Maiden's Vow

One thing I like about this show is how the two main characters (Charmaine Sheh and Joe Ma) carried the show throughout, especially Charmaine, who played five generations.

Another thing I like about this show is how it depicts the status of women, marriage and commitment through the ages, from the late 19th century to the early 21st century, how attitudes towards men and women are being viewed through the years. I can say the show reeks of feminism.

The show started off in the late Manchu dynasty. Two children were born on the same day - one, the daughter of a rich merchant who grew up with all the priviledges, the other the son of their chef, whose mother died in childbirth. Even though they grew up together and loved each other, the girl had no choice but to marry the spoilt brat of an even richer family just to fulfil her parents' wises. The spoilt brat gambled away his family fortune and the whole family had to move to more humble lodgings, but it was the daughter-in-law who held the family together. Later on her childhood friend the chef came back after becoming somewhat famous and started helping her in her restaurant business so as to support her family.

One can see that in those days, free love is forbidden and social status is very important. Women were often subjected to their parents' and husband's wishes. Despite marrying without love, she had to endure whoever she married and tried to keep the family together. Even for the man, knowing she could never be his, still offered his support and helped her to the best of his ability.

Perhaps this is truly love? Being there together yet not being together? Afterall, love may not necessarily mean possession, there are many forms of love - showing support, care and concern, helping to the best of the ability, as long as the other party is satisfied. This kind of love is almost non-existent in modern times, nowadays many people treat love callously.

Anyway, both died when the train derailed, leaving behind her infant daughter who was brought up by her paternal grandma and nanny. She grew up with modern notions, depicting one of the early educated women in China after the fall of the Manchu dynasty. She had idealistic feminism ideas, often clashing with her more traditional family. She later fell for her school teacher and they eloped and married.

A year or so later, she went back to her family when she received news of her grandma's illness, but it turned out to be just a false alarm. Through some twists and turns, she got reunited with her husband before he went to war. He never came back. She set her heart in making her family restaurant successful, becoming the first woman to graduate from the Peking University and bringing up her daughter.

Years later, her family died and she went with her grand-daughter to Hong Kong. The girl grew up and graduated around the late 1960s. While out looking for a job, she was saved from a blast injury by a man who would be her husband. 6 years later in the 1970s, she was married and a bored housewife.

It was during the era of transition, where women were getting educated and more women were not willing to just be housewives. However men still thought themselves as head of the family and they should be the ones going out to work and women staying at home to serve them. Companies then were also unwilling to hire women for fear they would get married and quit.

She was bored so went for a series of courses. By chance, she met a guy who later offered her a job as a secretary in his advertising firm. She accepted but was afraid her husband would find out, so managed to negotiate her working hours in such a way that she would go to work only after her husband left in the morning and reach home before her husband came back.

However her husband found out and was mad, all the more so since she later became higher-ranking than him. Through some misunderstanding, she said she could bear it no longer and decided to leave him. She wanted to be independent, a modern woman who did not need to submit to her husband.

As with every story, everything got resolved in the end. The husband and wife patched up and came to a consensus that both should contribute equally to work and home, thus forming the basis of a dual-income, shared housework family.

They later migrated to the United States and their daughter was born in early 1980s. However they died in an earthquake and the girl was then brought back to Hong Kong to be raised by her relatives.

The girl became the flamboyant modern girl of the 21st century. She swore off marriage. She did not believe in marriage and commitment and had the mentality that love is just a part of your life, like get together, don't like just split, can always cohabit. With this notion, she started a relationship with a top accountant and moved into his luxurious apartment.

But being the modern era and society has evolved such that people are generally more self-centred, despite both living together, they were unwilling to compromise and quarrelled over petty issues. In the end, they split and she moved out. She set her heart to set up her restaurant founded by her ancestor. She got her relatives to chip in and their concept of a private kitchen materialised. At this time, she found herself pregnant and gave birth to a son, the first in five generations.

A year or so later, she met her ex-boyfriend again, this time while having a book promotion of her family's recipes from the old restaurant. He realised the son was his and their feelings rekindled. He proposed but she was still reluctant.

The ending of the show was very ambiguous. He was left standing in the church waiting for her, while she was still deciding whether to go. At the end, all she saw was a rainbow. So did they or did they not get married? What did the rainbow mean?

I kind of enjoy this show as it is different from the other TVB shows I have seen. Most other shows are either on the family genre, love genre, period / history genre, men's point of view, women's point of view. What makes this show so fascinating is that it incorporates just about a little of each. There is the family part, love part, history part, feminism part. But most importantly, it is a realistic show as in it really touches on the mentality of people through the ages - from simple traditional folks to strong capable folks to chauvinistic and self-centred. Thus I will greatly recommend this show as there is lots to learn and observe from it!