The Love You Give Me (You Give Me Like)
[你给 我的喜欢]
[Nǐ gěi wǒ de xǐhuān]by Shi Ding Rou (Shi Dingrou) An Intimate Insight of a Heart Pounding and a Heart Warming Story
Blurb:
Min Hui fell in love with Xin Qi, but Xin Qi’s heart was set on Su Tian. Can Min Hui ever be able to win Xin Qi’s love?
Min Hui was a very intelligent computer programmer with a Master's degree from the best university in China. After Min Hui started working, she slipped into a wave of tragedy beginning with sexual harassment at workplace leading to loss of her professional future, followed by loss of family completed with her mother’s death. With nowhere to go, no one to turn to, she tried to kill herself.
Li Chun Miao, a co-passenger on Min Hui’s supposedly last bus trip of lifetime, saved her life but lost her own. The shock, trauma, guilt chased Min Hui to mourn Li Chun Miao and fulfill Li Chun Miao’s duties for her brother Chen Jia Jun and promises to her lover Xin Qi, till Min Hui became Su Tian, soul of Li Chun Miao. Can Xin Qi recognize Min Hui’s sacrifices and love her back?
The Love You Give Me, is a contemporary romance with occidental elements of billionaire domineering boss, second chance and haters (enemies) to lovers romance stories and with oriental romance elements of stories of Shakuntala and Shree Radha. If you like an intense love story woven with minute details of the lives of migrant working girls of high paying skill and knowledge industry to low paying unskilled labor sector, then The Love You Give me is a book that you should not miss.
Read Now at https://www.wattpad.com/story/339826405-the-love-you-give-me-you-give-me-like~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was trying to beat sleepless nights with audio novels. The autoplay on YouTube dragged me to movie recaps. Movie recaps introduced me to k-dramas. While searching for K-dramas on YouTube, I stumbled upon C dramas. Most C-dramas I abandon after watching for five to fifteen minutes. The one I could not abandon is The Love You Give Me.
The series is available here:
After watching the first two episodes back to back, I was very much affected by the careful penmanship of the writer of the show. At the beginning of the third episode, I followed the title cards and noted that the series was based on the novel of the same name by Shi Ding Rou. I started searching for an English translation of the book and got only a Wattapad book translated by Google Translator.
Yes, the poignant idioms were lost in translation. Even then, in the end, I have fallen under the spell of the very realistic contemporary romance that might last for centuries for its quality as a vivid record of life of the people of a country over thirty years since nineteen ninety.
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The book starts with Min Hui’s sadness on a bus trip and her chance meeting with Li Chun Miao on the same bus. At the night stop, the two girls shared the room rented by Min Hui. Li Chun Miao was keen on knowing Min Hui. Min Hui was fierce about guarding her privacy. They were way different with respect to their respective physical and mental skills. Yet, at the age of twenty-five, they were both the same, lonely creatures without family and being bullied, abused and sexually harassed at their respective workplaces.
Li Chun Miao had hopes of meeting her long separated brother and lover, but Min Hui had no such hope. Li Chun Miao’s hopes inspired her to stay positive in her very bleak life and look out for people around her. Min Hui had no reason to believe anymore in human relationships at that point of her life which turned darker than the black holes. Yet she was generous to offer a bed to Li Chun Miao free of cost and gave her a gift of a bracelet that she kept as her father’s memory. Thus, both of them had the soul of Su Tian.
The book gave a Xin Qi who was very sincere and tender to his son and could find innovative ways to complement the duties of the mother of his son. But Xin Qi was also a thousand times more condescending compared to Darcy and a million times more cruel than Heathcliff. He comes in sheep skin and he leaves with wolves' claws smudged with blood of his victim. At some chapters when Min Hui was with Xin Qi, I had to turn off the screen of the reader, from time to time. Because I felt deeply dejected by Xin Qi’s attitude towards Min Hui in those pages. Thus, there lies the mastery of the author. She succeeded in making my heart bleed even through a lopsided English translation of the very vivid book.
The book is candid about the oppressive social policies of the country where birth registration of the children of the single parents costs a hundred times more money compared to that of the children of the married couple. By making laws and framing government policies, the society in the country encouraged citizens to get married to obtain family housing at a reasonable price. The book not only spoke of discrimination in the corporate world but also in the society as a whole. Along with the urban cozy lifestyle of the developing urban centers, the book also narrates the dark dirty standard of living a little further from the urban centers. Thus, the book becomes a confession and a historic record of the time when its narration occurs.
The characters are complex, conflicted, confused by the life events and people around them. Even though Zhau Ru Ji could see Xin Qi’s love for Min Hui, Min Hui was too scared to pamper her feelings for Xin Qi as Xin Qi denied having any relationship with her. To her, Xin Qi was like the pet porcupine which looks adorable from a distance but it stings if touched.
On the other hand Xin Qi seems to be mortified by his guilt. He promised Su Tian a home, a family and a lifetime of love. Yet he ended up falling for Min Hui. His feelings for the person in front of him were so strong that he failed to notice that Min Hui could never be Su Tian as Su Tain was an ace swimmer and Min Hui’s disease does not allow her to swim at all. He failed to suspect the intellect of Min Hui which was far superior than that of Su Tian whom he knew all those years ago. He was confident about his own intellect, yet his mind never signaled him that his myopia never let him see how Su Tian looked in reality and that he could end up believing any woman being Su Tian. The flaws in his own judgment, made him furious and he kept pouring the anger on Min Hui from the pain of guilt and surprise, “How could he cheat on Su Tian and love Min Hui?”
Even though Xin Qi investigated Min Hui, side by side, while searching for Su Tian and investigating disappearance of Su Tian and though he realized that Cheng Qi Rang drove Min Hui to the point of death that dragged Li Chun Miao, Xin Qi’s Su Tian, into Min Hui’s life and sucked Min Hui in the world of Su Tian and Xin Qi, yet he refused to accept the circumstances of Min Hui and show her some mercy. Sexual harassment brings severe hormonal imbalances in the body of the victim and hence, as a consequence, emotional turbulences along with depression. Min Hui was going through the horror of being touched inappropriately, all alone. As she tried to fight her violator, she lost friends. Her defeat of the legal battles drained all the money her mother had and her mother died of breast cancer as after fighting the legal battle, Min Hui and her mother had no money to put in the treatment of Min Hui’s mother’s ailments. This matter killed Min Hui’s soul. Knowing all Min Hui’s sufferings, did not make Xin Qi a beat considerate of Min Hui’s endeavors to save Xin Qi’s fragile life from the shock of facing the tragic truth of Su Tian’s demise. Rather, Chen Jia Jun seemed more humane without knowing what Min Hui must have gone through.
While reading the book, the information about heart conditions due to illness in Mitral Valve, the information about oncology and breast cancer, the Artificial Intelligence and possibilities of using AI in the medical field were so detailed yet smooth that I found them very engaging and very real. Same are the narrations about the finance market, hostile takeovers of companies, toxic corporate culture, laws of the land and how these things affect lives of people. Careful research and meticulous literary construction, made the book store page after page of contemporary reality of the social, professional, financial and all important aspects of life.
I liked the book more than the series. In the series, Min Hui’s decision of not going for an abortion of her child, have been pinned to compulsion of the life threat of Min Hui on the process of abortion. The book did not try to justify Min Hui’s decision of keeping her child alive and giving birth. All I could imagine is that the reason Min Hui gave birth to her son must be Min Hui’s craving for having a family of her own after losing her birth family to death.
The series made Min Hui’s character rather fickle compared to her otherwise gritty nature. Also, the drama series did not give Min Hui the necessary character arc. How Min Hui became a single mother of Su Quan or Min Quanquan with great career success, even though she did not have a supportive mother at home and her father was not there to play with her son at her home remained a mystery even after the end of the series.
It was not clear at all why Min Hui looked so depressed while meeting Xin Qi five years ago - was it due to the trauma of the bus accident or was it because something that happened much earlier. In the drama, Xin Qi was much more likable than the Xin Qi in the book. In the whole series, the character of Xin Qi, was whitened and diluted by eliminating the complexes, complications, confusions and conflicts. Xin Qi is not as ruthless in the drama series as in the book.
The drama took a bit of negativity from Xin Qi of the book and painted it on Chen Jia Jun. But, by all logic, in the book, Chen Jia Jun was overwhelmed by the generosity and sincere love of Min Hui and he tried to establish himself as Min Hui’s brother. The drama series missed this logical point as Min Hui’s proposal to become Chen Jia Jun’s elder sister was all talk but no action. The ending in the book was also a surprise and held me back to the screen of the reader, unlike the ending of the drama series.
The drama has sugar coated everything and showed the existence in a glossy manner. But the book was an account of the real world that often stinks and often soothes with pleasant odors. The drama is a lot of “look good, feel good” type presentation while the book was harsh reality at every word.
However, as I would be flipping through the book every now and then, I would also keep watching a scene here and another scene there between Xin Qi and Min Quanqun, especially in the early episodes.
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Let me know what is your take in the comments.
