Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Little Nyonya - Local Chinese Drama

When you are rich, even if you live on the high mountains, you will have distant relatives visiting you.
However, when you are poor, even if you live in a busy city, no one will pay any attention to you.
- Chinese Proverb -

I like the local Chinese drama, “The Little Nyonya” very much because it paints a very realistic picture of how unkind and wicked some people can be.

My wife and I have been following this series very closely. In fact, this local drama has got to be one of my all time TV shows. Jeanette Aw, Qi Yuwu, Xiang Yun, Joanne Peh and Pierre Png give sterling performances and have brought local Chinese drama to greater heights.

The script has been very well written and it is a very down-to-earth story because money, greed, acts of selfish and unkind behaviour, bullying and lust often tear families apart. One of the most heart-breaking events in this story was when Yuzhu (played by Joanne Peh) lost her sanity at the hands of her cruel husband. This strikes a cord with me.

I believe that sometimes when it comes to money, or the greed of money, there is no such thing as family. I also see in this drama that if you do wicked things, sooner or later, you will get punished.

People are sometimes driven to mental illness because of selfish, bullying jealous and callous behaviour.

These real-life incidents have shown me that my wife’s own battle with schizophrenia would not have taken a turn for the worse if family support was good from day one. Unfortunately she lived with a domineering sister who often bullied her. So my advice for people who are caught in such an environment is: “Stay away from broken people.”

I hope MediaCorp TV will continue to produce more such heartfelt real-life dramas that will touch our lives.

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