Love Myself or You 1: Architect of My Own Misery

Hi Hi,
This is a quick look at another TW drama 'Love Myself or You' subbed by the Figaro Cuisine Squad of Viki (quick cheer!).

Prepare for a close up galore of food you can never eat, and is most likely tasteless :/

When I heard of this show, I was like yay! a drama with a heroine that is not the extremely nice kind, but now I've just been treated to another stereotype at the other end of the spectrum.

Kai Qi is a French cuisine chef desperate to become sous-chef. I meet her in another french restaurant trying out the food, I am treated to shots of food being tossed at water and hot oil and the close up of very full lips eating...

On the other hand Zi Jie, the one tossing food at water, comes from a happy home but with strained relationship with his brother, he prefers traveling around the world and working here and there than being at home. His loving parents convince hims to work at their restaurant for a month before he moves on to Belgium. He's the male happy go lucky with firm abs and leader qualities type.

Anyway, the young lady seems to only be happy when eating. She gets a call from some random that her mother is in trouble, just before she meets Zi Jie aka Louis. Her dad is a thieving wife beater, her mom is a simpering idiot (is that too harsh?) I guess I just can't decide what I like, no parents, loving parents or shitty parents. All of them have k-leg in Asian dramas. Anyway on the way to her mom, she gets run over by a cyclist and hurts her elbow.

Which in turn, supposedly ruins her cooking skills the next they at her sous-chef test. Personally I think it's because she has such a shitty personality and is always yelling at people who care for her, one can be a loner, just don't be a shitty person. Her boss likes her and tries to use the sous chef job to get her into his arms, but she's having none of that. Her competitor for the sous-chef position is a the cutesy type with extra pleases, thanks yous and kisses. But she's a cutesy bitch type. Although I think there are a few things Kai Qi could learn from her. I guess Kai Qi feels if male chefs can be temperamental arseholes, why can't she? Sad thing about life is the double standard, a man is an arse; women would still want to get in his pants and man would want to be like him and they'll all like to think they are still learning something from him. A woman is an arse; women think she's a bitch, men think she's a bitch, no one wants to work with a bitch. But I am digressing.

Anyway Kai snaps and snarls at her assistants through her test working with the painful elbow. In the meantime Xi Jie walks in as the new intern. According to his rose-coloured memories he and Kai Qi are childhood friends who played in the restaurant a lot with their parents around, her mom was his house-keeper cum babysitter. Because of his bias (as in he wants to shag Kai Qi much to his own chagrin), the head chef decides that Xi Jie chooses who becomes the sous-chef by trying their dishes. He chooses cutesy bitch's. Afterwards, Xi Jie finds out that grumpy sister is his former childhood friend and follows her about. She goes drinking with her loner friend who likes dogs at a Japanese-style restaurant. Her friend has to leave and she gets drunk alone, Xi Jie takes her home and finds out they now live in the same apartment building on the same floor. Some kid shows up claiming to be her child and Kai Qi gets knocked out of her stupor and tries to chase Xi Jie away. He exits the lift and enters his own apartment while wondering what has happened to his childhood friend. Dude, you knew her before puberty, that shit messes with people's heads.

The next morning, it turns out her mom has moved in with her nephew who calls Kai Qi his mom, much to Kai Qi and my own irritation. Kai Qi is having none of this shit and for once I agree, his dad should be taking care of him, he's the one who got Kai Qi's now dead sister pregnant but Grandma is a pushover, so she and Kai Qi gets saddled with the kid. Kai Hui, Kai Qi's sister was a selfish type who left home in a huff, did as she pleased and then died. Mom tries to make excuses for the selfish arseholes in her life. Kai Qi don't want to know, the kid must go. Me thinks mom is going to either escape or die leaving her with the burden of sorrow.