The year is 1990, and the streets of Beijing’s Fangshan District are eerily quiet. You can almost hear a pin drop in the petrochemical town, as tens of thousands of workers and their families huddle around their televisions, all tuned to the same channel for something groundbreaking: China’s very first soap opera, Yearnings (渴望 Kěwàng).

Yearnings tells the story of Liu Huifang (刘慧芳), a female factory worker from a traditional working-class family in Beijing,…

The Chinese historical drama A Love Never Lost (人生若如初见) has been getting a lot of attention on Chinese social media since it made its surprise premiere on iQiyi on May 13.

By now, one of the main hashtags about the drama on Weibo has already exceeded 2.2 billion views. Meanwhile, large billboards featuring posters from the show have appeared from Chongqing to Beijing.

To say that A Love Never Losthas been a much-anticipated…