A Kindred Spirit today

I've just finished watching today's episode of "A Kindred Spirit" on Channel 8. Man, what an anti-climax!!

Might I add that though this is a repeat of the very popular Hong Kong drama, when it first aired on free-TV Channel U, I was not in Singapore to catch the show.

Ok, so the story leading up to today is this: Luo Shengjin (aka Jinjin) likes Li Tian An, also known as Xiao An (Cha Shao Bing's youngest son), whom I believe was egged on to do so by her mom, Xiaoni, when she (Jinjin's mom) saw how good Xiao An was.

Xiao An at that time, just got back with his girlfriend, Joanne. Jealous of them both & wanting to have Xiao An, Jinjin tried ways & means to break those two apart. Jinjin succeeded, partly because of Xiao An's indecisiveness & of the underhanded methods employed by Jinjin herself.

From the way the script was written, we the TV viewers were able to gauge that this was true.

Xiao An got entangled with the two ladies, which was not fair to either lady (no matter how bad Jinjin's behaviour is, or how soft-hearted Joanne is). In Mandarin/Chinese, there is a saying for this. Translated into English, it becomes this: One leg (representing one guy, Xiao An) stepping onto two boats (Joanne & Jinjin). In simple terms, it is saying that Xiao An is two-timing the ladies. He wants his cake & eat it all.

During his relationship with Jinjin, Xiao An don't seemed to have any freedom at all. She controlled him with an obsessed mind. She wanted to know what he was doing & who he was with everytime she called. Even female colleagues at the firm where Xiao An worked for Joanne's older sister had to "seek Jinjin's permission" before Xiao An could lunch with them. Now, that IS way OTT.

We get more examples of Xiao An's indecisiveness. During this relationship, Xiao An got Jinjin a supplementary credit card. She immediately began maxing out the card. When he couldn't pay, he borrowed from his brothers & cousin Lisheng. Not once did Xiao An try to control that vixien Jinjin's spending.

There was this one time when Jinjin was in Cha Shao Bing's shop. Dasheng was asking Jinjin to help him buy his (Dasheng) daughter's charity drive tickets. There & then, Jinjin embaressed Dasheng by demanding that he pay up his debt with Xiao An. She further goes on to rant about money allegedly owed to Xiao An by Xiao An's older brother (Tianfu) & cousin Lisheng, as well as Musheng, Dasheng's business partner.

Finally, the blokes (Lisheng, Tianfu, Dasheng & Musheng) could stand her behaviour no more & told Jinjin off. They told her that if she wanted to talk about paying your debts, then it is Jinjin who has the biggest debt to pay back, to Lisheng, since it was Xiao An who borrowed $20,000 (not sure which currency) to pay for Jinjin's cosmetic surgery in Japan. Jinjin had got a scar on her face through her own fault, yet she blamed Xiao An for it & he, the stupid boy, accepted it without a protest. Thereafter, she could not use that "pay your debts back" to complain/nitpick on them any more.

His family did tried once to ask Xiao An out (without Jinjin present, of course) for dim sum as a way of persuading him to coax Jinjin to tone down her ridiculous antics in a friendly atmosphere. Not only was Xiao An late but he brushed off his family's concerns & didn't even bother to have food with them. Instead, he told them that he was rushing off to Jinjin's house with expensive dim sum, as she had not taken any food then. What arrogance this Xiao An had!!

Of course, the scriptwriters could not let Xiao An get off scot-free, right? So, they wrote in many "headaches" for him to cross. Each one bigger & more serious than the earlier one. I remember sitting there & saying to myself,"Xiao An, you deserve it!! Because you cannot make up your own mind, you can't blame anyone."

Just when it seems that Xiao An finally woke up to the error of his ways & decided to part with Jinjin, she claimed that she was pregnant with Xiao An's child, in order to force him to get married to her (Jinjin). At that time, Jinjin was scared that Xiao An would want to get back together with Joanne. That lady is the one lady whom Jinjin cannot bear to lose to.

Funnily enough, she managed to fool everyone for sometime at least with her pregnancy claim. The only two people in onto her scam were her mom & her would-be sister-in-law, Mei Mei. These 3 women are equally bad in their own behaviours but that is another story.

At last, Jinjin's older sister Shengxiao, who is a gynacologist, grew suspicious & caught out Jinjin's lie one night. Shengxiao pretended that the house toilet broke down & told Jinjin all she could use a substitute potty (you know, the sort that small kids used to use). With that, Shengxiao tested out Jinjin's pregnancy claim & found out that Jinjin had lied. Shengxiao told Lisheng but asked for some time to try to coax Jinjin to back out of the marriage scam. Jinjin refused to & even warned Shengxiao not to spoil her plan, which was one way or another, to snatch Xiao An away from Joanne.

When she got caught out with her lie at Cha Shao Bing's home, Jinjin upped her antics one iota when she said that if Xiao An did not go with her to the Hong Kong ROM to marry, she would go public with the claim (though she herself knows that it is not true) that Xiao An had raped her!! Everyone present were stunned at the level of Jinjin's viciousness.

Anyway, not to worry. After so many ups-and-downs (& I bet that the scriptwriters are getting tired), there came a stunning revelation at the ROM (Registry of Marriages).

On the supposed "happy day", Xiao An came to fetch "his bride" (EEEee, even I still get the goosebumps when I'm reminded of Jinjin). At the "bride's home", there were door games to be played with the "groom" & his male buddies against the "bride" & her female friends (it is a common scene in Chinese weddings, regardless what dialect). Later, just when Jinjin got into the "bridal car", she ranted at Xiao An, demanding to know:

1. Why did he purposedly step on her wedding gown (it was an accident)
2. Why did he drop the wedding rings, when he knew that it meant bad luck, like they would divorce soon? (again, it was not on purpose)
3. Why did he & his buddies hurry through the "fetch-the-bride" games? (WHAT, Jinjin? You want to miss the auspicious hour for fetching the bride?)
4. Why did they bargain over the "entrance fee of "$6800" down to "$3800"? Isn't bargaining part of the fun when fetching the bride?
5. Why did his buddies throw rice at the bride? Did they not know she was there? (COME ON, Jinjin; I think this "throw rice at the bride" is supposedly to symbolise good luck for her. They were not there to "sabo" you, no matter how much they hated Jinjin)

Xiao An FINALLY gathered up the courage whilst in the room, to face that woman Jinjin & said, "I, Li Tian An, am NOT WILLING to take Luo Shengjin (Jinjin) as my lawfully wedded wife". Xiao An further said that he didn't care if Jinjin were to go ahead with her obviously ridiculous claims, he was tired of her bad behaviour & did not want to be manipulated further by Jinjin.

At this point, the guys in Xiao An's family (like Granpa, Musheng & Tianfu) all got up & congradulated him for FINALLY standing up for himself. It was like a colourful party atmosphere, which is weird because you ARE talking about the cancellation of a wedding, not a happy ocassion by any standard.

Now, this is the part where I, as the TV viewer felt let down. For as long as I can remember, Hong Kong dramas have very very good "climaxes/ending", where the bad people (in this case, that nutcase Jinjin) get their just desserts. Bah, humbug!! In this instance, the ROM scene ended with a whimper; Jinjin fled with her family in tow (her sister Shengxiao was not there at the command of Jinjin).

Later on, Jinjin stormed to Shengxiao's hospital office & made further ridiculous untrue claims. For that, Jinjin got slapped by her older brother, Shengmen, who correctly said that Jinjin DID DO WRONG & HARM but shouldn't push the blame onto others, when it was herself that made mistakes.

The last we saw of Jinjin was when she was on the plane with her mom, off to some unkown European country. At that point, she still thought of herself as the innocent party & that Xiao An was the bad guy to be blamed. Even her mom Xiaoni (who abandoned the 3 kids when they were young) sided with Jinjin.

To me, this indicated that this Luo Shengjin (Jinjin) though a legal adult but is in mental terms, a kid. You may have everything provided for you the way Jinjin has but still, one can grow to be a mature person. Not our Shengjin, who is forever blaming others for her faults & mistakes.

I got a few questions in my mind that I would have liked some answers to:

1. Why can't she (Jinjin) see that the reason she got dumped at her supposed "happy day" at the ROM was her own undoing? Earlier, she was given the chance to exit with dignity by her sister Shengxiao but Jinjin refused, with the belief that she (Jinjin) is the victor over Joanne.
2. Why did her mom Xiaoni, still egg Jinjin on the path of wrongdoing? Like for instance, when the mom knew of the fake pregnancy? Another instance of Xiaoni's fault is when she (the mom) wrongly blamed Shengxiao, the elder sister, for being unemotional when Jinjin got into trouble (WHAT TROUBLE did Jinjin get into? Thought that it should be the other way round; that Jinjin got innocent people into trouble)
3. OK, so Jinjin still smashed the pair of wine glasses that Joanne (Xiao An's former girlfriend) gave the "happy couple" as a wedding gift, despite Xiao An's reminder that if she threw it, it would be a bad omen for the wedding?
   
   In all essence, not every guy's ex would bother with a wedding gift. If it happens to me that my hubby's ex gave him a present for whatever innocent/not-so-innocent motive & I don't like it, I would be angry BUT I wouldn't smash it. Perhaps, I would have it put away in a place I can't see & so, think about it.