Sinful Debt

Sinful Debt

A screenshot from ep. 1
Also known as
  • Sinful Debts[1]
  • The Wages of Sin
Traditional 孽債
Simplified 孽债
Mandarin Niè Zhài
Shanghainese Nyih Tsa
Created by Huang Haiqin
Written by Ye Xin
Directed by Huang Shuqin
Starring
  • Zhao Youliang
  • Yan Xiaopin
  • Jin Xin
  • Wu Mian
  • Wu Jing
  • Wang Huaying
  • Tu Ruying
  • Li Jiayao
  • Li Ying
  • Dong Rongrong
  • Li Yanbo
  • Luo Zhenhua
  • Hai Jia
  • Yang Chengyun
Opening theme "Shei Neng Gaosu Wo" (谁能告诉我) by Li Chunbo
Ending theme "Nali You Wo De Jia" (哪里有我的家) performed by Xie Liangzi and Fire Bird
Country of origin China
Original language(s)
  • Shanghainese
  • Mandarin
  • some English, Japanese
No. of episodes 20
Production
Executive producer(s) Qian Qingqing
Producer(s) Cai Yongrui
Running time 45 minutes
Release
Original network Shanghai Television
Original release January 9, 1995 (1995-01-09)
Chronology
Followed by Sinful Debt 2 (2010)

Sinful Debt[2][3] is a 1995 Chinese television drama directed by Huang Shuqin and produced by Shanghai Television. It was written by Ye Xin, based on his 1992 novel of the same name.[4] The story follows five innocent-eyed teens (all portrayed by first-time actors) who travel more than 2000 km from remote Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture to Shanghai searching for their unacquainted parents — former sent-down youths who in order to return home (in the late 1970s or early 1980s) abandoned them in the countryside. They teens did not expect, however, that their unannounced arrivals would create myriads of economic and relational problems for their urban parents, many of whom already remarried with new families.

The poignant tearjerker hit home with a national audience, particularly those affected by the devastating Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and its Down to the Countryside Movement, registering a record-setting 42.62% audience share in Shanghai.[5] According to reporter Yu Liangxin of the Shanghai Times, when more than 20 reporters sat together to watch the drama, most cried their eyes puffy.[6] The dialogue is mostly in Shanghainese, and the TV series is generally considered a representative TV drama of Haipai culture.

The series was also shown in Vietnam (as Nghiệp chướng) in 1997 and became a hit as well. A sequel also written by Ye Xin, Sinful Debt 2, was first shown in 2010, returning many of the older actors from the original series.

Historical background and Ye Xin's novel

My son, I've done you wrong. But my son, I never meant to hurt you. My son, at that time I was young. And I really wanted to return to Shanghai. But the policy forbade married "sent-down youths" to return to cities. You are still young, you did not go through that era. You do not know how much we suffered during those years.

— Yang Shaoquan, in a heartbreaking apology to her son An Yonghui in ep. 16

In the 1960s and early 1970s, tens of millions of Chinese urban youths were "sent down" to the countryside to perform hard labor as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement. With no prospect of a better future in sight, many got married, had children and settled down in villages. Everything changed in 1976 with the death of Mao Zedong and the arrest of the Gang of Four. Soon after, these rusticated "youths" were allowed to return to cities, to reunite with their parents and try to be something other than peasants—only if they were single. In many cases, those that were married had to divorce their spouses and abandon their children for a chance to return to their native cities.

Shanghai novelist Ye Xin (叶辛), who spent 10 years in a farm in Guizhou, was a frequent writer of the "rustication experience". Sinful Debt was first serialized between 1991 and 1992 in the literary magazine Fiction World (小说界).[7] It was first published in book form in 1992 by Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House (江苏文艺出版社).

After the broadcast of the TV series, the novel was reprinted several times in 1995 and broke several book sales record.[8] Trịnh Trung Hiểu translated the novel to Vietnamese in 1998.[9] An English translation excerpt by Ian Chapman was included in Renditions in 1998 (where the title was translated as The Wages of Sin).[10]

Cast and characters

References

  1. ↑ Cai, Jiaying (2011). Commodification and Crime: A Comparison of Literary Representations of New York and Shanghai Since the 1980s (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). University of Nottingham.
  2. ↑ Zheng, Zhuyi (2011). Stereotyping of Women’s Images Portrayed in Prime Time Chinese TV Series from 1979 to 2008: Has the Picture Changed Over Time? (M.S. thesis). Iowa State University.
  3. ↑ Huang, Yiju (2011). Wounds in Time: The Aesthetic Afterlives of the Cultural Revolution (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
  4. ↑ Yan, Haiping (2013). "Inhabiting the City: Tropes of "Home" in Contemporary Chinese Cinema". China Review 13 (1): 93–135.
  5. ↑ "Between Town and Country". Shanghai Star. 2005-04-07.
  6. ↑ 沪语版《孽债》重播：又到泪流满面时
  7. ↑ Gunn, Edward M. (2006). Rendering the Regional: Local Language in Contemporary Chinese Media. University of Hawai'i Press. p. 224. ISBN 9780824828837.
  8. ↑ Berry, Michael (2008). A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film. Columbia University Press. p. 286. ISBN 9780231512008.
  9. ↑
  10. ↑ Ye Xin (1998). Translated by Ian Chapman. "The Wages of Sin: excerpts". Renditions (50): 109–123.

External links

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