I thought I'd be extremely dissatisfied after the last episode of The Little Nyonya yesterday, because Jeanette Aw's character, Yueniang, doesn't end up marrying Qi Yuwu's character, Chen Xi. And everyone knows that's one of the main points of Channel 8 dramas - to watch the good-looking, good people, live happily ever after. It gives one immense satisfaction, a temporary feeling that all is right in the world, a feeling which comes all too seldom in real life.
In fact, I had soundly dissed the angmoh Yueniang ended up marrying, Paul: not only did I find him ugly and slimy, he was ANGMOH, and one of the British who left Singapore to flounder, at that. When I read the synopsis a week or so ago, I was enraged and had already prepared a letter of complaint to MediaCorp in my head, something along the lines of "anti-climatic finish," and "your scriptwriter needs his or her head examined, what was he or she thinking, not letting them end up together?!"
But after watching the last episode, the second half of which was surprisingly unmelodramatic, I have to say I liked the ending after all, much more than if they had ended up together, because it was real. All the good people lived happily ever after, of course, but I think the credit goes mainly to Xiang Yun. She did a marvellous job portraying Yueniang in her later years. She was composed and elegant, with just the right touch of nostalgia, wistfulness and longing for her lost true love, coupled with the acceptance that that was just life, an acceptance borne of growing old gracefully. I thought about it as the theme song played, and you know, if Yueniang and Chen Xi were real characters, somehow I think they just wouldn't have been happy together in the long run, after everything that had passed between them.
Sure, they'd endured hardship together - those hours of pure melodramatic goodness where she fell into the well, they got kidnapped, he lay dying in hospital because he thought she married someone else, etc. - you get the point. Yet they were inherently different, and simply couldn't be.
That's Fate, as Yueniang said. The one you love may not be good for you, and the one you don't love may be the one who is.
I'm glad that some aspects of Channel 8 dramas will never change, like their cheesy stock phrases, for instance, even though in The Little Nyonya the perennial favourite love cannot be forced appeared in a slightly modified form. Also their re-using actors to play older versions of themselves. My last memories of the show were of the villain, Mr. Evilness Personified himself, playing his kind, good son.
I started laughing, continuing even as Felicia Chin's character appeared, looking dreamily out of the bus window at the sky and some swallows, reminiscing about the story Yueniang (Xiang Yun) had told her.
And those things, coupled with the fact that I slept soundly last night although I really shouldn't have, are perhaps a sign of how far I've come.
In fact, I had soundly dissed the angmoh Yueniang ended up marrying, Paul: not only did I find him ugly and slimy, he was ANGMOH, and one of the British who left Singapore to flounder, at that. When I read the synopsis a week or so ago, I was enraged and had already prepared a letter of complaint to MediaCorp in my head, something along the lines of "anti-climatic finish," and "your scriptwriter needs his or her head examined, what was he or she thinking, not letting them end up together?!"
But after watching the last episode, the second half of which was surprisingly unmelodramatic, I have to say I liked the ending after all, much more than if they had ended up together, because it was real. All the good people lived happily ever after, of course, but I think the credit goes mainly to Xiang Yun. She did a marvellous job portraying Yueniang in her later years. She was composed and elegant, with just the right touch of nostalgia, wistfulness and longing for her lost true love, coupled with the acceptance that that was just life, an acceptance borne of growing old gracefully. I thought about it as the theme song played, and you know, if Yueniang and Chen Xi were real characters, somehow I think they just wouldn't have been happy together in the long run, after everything that had passed between them.
Sure, they'd endured hardship together - those hours of pure melodramatic goodness where she fell into the well, they got kidnapped, he lay dying in hospital because he thought she married someone else, etc. - you get the point. Yet they were inherently different, and simply couldn't be.
That's Fate, as Yueniang said. The one you love may not be good for you, and the one you don't love may be the one who is.
I'm glad that some aspects of Channel 8 dramas will never change, like their cheesy stock phrases, for instance, even though in The Little Nyonya the perennial favourite love cannot be forced appeared in a slightly modified form. Also their re-using actors to play older versions of themselves. My last memories of the show were of the villain, Mr. Evilness Personified himself, playing his kind, good son.
I started laughing, continuing even as Felicia Chin's character appeared, looking dreamily out of the bus window at the sky and some swallows, reminiscing about the story Yueniang (Xiang Yun) had told her.
And those things, coupled with the fact that I slept soundly last night although I really shouldn't have, are perhaps a sign of how far I've come.
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