Life of Zhenhuan (《甄嬛传》Zhēn Huán Zhuàn), November, 2011

Women just love the life of Zhenhuan, a fictional story depicting a Qing Dynasty imperial concubine. With her unmatched beauty and wisdom, she defeated other concubines and even the empress to be the favorite of the emperor and the most powerful woman in the royal court. The show also represents a genre of Chinese TV shows, “宫廷感情斗争剧”（Gōngtíng Gǎnqíng Dòuzhēng Jù), of historical romance and scheming, along with struggles among women in the royal court. It is also known as “宫斗” for short.

A ratings-winner, the show attracted female fans across the country. The unique style of the conversations between these royal women was especially appealing to its fans- they even started to adapt their online conversations to imitate it, called the “Zhenhuan Font” (甄嬛体 Zhēn Huán Tǐ). In a typical conversation, they would refer to each other as “小主” (Xiǎo Zhǔ, little master, used by the servants to refer to the royal concubines in the show), and words such as “方才”(fāng cái, just now), “想来”(xiǎng lái, it maybe assumed) and “极好” (jí hǎo, fabulous), all of which emulate the spoken language used over a hundred years ago. The statements used in this “Zhenhuan Font” are usually very indirect, with true meaning hiding in the flowery language. Here is an example created by the fans:

Fāngcái zài jīngliàn shàng kàn dào yīdào shùxué tí, chū fǎ jí shì guǐyì, sīxīn xiǎngzhe ruòshì zhè tí ràng nǐ lái zuò, dìng kě zēngjiā gōngshì shúliàn dù, duì nǐ de shùxué bìshì jíhǎo de.方才在精练上看到一道数学题，出法极是诡异，私心想着若是这题让你来做，定可增加公式熟练度，对你的数学必是极好的。
Just now, I saw a mathematical problem in an exercise book that was very unusual. I personally think that if you would solve this problem, your familiarity of the formula will most likely be increased, which is very beneficial to your own math skills.But it really means: The problem is too hard for me. Why don’t you try it?