Sayang, Sayang (Love, Love) is a new sitcom on Mediacorp's channel 5 featuring the trials and travails of a Peranakan/Straits Chinese family that sell Kuih Chang (glutinous rice dumplings - a popular local snack). The series premiered on June 4th, but Pretensions just got round to watching the half-hour episode today.

P was interested to watch this as she is of part-Peranakan descent herself. For the uninitiated, the Peranakan or Straits Chinese culture is unique to Malaysia and Singapore, with larger concentrations in certain areas, like Penang, Malacca and Singapore. Peranakans are the descendents of inter-marriage between the native Malays of the peninsula and Chinese immigrants with customs, cultures and architecture from both. The Peranakan lingua franca, Baba Malay, is a dialect of Bahasa Melayu, but has many chinese dialect words and english mixed in.

Anyway, the series plays up certain stereotypes, such as the domineering matriarch (veteran local actress, Tan Kheng Hwa, whose Malay is execrable btw), the hen-pecked husband (John Lee), the scheming second wife (Lok Meng Chue) and the overseas and over-educated son (Johnny Lu). The thread-bare plot revolves around the inheritance of the Tan Kuih-Chang empire as Nellie's (Kheng Hwa) husband willed that it be passed to his first grandchild. This makes for much scheming and maneuvering as Nellie and Pearl (Meng Chue) try to marry off their 1 respective son and daughter to produce an heir. Nellie's son, Marcus (Lu) complicates matters by returning from the States and proposing to his non-peranakan low-class ex-classmate, Li Choo (Michelle Cheong), both to spite his mother's match-making and to gain the inheritance.

Characterised by the usual histrionic over-acting of local comedies, it's an interesting half-hour diversion on Wednesday nights, but only if you don't have better alternatives.