Romance in the White House [白屋之戀]

Cast: click here

Official hp:

http://www.cts.com.tw/prog/a/a0049/

Yin Tong has just graduated from the Department of Architecture from a university when he draws attention to himself at the architect convention in the city.  He receives high praises from the attendees at the exhibition for his proposed concept of “Lung of the City” and “The Stamp of Time.”  At the same time, Lao Yin who has spent the better part of the past 20 years with researching and developing a new variety of pear, experiences setbacks at the agriculture convention.

            In two different corners of this big metropolitan city, living the same life but experiencing different emotions.  Yin Tong is climbing to the top while Lao Yin falls to the bottom.  Nobody knows that these two people, although being very busy, still goes to see each other’s work.  Yet they both come quietly and leave quietly.  When they accidentally bump into each other, aside from briefly glancing at each other, they both immediately go their own ways.  Father and son seem to be complete strangers.  They have the same dream but go their separate paths.  Only Yang Lan knows about this secret.

            Yang Lan has been sick since she was a child and she seldom leaves home. Although the Yang family’s villa, Hong Lou, is her home, it is also her cage.  Whenever spring comes around, the full bloom of the pear flowers outsider her window becomes the freedom that she looks forward to.   Although the pear flowers are short lived and becomes dust after it withers to the ground, but she believes that as long as it has glittered brightly, then it is worth it. 

Yin Tong and Yang Lan met, became good friends and then fell in love.  He knows about her illness but he doesn’t have any complaints or regrets.  She knows about his dream and will do everything in her power to get father and son to reconcile.

With Yang Lan’s help, Yin Tong returns to the pear garden.  Aside from helping his father with the improvement of cultivating pears, he also wants to build a white house within the pear garden.  The house will be as white as the pear flowers and will also be the freedom that Yang Lan dreams about.

However, even if Yin Tong has no regrets and Yang Lan is devoted to their love, they still could not escape the fate that destiny has planned for them.  A year later, a rumor spreads from Pujiang about the white house, about a girl who resembles the white moon…  - from CTS

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Yin Tong has just graduated from the Department of Architecture from a university when he draws attention to himself at the architect convention in the city.  He receives high praises from the attendees at the exhibition for his proposed concept of “Lung of the City” and “The Stamp of Time.”  At the same time, Lao Yin who has spent the better part of the past 20 years with researching and developing a new variety of pear, experiences setbacks at the agriculture convention.

In two different corners of this big metropolitan city, living the same life but experiencing different emotions.  Yin Tong is climbing to the top while Lao Yin falls to the bottom.  Nobody knows that these two people, although being very busy, still goes to see each other’s work.  Yet they both come quietly and leave quietly.  When they accidentally bump into each other, aside from briefly glancing at each other, they both immediately go their own ways. 

            Yin Tong doesn’t call Lao Yin “father.”  Father and son seem to be complete strangers.  They have the same dream but go their separate paths.  Only Yang Lan knows about this secret.

            Yang Lan is the daughter of, Yang Shi Rong, the General Manager of Ba Fang Group.  Yang Lan has been sick since she was a child and she seldom leaves home. Although the Yang family’s villa, Hong Lou, is her home, it is also her cage.  Whenever spring comes around, the full bloom of the pear flowers outsider her window becomes the freedom that she looks forward to.   Although the pear flowers are short lived and becomes dust after it withers to the ground, but she believes that as long as it has glittered brightly, then it is worth it.  Under the pretense of taking a walk, she goes out every afternoon.  The truth is that she secretly goes to the pear garden to help out.  She becomes Lao Yin’s assistant and helps with spreading out the fertilizer, pollination and the rest of the gardening chores.  Lao Yin hopes for the fruit but what Yang Lan loves are the flowers.  Through her interaction with Lao Yin, Yang Lan finds out a lot of things about Yin Tong.  Lao Yin always boasts how smart, kindhearted and understanding Yin Tong is.  There were many good qualities about Yin Tong but the only thing is that he doesn’t want to produce pears.  This is also the reason which drove a wedge into their relationship. 

            Lao Yin doesn’t know that Yin Tong’s concept for “Lung of the City” and “The Stamp of Time” came about because Yin Tong still has the pear garden in his heart.

            When Yang Lan hears Yin Tong’s name again it comes from the mouth of her younger sister, Yang Xin.  Although this pair of sisters is born from different fathers and different mothers, yet their relationship is extremely close.  If is it said that Yang Lan is like the moon then Yang Xin is like the sun.  Yang Xin convinces her father to solicit Yin Tong to work in the company.  Because of this Yin Tong misunderstands Yang Xin and refuses her good intention.  Later, Yang Xin convinces Dong Jun Xiang to act on her behalf and finally gets Yin Tong to work in Jun Xiang’s architect firm.  Yang Xin sticks by Yin Tong all the time.  She is happy because of him and sad because of him yet she doesn’t understand him one bit.  When she is distressed, she can only look for Yang Lan to grumble to.  It turns out that Yang Lan can always figure out what Yin Tong is thinking about.  She even gives Yang Xin a few pointers to deal with Yin Tong.  Yang Xin doesn’t know that Yang Lan is actually very familiar with Yin Tong’s things.

            In Yin Tong’s eyes, Yang Xin appears very strange!  At first he believes her to be as bright as the sunshine but occasionally she would appear as gentle as the moon.  He doesn’t know that this is Yang Xin’s performance and that the director behind this is Yang Lan.  When Yin Tong gradually starts to fall for Yang Xin, they both weren’t aware that the one that he loves is not Yang Xin but Yang Lan, whom he has never met before.  Until he finally meets Yang Lan.  Even though she deliberately tries to hide from him, he still slowly discovers Yang Lan is the trace of moonlight that he finds in Yang Xin.

            After Yang Xin discovers the truth, she yelled and screamed but very quickly calmed down.  It is because she knows that her elder sister’s life is like that of the pear flower and only lasts 3 months.  Yang Lan always hoped to bloom and glitter brightly and Yin Tong is precisely Yang Lan’s brightness. 

Yin Tong and Yang Lan finally can face each other without having to avoid one another.  He knows about her leukemia, but he doesn’t have any complaints or regrets.  She knows about his dream and will do everything in her power to get father and son to reconcile.  Lao Yin will understand that because Yin Tong has witnessed since childhood his father’s hard work and dirt covered hands, he turns his father’s pear dream into the city’s dream which is where he gets his idea for his works “Lung of the City” and “The Stamp of Time.”  Yin Tong will finally understand the reason for his father’s protection of this pear garden is because his dream from the youth has still not come true yet.

However, Yang Shi Rong’s wife, Fang Pei Shan, discovers that Yin Tong is actually Lao Yin and Tong Lei’s son.  She is against Yin Tong and Yang Lan’s relationship because she hates Lao Yin and hates Tong Lei even more.  She, Lao Yin and Tong Lei all possessed the same youthful dream and have been close friends in the past.  Until she discovers that the one she deeply loves, Shi Rong actually loves Tong Lei instead and the dream that she holds onto with her love shatters.  She leaves the pear garden and gets married and then gets divorced.  Later she takes her daughter, Xiao Xin and gets married to Yang Shi Rong.  The past twenty years, her life went from hell to heaven and now she is the Chairman of the Ba Fang Group.  As for Tong Lei, her whereabouts have been a mystery all along and Lao Yin is still being his pear farmer.  For whatever reason, there is still hatred in Pei Shan.  Perhaps, she still believes that Tong Lei took away the person whom she deeply loves or perhaps, Lao Yin and Tong Lei lives too generously… generously preserving the ideal and dream that Pei Shan has long given up.

Pei Shan’s hatred brings endless disasters to Yin Tong, Yang Lan and Lao Yin.  Even Yang Xin couldn’t stand her mother’s conduct and gets into an intense argument with her but even she couldn’t prevent her mother’s willpower.  There is nothing that Yin Tong longs for in this world.  He can lose everything that he has but when Pei Shan’s actions hurt Yang Lan and hurt his father, he gets furious.

Lung points at the reforest of the jungle and stamp points to the breeding of the emotion of feelings.  Because Yin Tong’s concepts are not in line with the company’s profits, he was met with extreme opposition within the Ba Fang Group.  However, under Pei Shan’s plans, his father’s pear garden becomes Ba Fang Group’s target for purchase and rebuild.  The small church next to the pear garden also faces the fate of being torn down.  As a result, Yin Tong could no longer endure anymore.  The small church is more than a religious place.  During the earlier generations, when life was very difficult, this small church was once used as a laboratory for the previous generation’s experiment with the improvement of cultivating the pear.  This red brick tile building had housed the dreams, ideals, and memories of Lao Yin’s generation.

Yin Tong hands in his resignation letter, takes Yang Lan and escapes from Hong Lou and returns to the pear garden.  Aside from helping his father with the improvement of cultivating pears, he also wants to build a white house within the pear garden.  The house will be as white as the pear flowers and will also be the freedom that Yang Lan dreams about.

As he is building the white house, Yang Lan’s health grows weaker by the day.  When Yin Tong realizes that he cannot afford the medical expenses for a marrow transplant and this being Yang Lan’s only chance to continue on living, as a result, he had no other choice but to yield.  March of that year, the pear flowers are still in full bloom and the new generation of pears that Lao Yin has worked so hard for finally passes all the obstacles and tests that stood on its way and became a success.  Yin Tong carries Yang Lan and takes her back to Hong Lou.  Filled with grief, he hides behind the door and leaves Yang Lan.  Outside of Hou Lou, March snow starts to drift down and hides Yin Tong.

Yin Tong’s no regrets and Yang Lan’s devotion to their love finally causes Pei Shan to be ashamed of all that she has done in the past.  Unfortunately, everything is too late now, for Yang Lan’s life is drifting away little by little… 

A year later, a rumor spreads from Pujiang.  Someone said that a white house rises from the middle of the pear garden which becomes the symbol for the March snow throughout the four seasons.  Someone said that the new development plan that the young owner of the white house has created defeated the Ba Fang Group.  He also won a wonderful battle against the administration for the pear farmers and protected this pear garden.  As for this pear garden, it is precisely the work that he has planned for the city as “Lung of the City.”  Someone said that the owner of the white house still preserved the small church.  The church is now decorated with many photographs and instruments.  The photos are of his parents and the pear farm and it becomes the witness for this youthful dream of a “pear museum.”  It also becomes the work that he has planned for the city as “The Stamp of Time.” 

Someone also said that one year in March, the owner of the white house met two girls in the pear garden where, like snow, the road is paved with the flutter of the pear flower petals.  One girl is like the sun and the other girl is like the moon… 

- http://ctse.cts.com.tw/2004tv05.htm

translated by mandy