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| Would you like some Iron? It helps in blood circulation. |
I don't watch TV that much anymore ever since I became good friends with the computer. That aside, I am not much of a TV person to begin with. There are so many more things which I can do other than being passively entertained by moving pictures... like being passively entertained by contents on the interwebs.
But today, I rushed home to catch the 7pm show on Channel 8 - The Woman with the Broken Palm. She doesn't has a broken palm literally but rather, she has a palm line which cuts right through her palms. According to Chinese folklore, women with Broken Palms are destined to lead a life full of hardships and agony, bringing terrible, terrible luck to their family, especially their parents and husbands, and will never be able to enjoy a single moment of joy until the day they die.
Such is the accursed life of the bearer of a Broken Palm.
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| If you are a woman, good luck. |
Incidentally, men with Broken Palms are OK and will still be able to lead a normal life.
And so, the female lead of the show, Jinyu (played by Jeanette Aw) really led a god damn tough life ever since she was born. Even after she was married (her husband had an affair) and gave birth to two children (her son is a retard and her daughter got pregnant at 16), her bad life was no where close to ending.
In tonight's episode, Jinyu's younger brother, Jinfeng discovered she was the one who framed him in a murder case 10 years ago. Bitter at having served 10 years of jail time for a crime which he did not commit, Jinfeng went to confront Jinyu. In the midst of the scuffle, Jinyu's son, Jieming, was mortally wounded by Jinfeng. Jinfeng himself died shortly after that.
That was the reason why I wanted to catch tonight's episode; to see Jieming get crushed by being dragged along a wall by the van Jinfeng was trying to flee in. Of course, national TV programs don't broadcast such grotesque scenes. They only showed the concept of how Jieming was supposed to die. If you know what I mean.
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| Not so sure if this is a better way to die. |
If not for that brief synopsis I caught on the TV yesterday night, I probably wouldn't bother with the show. But after watching the whole episode tonight, I became rather interested in the very terrible life of Jinyu. Its like I want to see what will happen to her next.
Plus tonight's episode ended with a synopsis of tomorrow's episode; Jinyu's mother fell while chasing after her another daughter-in-law fleeing in a cab. She appears to be suffering from a heart attack after her fall. Will she die? I HAVE TO WATCH THE EPISODE TOMORROW!
This is what I am talking about. The drama plays on our (or just mine. But I believe I am not alone) innate desire to see others fail and suffer in order to capture viewership. In fact, I feel that the show is similar to those HK dramas about family disputes with relatives fighting against each other to inherit the family's wealth, or imperial princes fighting amongst themselves to claim the throne to their father's empire.
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| The english name for this show is "Beyond the Realm of Conscience". In other words - BARBARISM! |
And then there are the Korean dramas as well. The ones which my mom is watching recently all have one thing in common; the lead actress are always being bullied and marginalized, either by their mother-in-laws or their worthless husbands.
Perhaps it is not the suffering that we want to see but rather, judgment being carried out upon the "evil" characters in the shows, how they will be punished at the end of the show and how the protagonist gets vindicated eventually.
But with the vindication occurring only during the final few episodes, and the process of the protagonist getting abused and marginalized constituting the bulk of the show, the part about playing on our sadist side doesn't seem so implausible.
Let's face it. We all just want to watch the whole world burn!
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| Why does every damn globe always show the US mainland? Even the burning ones. |
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