A hard life where women work hard to help men

["Dixie" <Dixie@singnet.com.sg>]

A hard life where women work hard to help men  
 
 
     By CHIN SOO FANG  
 
     IN JUNE last year, actress Zoe Tay was an amah in A Different Life, a 
serial which focused on the 
     Cantonese-speaking community. Before that, in September 1995, she was
in 
The Teochew Family, 
     another immigrant saga.  
 
     But she did not get to star in this year's Chinese language-group
serial.  
 
     Instead, Ann Kok, Xie Shaoguang, Christopher Lee, Chen Huihui, Jason
Oh 
and Chen Hanwei (his last 
     acting role before becoming a backstage consultant with TCS earlier
this 
year) are in the spotlight playing 
     Hakkas in The Guest People.  
 
     About the lives of four Hakka youths who venture out of China to 
South-east Asia, the serial showcases 
     the patriotic and entrepreneurial spirit of the Hakkas.  
 
     It was filmed on location in Ipoh (the tin-mining town where many
Hakkas 
first became prosperous) and 
     Fujian and Guangdong provinces.  
 
     At the press preview for the serial, held at the Nanyang Khek
Community 
Guild at Peck Seah Street on 
     Friday afternoon, Mr Chan Liang Choy, the group chairman of Chan
Brothers 
Holdings and the guild's 
     president, said: "The show is in keeping with the motto of our guild, 
which is to help the younger 
     generations of Hakkas discover their roots and traditions.  
 
     "It is my hope that the station will produce shows focusing on
different 
dialect groups so that we can 
     understand each other better."  
 
     Xie Shaoguang and Jacelyn Tay are the only two Hakkas among the leads.
 
 
     This was not a problem, however, said Mr Victor Lau, the assistant 
vice-president of Chinese drama.  
 
     The actors do not have to speak the Hakka tongue since everything is 
dubbed, he explained.  
 
     "Besides, the serial's main focus is to bring out the spirit of the
Hakka 
community, which is not too unlike 
     what you see in other early Chinese immigrants."  
 
     When The Teochew Family was telecast two years ago, there were
criticisms 
from the Teochew 
     community that the show suffered from a lack of accuracy.  
 
     Many found fault with actor Chen Shucheng's character, an assistant in
a 
rice store who broke with 
     tradition by marrying into his wife's family -- something which was 
unheard of in the community.  
 
     Mr Lau, himself a Hakka, is not too worried that The Guest People 
("Hakka" means "guest people" to the 
     other communities in China) may face similar criticisms.  
 
     "Ours is a sincere production," he said. "We did a lot of research and

went on location to study the way 
     the Hakkas in China live."  
 
     Xie, who plays an orphaned pauper turned successful businessman, felt 
especially close to the serial.  
 
     He said: "The Hakkas lived in poor, mountainous areas and led very
simple 
and hard lives. It may be hard 
     for Hakkas in Singapore today to understand what they had gone
through."  
 
     While he saw the serial as a chance to rediscover his own roots, the 
others treated it as an eye-opening 
     experience.  
 
     Said Oh, a Hokkien who plays a strong Hakka villager in the serial: "I

would love to be a Hakka. During 
     our filming in China, we realised that the women were helping the men 
with a lot of the work."