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| Cast members visit the real-life wife of the late painter (Provided by Epoch Times) |
Well, I guess I'll always be a sucker for historical series, right? La Grande Chaumiere Violette is one series that made me regret (at least in part) why I didn't pursue a history course and instead graduated from commerce. I watched the series that took place in 2016 when it's 2020. Call it backtracking since the beauty of watching older series is you can watch at your own pace in contrast to watching the weekly series. Though, doing series weekly helps at least to keep quality in check especially with artistic licenses to insert imaginary events to real-life stories. What was amazing was that those who played the older cast (plus Eli Shih who played as Jiang Yi An and Jiang Xing Xiong) actually visited the late Madam Lin A-Qin in her home. Just in case you don't know - A Qin is the wife of the late Guo Xue Hu who died at 103 years old. A Qin died this year at 105 years old and she's two years older than my late paternal grandmother who died at 91.
Granted, my paternal grandmother was born in 1917, so she passed through the Japanese Imperial occupation of the Philippines with my paternal grandfather. The Japanese Empire during its peak and before its destruction occupied several countries. China and Korea (before it split) were among them and Taiwan was still part of China before it became independent. The whole series focused on the 1920s up to the end of the Japanese occupation. Events like the Taiwan Air Raid and the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also mentioned. Much of the struggle came with the Japanese rule, Taiwanese trying to find their own identity, and the struggles of the changing traditions. I mean, one of the characters Yi An belonged to a polygynous family before China eventually abolished that rather degrading rule and gave women better rights than they had in olden times. It reminds me of how Romance in the Rain also had the generation-gap struggle as Chinese tradition evolves into modern times. Traditions such as women treated as "lower class citizens" (hence polygynous marriages were the norm) while the rule was later abolished in favor of one husband, one wife.
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| A love that endured the test of time. (Provided by Art Touch) |
Much of the show focuses on the Japanese rule of Taiwan. The story of Xue Hu and Yi An as friends also have some real-life romances alongside them. It was interesting to see the real-life love triangle of Chuang Yu Jueh and Wang Tsai Yun for Yi An. Yi An's first love is Yu Jueh but ends up marrying Tsai Yun. Yu Jueh later marries the theater master Shi Ming but not without a stormy relationship. Exploring the romances of the elderly also provides the younger viewers a chance to understand the elder. Seeing World War II finally break out and Taiwan's earlier struggle may make you want to read more history books. Eventually, much of the cast ended up moving abroad due to the current chaos brought after Taiwan declared itself a separate state. This was called the White Terror The migration also explains why Xuehu was in the USA during the opening and that's where he met Xing Xiong, his friend Yi An's son. Yi An had died during the 1980s hence explaining the absence.
How the show feels a little more authentic is also the use of Hokkien, Japanese, and Mandarin when appropriate. A lot of Taiwanese shows today use Mandarin as the default while dropping some Hokkien whenever the plot calls for it - such as scenes that are filmed in the province. I was wondering which cast members really knew how to speak Japanese and which didn't? Eli was seen speaking in Japanese in some scenes. I wonder did they take some basic Japanese to do so or do some of them really speak Japanese? Either way, it was a really nice time trip journey. Just right now, I feel that random white guy who drops into a strange new land since I really could hardly speak Mandarin and Amoy. Hopefully, I'll be able to go to Taiwan to do some self-historical study as well.
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