General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Last Goodbye to Mama (您好！母亲大人)

The Last Goodbye to Mama (您好！母亲大人; also known as 再见啦！母亲大人) is a 30-episode Chinese urban family drama broadcast in 2021, directed by Cao Dun (曹盾) and Jing Chong (荆冲), starring Dong Jie (董洁) as the mother Ding Biyun and Yin Fang (尹昉) as her son Ding Xiaojun. It adapts the writer Bu Liangsheng's (不良生) essay collection Yun Shang: Yu Mu Qin De 99 Jian Xiao Shi (云上：与母亲的99件小事, Clouds Above: 99 Small Things with Mother) and follows an ordinary mother and son from a small town in northern Jiangsu (Subei) across thirty years, from the 1980s to 2015.¹^•² The series premiered on October 13, 2021, streaming simultaneously on Youku, iQiyi, and Tencent Video.¹

Key fact	Detail
Original title / English title	您好！母亲大人 / The Last Goodbye to Mama; alternate title 再见啦！母亲大人²
Format	30 episodes, roughly 45 minutes each; urban family drama, Mandarin³^•⁴
Broadcast	Premiered October 13, 2021 on Youku, with iQiyi and Tencent Video simulcasting¹
Source material	Essay collection 云上：与母亲的99件小事 by Bu Liangsheng; story runs from the 1980s to 2015¹
Lead cast	Dong Jie as Ding Biyun, Yin Fang as Ding Xiaojun; the actors are 6 years apart in age⁵
Narrative structure	Parallel timelines: a present-day interview frame, the son's university years, and the mother's life in the 1980s⁵
Reception	Douban score of 8.2 to 8.3 with near-uniform praise despite low viewership buzz⁶^•⁷
Recognition	Shortlisted for the 31st China TV Golden Eagle Award drama list in 2022; named a 2021 annual influence series by 综艺报⁸

Spoilers

Story

The drama centers on Ding Biyun and her son Ding Xiaojun, who grow up depending on each other in a small town in Subei, northern Jiangsu. Ding Biyun marries Fu Qiang against her own mother's opposition, then divorces him after his affair and raises Xiaojun alone, working in turn as a sewing worker, a quality inspector at a Japanese company, a wool sweater shop owner, and a breakfast stall operator. She meets a new man, Mei Zhong, but ultimately chooses to live alone. She conceals her surgery from her son, and her cancer later returns.⁹

Ding Xiaojun's path mirrors hers. He secretly applies to a university in Shanghai for the college entrance exam, stays in Shanghai after graduation, and works two years at a publishing company without being made permanent. When he learns of his mother's illness he brings her to Shanghai for treatment, breaks up with his college girlfriend, quits his job, and returns home to care for her; he later fulfills his dream of becoming a writer.⁹ The frame story opens with the adult Xiaojun, now a known author, being interviewed about a book he wrote on his mother; the interviewer's pointed questions draw out the memories that structure the series.¹⁰

Narrative structure

Three timelines. The screenplay divides the story into three time lines that interweave in every episode: the present, told through the interview and carrying the son's guilt; Ding Xiaojun's university years, carrying his growth and his drift away from his mother; and the 1980s Ding Biyun, carrying the mother's sacrifice as her marriage moves from affection to divorce and she raises the boy alone.⁵ Episodes are organized around themes, with titles such as "断了线的风筝" (episode 1), "我们都离开了母亲" (episode 2), and "我的父亲" (episode 3), and the plot switches among the three lines according to each theme.⁵

The transitions rely on matched cuts between similar scenes and actions. A shot of the university-age Xiaojun and his mother pushing a bicycle to visit the grandmother cuts to the 1980s, when the young Biyun rides the same kind of visit with the small boy; a dinner table in one era dissolves into a dinner table in another, making the passage of years visible.⁵^•⁹ The mother's and son's stories form a mirror structure: each of Biyun's choices is made for her son, and each of Xiaojun's choices is the product of how she raised him.⁹

This structure demands attention from the viewer. Reviewers noted that watching at increased playback speed or while distracted loses key information, and that the first episode's opening half hour jumps among emotional registers before the design becomes clear.⁵^•¹¹

Adaptation and production

The source is a prose essay collection rather than a novel, and the screenwriter Gong Xue (巩雪) initially declined the adaptation before the original writing won her over; she cited the author's line that he recorded the small things "because I was afraid I would forget."⁶ Producer Zhang Atong (张阿瞳) described his standard for the production as not stirring public anxiety, not manufacturing social controversy, and not pandering to one-sided online sentiment, and credited director Cao Dun's photography, lighting, art, and costume teams with a unified aesthetic in the pursuit of realism.⁷

Casting drew pre-broadcast discussion because Dong Jie and Yin Fang are only six years apart in age, yet reviewers found the pairing convincing; Dong Jie's role spans roughly thirty years, from an apprentice in a tailor shop in 1984 to a frail middle-aged patient and beyond.¹^•⁵

Reception

The series finished its run quietly, without much publicity, but earned near-uniform praise on social media and a Douban score reported as 8.2 by the Liaoshen Evening News and 8.3 by the Yangcheng Evening News, with readers describing crying through it.⁶^•⁷ Commentators placed it in 2021's crowded field of family-themed releases, alongside films such as Hi, Mom and About My Mother, and noted that it avoids both the comedy of the former and the heavy sentimentality of the latter.⁵^•⁶

Criticism focused on the structure rather than the sentiment. One review argued that the multi-line format, while innovative, constrained the writers, actors, and editors, and that the adaptation dropped dramatic confrontations present in the novel.¹¹ A Wenhui Bao-affiliated commentary highlighted the portrayal of Ding Biyun as a new kind of screen mother: gentle and soft-spoken, respecting her son's choices rather than controlling him, in contrast with the domineering mothers of earlier hits.¹² In 2022 the series was shortlisted for the 31st China TV Golden Eagle Award drama list and received a 2021 annual influence series award from 综艺报.⁸

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026