My first impression of The Early Spring is rather short. It’s just this “…dang, has Jing Bo Rang always been this hot? I am going to need a fan just to watch this show…”
It’s always a difficult choice for me when starting a Chinese drama that’s adapted from a novel if I should watch the show first or read the novel it’s based on first. I decided to read the novel first for this one…and I am still wavering if I made the right choice. So far, I am enjoying The Early Spring, but I can’t help constantly wondering why the drama changed this or left out that. To be fair, I think they are just certain things that are very difficult to portray in a drama. As a reader, as long as the author is willing, we are privy to all of the characters’ thoughts and emotions, which is something a drama can only do to a very limited extent. Unfortunately, in the case of The Early Spring, our two leads’ inner thoughts make a big difference in how we perceive their romance.
I think the best example of this is how our two leads’ relationship started. Before we get into that though, we need to take a step back and go over our two leads’ personalities. In the drama, our heroine seems like a poster child of a clueless college graduate who is a bit timid but has moments of stubbornness and courage. In the novel, Flora is more or less the same, but there is some important distinction. By all accounts, Flora has lived a rather good life that is fairly devoid of hardship in the novel. She grew up as the only daughter of two loving and supportive parents. While she didn’t have a glamorous appearance, she seems to have a special spark that attracts people to her. Even her first and only romantic experience in college was with a handsome, caring boy who doted on her. The relationship ended due to the life choices that put them on opposite ends of the country, and the two parted, wishing each other well. Our heroine’s luck continued to hold when she moved to the big city. She promptly gained many true friends. Her roommates were all solid friends who stood by her on her hardest days, and her mentor ‘Lumi’ was the best mentor/friend one could’ve wished for. Flora’s background meant that while she does have some confidence issues both in work and love (at least when it comes to our hero), the love she grew up with and is constantly surrounded by meant that she is rather daring at the most surprising times. Some other notable things in the novel that might not be as obvious in the drama: 1. Flora is impressively diligent in improving herself: learning languages, teaching herself office computer programs that made her extremely valuable, reading books to improve any work-related area she might be weak on, and she has impressively good handwriting. 2. Both of our heroine’s best friends (roommate and mentor Lumi) have a really open view on relationships. Their influence on our heroine definitely played a part in how she started her relationship with our hero. 3. Flora has really good posture when she sits. Luke more than once remarks that she doesn’t sit like modern people. 4. Flora is not a super beautiful girl, but she does have a really good figure.
Unlike the drama, our hero’s background was equally unhampered by hardship. Extremely smart and talented, our hero had a smooth-sailing life both in career and family. (No failed business in the novel. In fact, he kinda has the golden touch and invested in quite a few side businesses whenever the mood strikes him.) The only son of two very successful parents in their own fields (mother is a doctor and dad is a businessman), our hero also grew up in a very loving family. One thing it looks like the drama might have left out (at least that’s what it looks like by episode 6) is Luke’s personality flaws in the book. The author never came out and gave our hero’s prickly personality a diagnosis, but it’s obvious in the book that our hero does seem to have an inability to relate to people’s feelings. He does perfectly well when it comes to predicting people’s emotions for business purposes, but not so well on the romantic side. He also has a violent and obsessive side to his personality that his parents noticed at a very young age. In short, if it wasn’t for the tireless effort on his parents’ part throughout his growing-up years and the fact that he was lucky enough to have a group of great friends who are also well aware of his personality flaws, our hero probably would’ve ended up in the underbelly of society. Now, I don’t want to give the feeling our hero was waiting for our heroine to come ‘save’ him when they met because he really was doing quite well by then. One gets the feeling that while his personality does make it difficult for him to form an intimate romantic relationship (as shown by the rest of the story with our heroine), Luke is, by this point, thanks to his parents and good friends, grown up to be a moral and kind person.
Okay, back to how our two leads’ relationship started. In the drama, it seemed like our heroine was the poor innocent lamb that got trapped by the big bad wolf the first time they got together. In the novel, it really wasn’t like that. Remember in episode two when our heroine had to go to the hero’s hotel room? In the novel, our heroine sincerely lusted after our hero for a few brief moments during that scene. With one look at her, our hero could tell what she was thinking, and like in the drama, he sneered too in the novel and called her out for it. At this point, both of our leads had felt moments of physical attraction towards the other, but neither took it to mean anything. Our hero was still amazed at how someone with as insipid a resume as our heroine was hired, and our heroine was still convinced our hero was trying to find a way to fire her. The physical attraction, of course, grew from this point on, and by the time our two leads finally slept together that first time, there was some big difference between the drama and the novel.
- Our heroine was not drunk in the novel. This particular scene was a bit later in the story, and our heroine had already gotten her driver’s licence. On this night, our heroine drove our hero’s car…and ended up denting it. After getting over the fact that his new car just got dented, Luke convinced Flora to go to his house for dinner since it was late enough that everything was closed.
- After eating a dinner Luke had cooked for them, a very satisfied Flora got up to go. While standing at the entrance, the mood abruptly changed, and Luke first asked Flora if she had a boyfriend, followed by another question about how she felt about a one-night stand. Flora shook her head, then nodded. Luke took that to mean a no on the boyfriend and a yes on the one-night stand.
- What followed is the hilarious part I wish they kept in the show. Afterwards, Flora didn’t quite know how one should act after a ‘one-night stand,’ so she left after rambling on about how it was normal for adults to have one-night stands and they should not feel awkward seeing each other from this point on. In our heroine’s logic, while she wasn’t sure if Luke felt taken advantage of by what had happened, she definitely didn’t feel taken advantage of…since the experience was awesome on her side. Still wondering if she should be leaving some money, Flora left after rambling and Luke not saying anything.
- The moment Flora walked out of the door, she regretted that she didn’t stay longer because she wouldn’t have another chance in the future to sleep with Luke. She walked to the community gate area, hesitated a good while, then finally walked back to Luke’s door. She rested her finger on the doorbell but didn’t press it. Before she could get up the courage to press it, Luke came out and pulled her in.
- The next day, Flora was convinced by her roommate that since the ‘one night stand’ was so great, she should go ahead and ask Luke to see if he would be willing to be her steady bed mate. Unfortunately, Luke turned her down and apologized for saying anything in bed that might have misled her. (He had told her in bed that she could have him anytime she wanted.)
- With her trademark ability to adjust herself emotionally, Flora patted herself for being able to get Luke in bed even once and went to bed without giving him another thought.
- Luke is well aware of his own personality flaws, and his past broken romantic relationships that never lasted longer than a month convinced him that he is simply not boyfriend material…which is why he asked Flora about the one-night stand, then turned her proposal of being a steady bedmate down. In his own way, this was his doomed attempt to protect Flora from himself.
- At this point, our heroine is still convincing herself that she could accept the open style that her friends talked so much about. Everything she says to Luke will portray her as a very ‘forward-thinking’ modern woman, but it doesn’t take too long before she is forced to admit to herself that she never would have slept with Luke if she didn’t already have feelings for him.
- Side random note. Our heroine was not part of Luke’s department in the novel. She does work with him but only because Lumi, her mentor, works closely with Luke. So that whole thing in the drama with our heroine switching departments just to avoid him didn’t happen in the book. I love Lumi and Flora’s relationship in the novel, so I really hope the drama will have them back working together soon.
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