These days, I hardly spend any time watching television as I prefer getting my videos online where I have control over what I watch during my very limited free time.
As a child, I used to spend countless hours in front of the television, consuming everything SBC (Singapore Broadcasting Corporation) threw at me.
Recently, colleagues and I were talking about the classic drama series. Like everything else in the 80s which I love, the locally produced media content were very raw, very sincere and very experimental. My colleagues and I had a great time walking down the memory lane, reminiscing the theme songs to the various television shows of the past.
I seem to have a natural ability to remember songs/ tunes. Unfortunately, this “strength” of my memory does not extend to remember facts, figures and dates. While I am unable to ask for phone numbers only once nor wish my friends a happy birthday without any Facebook reminders, I can mildly entertain friends and family by linking long forgotten jingles to their sources of origin.
In this post, I thought it would be fun to share some of these classic theme songs via YouTube, and write a little about whatever I can remember, which are most likely going to be wrong, about the shows.
Before we start, here is a little backstory. Since young, I am extremely weak in my Mother Tongue, Mandarin Chinese. Speaking is not where my problem lies (I guess); I can speak well enough for people to understand me and only be laughed at some time by friends who really speak the language.
It is my reading/ writing which made me stay back after classes, for all that additional remedial lessons (Thank you, Ms.Gao and sorry).
I always thought the show’s title 《金兰结》 (Jin Lan Jie) is translated to “Gold Blue Sisters” because the pronunciation of the characters is similar. While the first character which does represent “Gold”, I could not be more wrong with the last two characters.
The Song: I like it, especially how the chorus part picked up suddenly to a more funky beat. The starting bit always gave me an impression of an alarm going off, giving me a sense of urgency.
The Show (based on my memory): It is about the life stories of 2 girls, who got switched at birth and ended up in very different households. I guess watching the video tells you just as much. However, I have a faint recollection of an elderly lady character with a giant mole on her face who was extremely mean to one of the ladies. Generally, this show is a little too heavy and dramatic for me as a child.
The Song: I must admit I have no memory of this song, but I really enjoyed the show.
The Show (based on my memory): It has everything a kid likes; spaceships, laser and an attractive alien lady protagonist. In the nutshell, the good alien lady accidentally landed on Earth after her spaceship got invaded by bad aliens. Following all the usual cliches, she made some friends, fell in love and at the end, tried to make her way back to her people.
This show inspired a whole generation of Singaporean children to do the “Vulcan Salute” as the alien lady was always seen doing that when she does her alien magic. Obviously the special effect does not hold up by today’s standard, but it was enough to keep me inspired and in awe.
The Song: Uh huh. Oh yeah. This song rocks! Truly a product of its time.
The Show (based on my memory): Basically it is about a group of young people growing up. Do I dare to say they are juvenile delinquents? They probably are, but each of the characters have their own sob stories (broken family, victims of abuse etc). As a viewer, you might even empathize with some of them.
Although I cannot remember any of the characters, but I am willing to bet that the guy wearing a cap, is from a wealthy family and suffers from neglect.
Ian KHF 