The Little Nyonya

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!
It has been a LOOOONG time I never watched such a nice singapore production series.
It's The Little Nyonya.
Now showing in Astro "Shuang Xing" Weekdays 7pm
My fellow friends in JB, I know this is a SO YESTERDAY series (November 2008),
But I only finish watching it today 3 o' clock in the morning, with laughs and tears.
Yes I AM OUTDATED!!!! HAHAHA~

Nowadays, SG Dramas all are copying those Taiwan Pop Idol's Drama, seriously boring and not special AT ALL!!!! Those dramas which has the specialties that represents the colours of Singapore are disappearing. Like last time, popular works like "Shuang Tian Zhi Zun", "Chang He", "Good Morning Teacher" "Morning Express", "Block 158", "Kopi-O" and many more. They are the dramas that accompanied my primary years. This time, because of the celebration of 45 years of Channel 8, Mediacorp, they launch this drama . Through 1 year of research, this drama is a successful piece of work and gets the highest record of viewership during the past years. I was super stunned and wants to see how well it is. Therefore, I followed every episode on Astro while I was in JB. But only watch until 4th episode....

=.=

But, because of the 4 episodes, I was addicted to it!!!!
I seriously eagerly want to know what is the ending!!! So, when I came back, YouTube! is the best partner! Hahaha...Use 3 days to finish the 34 episodes drama.

Anyway, It is a nice drama.

Background: The Peranakans family in Malacca & Singapore before & after World War 2 during the 1930s. The drama is mainly about an old Nyonya telling the story to her grand-daughter about her past.

The drama not only potrays the beauty and special traditional culture of the Peranakans (Babas & Nyonyas), But also sends out the message of morality,
Reflects the Cruelty of Gender inequality in the past, Reality of fights for wealth & business, Jealousy between men and women, The rising of women rights, People nowadays do not bother to know their history, and the theory of kind and good gets the retribution they deserved and the bads will suffer what they had done.

Although the drama is very draggy (to me, as an impatient person), and a bit TVB-ish, but i am in love in the drama and I really admire all the actors and actressess in the drama. Their actings were superbly improved, especially the young actors.

In this drama, the director uses quite a number of young, new & junior actors. Despite of the awards or fame that they acheived in star search competitions before, they still worth a big clap from the audience. Some of them is really new on screen, but they can handle the role very well. For the senior actors, of course they still maintain the great standard that makes the audience laughs and cries.

Joanne Peh (白薇秀) acheives the Best Female Actor in the last Star Awards but not Jeanette Aw (欧萱) as expected. I also felt surprising because Jeanette really potrays Juxiang (A deaf and mute nyonya) & Yueniang (Juxiang's daughter) in the drama very well during the front part. But Joanne Peh's acting is even more astonishing. She plays a role of a rich daughter of the Huang's, Huang YuZhu. She is kind and helpful but in the end, she was raped and abused by the Zhang's and became mentally disorder. The part when she played as a mad lady really freaks me out!
But Jeanette Aw is also good. Just maybe both of her roles are simillar and dont have much space to break through.

In the drama, I understand the traditional culture of the Peranakans. Especially the food!!!
Oh My God, Its damn tempting! Also the beautiful traditional costumes and the special beaded slippers. Then, the achitectural designs of them, a combination between Malay, Chinese and the Western. As Babas & Nyonyas are mixed of Malays and Chinese, but they still keep the strong traditional rituals & beliefs of Chinese. Most of them were english educated, as Malaya is British ruled, and the businessman are all sided towards the British. So, The Peranakans are really a special ethnicity in Malaysia.

If you don't know your past, you will be like a leaf that doesn't know you are a part of a tree.
如果你不知道自己的过去，你就像树叶，不知道自己是树的一部分

This was a meaningful line appears in the drama.
We should know where we came from, our own culture, our own traditional customs & beliefs.
I used to hate history a lot. I just think that why should we learn the things that are from dead people? Such boring stuff. But I am wrong. Everybody said the same way: Learning history is learning the mistakes that done by our ancestors. It is true.
I am a Hakka. Besides that I dont know how to speak Hakka, I don't even know which province am I actually from. Because of this year's "ChengBeng", only I get to know who are my ancestors, where do my ancestors came from, what Hakkas do during the past.

If you are interested, watch it then! =)