Moments in My Life

Hello world.  I’ve been missing in blogging action lately because I became a TV series worm.  I was basically in front of my laptop all day but instead of blogging or blog-hopping, I was watching, rather chasing episode after episode of this Singaporean Media Corp Production of ‘The Little Nyonya‘.  I was introduced to this 34 episodes Mandarin TV series (with English subtitle) by CrazyChineseWoman.

When she posted a summary about this new series, I was intrigued and really interested in watching it.  But on the other hand, I wasn’t sure what to expect from a Singapore production.  After catching the first episode I knew that this is going to be a good one to watch.  It was much better than I was expecting.  Then when I saw my sister online, I told her about it and got her and her MIL into this series as well.  Next, when I saw my cousin online, I also told her about this series.  She went and bought the whole series in DVD and finished watching it before I did.  

The Little Nyonya is a series span over 5 generations of Baba & Nyonya family in Malacca and Singapore.  It mostly revolves around a little nyonya by the name of Yue Niang.    The story was told by her to her granddaughter, Angela, whom has just returned from Canada to visit.  Yue Niang had a very awful life as she was wickedly treated by her family (Huang’s family).  It was tragic that her own grandmother whom was maid back then was raped by the tow-kay (master).  The master’s mother was very nice and she agreed to let this maid became the master’s 2nd wife/mistress.  But the 1st wife and her children had this hatred towards the 2nd wife, her daughter (Ju-Xiang) and later, her grand-daugther (Yue Niang).  Ju-Xiang became mute and deaf when the master’s mother (Ju-Xiang’s grandmother) passed away when she was 9 years old. 

Ju-Xiang was arranged to married a rich scoundrel.  Before she was sent off to get married, she ran away.  Along, she met a Japanese photographer, married him and they had Yue Niang.  Both her parents died during the Japanese occupation in Singapore.  She survived and went back to her grandmother house in Malacca.  The Huang’s family already left for England during the Japanese’s occupation leaving behind Tao-jie (maid) and his 2nd wife.  They returned a few years later and started the ill-treatment towards Yue Niang.  Yue Niang didn’t believe she was fated to be like other nyonyas to get married, be a wife and later a mother and grandmother.  She had a different idea how and what type of life she wanted for herself. 

When she was sent off to married a butcher but she didn’t give up.  In the end, the butcher and her became sworn brother and sister instead of husband and wife.  Later she began her business in bird nest trading with the Singaporean.  She failed miserably during her first trading in Singapore as she was conned after using her money from selling the bird nest to purchase a bulk of silk which turned out to be low grade fabrics.  However, she was successful in her business venture later on. 

As for her love life, she fell in love with a rwealthy Baba from Singapore whom she thought was a chauffeur in the beginning. When she found out his real identity she was confused and she didn’t accept his sincere love. Her love life is very much interesting filled with obstacles and difficulties, but I am not going to tell all here. You have to watch it.

One loophole in this series I noticed that the Huang’s children supposed to be educated in England but upon their return to Malacca, their first English sentence spoken was full of slang. I was expecting them to converse in fluent British accent. Anyway, overall it is still a very good tv series.

Here is a preview, part of the first episode.