At Seventy, Grandma Wants a Divorce, and the Whole Family Panics

[1990s] [Seventy-Year-Old Female Lead] [Women's Awakening] [Ensemble Family Drama] [Light Comedy]

At her seventieth birthday banquet, Grandma announces in front of all her children and grandchildren: "I'm divorcing your Grandpa."

The whole family is in an uproar.

Her sons worry that no one will look after their elderly father. Her daughters fear the neighbors will laugh at them. Others have their eyes on the old house and the bakery. Everyone tries to talk her out of it: Grandpa doesn't hit you, gamble, or keep a mistress. You've made it through fifty years together, so why cause a fuss now?

But Grandma takes out an old account book.

On her ID card, her name is Lin Zhaodi. In the family genealogy, she's merely "the Lin woman." The bakery sign belongs to her husband, but she's the one who has kept the recipes, books, and business going.

After putting up with it for fifty years, she's done putting up with it.

She moves, changes her name, checks the accounts, divides the family property, and even turns the Chen family's three generations of muddled lives upside down.

Later, Grandpa learns to do laundry and cook, then asks her to come home, eyes red.

She replies calmly:

"Learn to live on your own first. Then you can come talk to me about living as a couple."