TYBOX: Remembering Sancai and 2003

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 04 February) – My Facebook wall last Monday, February 3, was filled with grief from friends, over a TV character.

News on the death of Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu, age 48, more popularly known in the collective memory of millennials as Sancai in the groundbreaking Taiwan TV drama Meteor Garden, shocked everyone. 

No one has heard of Sancai or the F4 for the past two decades when they were the most popular TV show and act in the early 2000s,  until Monday when that news broke the hearts of Meteor Garden fans.

Then everyone went nostalgic for 2003, phones were still analog, and this late afternoon TV show drove high school students rushing home early or to the carenderia with a TV set, to watch how the odds of Sancai, a working class high schooler, had to defy the bratty gang of F4 but later melted the heart of the group’s leader, Dao Ming Si, who fell for her hard. And so did the rest of the millennial teens, who would giggle and squeal on this Tagalog-translated drama series that featured a couple of love songs that no one understood its Mandarin words but was mostly played on radio. 

F4 took over our pop culture in 2003, they were so popular their albums, MTVs, and their concert with Sancai in Manila brought hysteria. F4 may not be the Beatles in terms of music talent, but their haircuts influenced a young generation. 

In retrospect now, F4 and Meteor Garden was a strange occurrence. Because there was never another Taiwanese TV series nor star that the Pinoys embraced. It opened the door instead to K-Drama and K-Pop, to Winter Sonata, Jewel in the Palace, to the phenomenal Gangnam Style that became the first YouTube video to reach one billion views.

It’s kind of weird too, the swing of influence, where my generation was into things American, from grunge, metal to pop culture of 90210 to Madonna and Whitney Houston, to the next generation that could memorize K-pop lyrics like tongue twisters, and some taking to the hilt of wearing Korean trendy coats in the middle of a hot Philippine weather.

But who am I to complain? As a tito, I kind of like the Asian pivot in our young pop culture.  There were no more discriminating jokes against Tsinoys that I heard growing up like “Insik wakang, baboy tikangkang.”  For the past decade, young Pinoys mistake me on the streets as a Korean  and greet me with “Aneyong.” I was tempted to reply back: “Anong malay ko sa iyo.”

Funny too, that Pinoys embrace K-Pop, but then, there’s this Chinese thing. The WPS standoff. Alice Guo (Guo Huaping) stealing the mayoral seat of Bamban, and getting away with a selfie.

Funny too, that the rest of the western world actually doesn’t recognize F4. Taiwan for them is director Ang Lee or actress Hsu Qi, and in international cinema, there’s Hou Hsiao Hsien of Taipei Story.

But for now, we remember Barbie Hsu, and F4, for opening that door to their garden and the stars.  That popular love song is playing once again over our neighborhood for the nth time for nostalgia.

 (MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Tyrone A. Velez is a freelance journalist and writer.)