and perfect-er celebrities! :p The main problem I have with taiwan dramas nowadays is that most of the interesting dramas I would like to watch happen to be daily dramas that are 70 episodes long and that is just too much commitment 😦 One day.. I’ll get the time and marathon them all!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, dear! 🙂 more naturally perfect too (for some) 😉
Never encountered that problem actually since I tend to avoid such long/daily dramas. I don’t have the guts to start one though I’ve always been interested in watching “Love, Now” & “Inborn Pair” but I let it go after realizing that I just don’t have enough time 😦
What are those daily dramas that you’re interested in? Wishing for that day for you to come sooner! ❤
LikeLike
I prefer Korean dramas but I do watch Taiwanese, Chinese and Japanese as well. I’ve also noticed that Korea remakes other Asian dramas. One thing I agree with you on – Autumn’s Concerto is and will remain one of my all time favorite dramas. Vanness Wu is amazing and I own all of his music. I also love anything Andy An is in. Several T. drama’s have stuck with me as favs but overall I love my Korean men and their dramas rule. Enjoyed your article.
http://www.fiddledeedeebooks.wordpress.com
LikeLiked by 1 person
To each his own! 🙂 Van Ness is amazing and I was lucky enough to have a close encounter here when he visited my country last year. He’s amazing! I love Ady but so far, only Autumn’s Concerto has touched my heart out of all of her works that I have seen. Love the “my Korean men” yesss own it haha! Thank you so much for reading and taking the time to drop a comment. Will definitely follow your blog too! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love both k-dramas and taiwanese dramas but most of the dramas on my all time fave list are taiwanese dramas (my top two are autumn’s concerto and It started with the kiss. (i still ship joe chen and Ariel Lin))
LikeLiked by 1 person
amazing! we have the same favorites 😀 yeah, Ariel & Joe will forever be one of the ultimate OTPs out there! Thank you very much for dropping by! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is your best post lol hehe 😉 because I agree with everything you wrote!! I love TW dramas for all the reasons you listed. The feeling of warmth of family and closeness of good friends is very much emphasized.
Do you have a top 10 list of your favorites? I started a collection on Viki for TW dramas with a short review and rating. Always looking for more titles to add!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Aww thank you very much! A lot of people have actually misinterpreted this post of mine (like, can’t they just read to understand?!) haha! I completely agree 🙂 I have made a list in MyDramaList.com so maybe you can add me there if you have one. Please link me to your Viki collection and maybe I can add some, although Viki is pretty short on some good TW dramas.
LikeLike
Interesting! I never heard of mydramalist but I made an account and started a list. 😊 I didn’t know I could link Viki collections either haha. My collection there is called The Best TW dramas ~ rated! It’s a public list but I have no idea how to get more people to see it! Anyway have a great weekend!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yay! You can add me there as @dramarian 🙂 Hmm I’ll see how I can view your collection! I’m also on Twitter btw so if you’re there, we can also talk there!
LikeLike
I also love watching Taiwanese drama. I live in Japan so I came to drama from Japan, then started Kdrama from a linguistic perspective with shows that had Japanese versions. My first were He’s Beautiful and Boys over flowers.I started Taiwanese dramas recently with the same perspective. My first was Fated To Love You.
I think Taiwanese dramas really up the stakes. Like the Taiwanese version of BOF, Meteor Garden was a hard watch for its sexual and physical violence. I think Jerry Yan is the only Dao Ming Si I couldn’t get into. The over-the-top stuff works for Fated To Love You. The pregnancy test scene is freaking hilarious. Despite going so big though, I find that Tdrama doesn’t get stuck in the angst loop that Kdrama can sometimes overdo. Tdrama feels realer for me,
One thing I hate about being a fan of Tdrama is the lack of community though. I am in a group for Kdrama on FB, but I cannot find one for Tdrama. Also, because I watch Kdrama, Tdrama and used to watch Jdrama, I would love someone who could compare and contrast the leads and stories of shows that crossed the seas, but I don’t have it.
PS, thanks for letting me know My Queen has a Kversion. I am fairly obsessed with the Taiwanese one.
PPS, I think Japan is the goddess of manga, Taiwan Is the god of original drama, and Korea is god of remakes. Meteor Garden, Playfull Kiss and Hana Kimi all follow that route, I think.Jmanga -Tdrama – Kdrama.
LikeLiked by 1 person