I also usually watch dramas or movies that an actor or actress I like is in but surely there must be some dramas that you liked better than others, story- acting- or production-wise? 
VIKI doesn’t even work WITH a VPN, destroyed my world.
iQIYi or Mango TV are option, but as I’m still watching with subtitles - if they have them at all, the quality usually is very bad. Netflix is always a good option - use Taiwan- or Thailand-based VPN for best results, the subtitles are of good quality there. There’s also some streaming websites specifically for Asian shows and movies… in the West people might call them illegal but as in China nobody cares about it, I can send you a link via private message, if you like. 
Nirvana in Fire (琅琊榜) is my all time #1 favorite! I also loved The Bad Kids (隐秘的角落), Mysterious Lotus Casebook (莲花楼), and I’m currently in the middle of watching Empresses in the Palace (后宫·甄嬛传) because it’s a classic I’m already enjoying a lot. I tend to like “serious” dramas more than idol romance ones, though I loved 苍兰诀 (and refuse to use its English title because it’s cringy…)
My unfortunate favorite actor is Luo Yunxi, but literally none of the shows he’s in (except for some where he does dubbing, like Arcane) are actually good 
Hi Stefanie,
you can watch viki in China, if that’s where you are.
As long as I use a browser that’s accepted here, such as Edge, which won’t need a vpn, then I can watch viki.com
… but maybe you meant something completely different 
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Nooo, I had no idea! I think the problem was that I once connected my Viki account to Facebook login, so everytime I logged in I had to use VPN and then it told me I couldnt use Viki… just have to make a new account where I don’t have to use VPN and I’m good! Thanks for the info!
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苍兰诀 has Dylan Wang, who is also in Meteor Garden. I started watching 苍兰诀, but for some reason couldn’t get into it so I stopped.
I’m re-watching Falling Into Your Smile (cringy, but fun) with just hanzi subtitles, and starting a new one for me - Home with Kids, available on YouTube. When a show is new to me, I use Language Reactor and use the pinyin, hanzi, English subtitles.
yes, that’s exactly what happened to me.
To make matters worse, I arrived in China in March, in the middle of the annual national conference of the Party’s Congress. During that time, and it’s not a myth! 
, vpns barely work, there’s a crackdown apparently.
So I had a tricky chicken and egg situation (how do you say that in Chinese anyone?)
I couldn’t log in using my Facebook account.
I had to wait until someone sent me a stronger vpn by APK file on wechat (an important trick to learn in China), then I was able to access FB, change my log in to viki to an email address instead of FB, use a browser that doesn’t need VPN … and at last I could watch viki again… exhausting!!! 
You wouldn’t believe we had a blog for that…
In terms of the phrase, you can use 先有鸡还是先有蛋 @Pascale-Mandarin_Simplified_HS
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wouuuahahahahaha!
brilliant thanks
Great vocabulary visual aid, and sentence… 先有鸡还是先有蛋!
I like this one 呆若木鸡
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Ooooh, Go Ahead is one of my favorites too 
… I wish the studios would make more of these less common tropes. You can also find the OSTs for these on Spotify and add them to your music rotations to see if you understand the song lyrics more as your language proficiency improves!
I can also wholeheartedly recommend the following:
Nothing But Thirty (三十而已) Thirties and Single
I Will Find You a Better Home (安家) Learning From a Noble Realtor
Will Love In Spring (春色寄情人) Rural Mortician Meets Talkative Urbanite
Nothing But You (爱情而已) Executive Assistant and the Son of a Wig Maker
(The official of English titles given for these series don’t do them justice, so I’ve taken the liberty of renaming them more approriately 
)
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I recently discovered a gem that I think more people should know about. It’s not a C-Drama, but a Malay drama called Lelaki Melayu Terakhir. It’s incredibly captivating, and I think fans of well-crafted, emotional storytelling will enjoy it.
But to stay on topic, here are my Mandarin favorites:
MY TOP 3:
- Go Ahead (以家人之名)
- The Rational Life (理智派生活)
- When I Fly Towards You (当我飞奔向你)
MY FLOP 3:
- I Hear You (最动听的事)
- Meteor Garden (流星花園)
- Love O2O (微微一笑很倾城)
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Meteor Garden remaining just as unpopular
I heard good things about The Rational Life too. I just saw it’s on Netflix, with 35 episodes it should keep me busy for a while!
Til the end of the moon is good, I think.
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I concur with this
I think my favourites (just plucking out of my memory) would have to be:
- Rise of Phoenixes
- A Dream of Splendor
- Go Ahead
- Til the end of the Moon
- Eternal Love
- Glamorous Imperial Concubine (the cat parody vids are great too)
- The Ideal City
-The Story of Xing Fu - Sunshine by my Side (apart from Xiao Zhan, the divorced husband played by Tian Yu is really funny)
- Hidden Love (Zhao Lusi)
- Love like the Galaxy (Zhao Lu Si)
- I can’t find it right now, but it’s a recent series where Zhao Lusi plays a hospitality manager who inherits her adopted grandmother’s hotel. It’s excellent for the huge number of idioms. I had to pause it so often.
- So many more but it’s time for dinner, so I’m off.
凯莉
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Recently I’ve finished the one named Meet Yourself (去有风的地方). It kinda saved my soul when I was at my lowest. And also love the School romance type off TV show, too
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School romance thropes are my crack, haha. I’ve seen Be Yourself and Find Youself. I should add Meet Yourself to the list.
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Are those 2 films you mentioned good?
Meet Yourself was so sweet. I loved their BnB / sharehouse. I watched it directly after “A Dream of Splendor” because I was so impressed with 刘 亦菲 （Liu Yifei).
Others I really liked:
- The Double
- Best Choice Ever (Yang Zi plays a serious, more mature role finally)
- Go Go Squid (where she doesn’t)
- Lost You Forever
- Love Endures (Yang Zi in a really surprising series. This one was full of surprises, and became hard to watch for the best reasons!)
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I would love to try watching your favorites
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