Emerald Hill’s Zoe Tay, Chantalle Ng and all-star cast share behind-the-scenes stories ahead of Netflix debut

It has been 17 years since the popular Singapore drama The Little Nyonya first aired, and now, it’s time for a new generation of little Nyonyas to win hearts.

Emerald Hill is premiering on Netflix on Monday (Mar 10) and subsequently on Channel 8 and mewatch. It's set a few years after the story of Yueniang, the original Little Nyonya played by Jeanette Aw, leaves off.

Aw reprises her role, appearing as the mother of a main character played by Zhang Ze Tong, but the story follows a new set of characters played by Tasha Low, Chantalle Ng and Ferlyn G, with Zoe Tay as the family matriarch and Romeo Tan, Shaun Chen, Dawn Yeoh, Sheila Sim and Jesseca Liu as key family members.

Central to the story is Tasha Low’s character, who is taken off the streets and raised in a wealthy family; she may or may not be their long-lost daughter.

Screenwriter Ang Eng Tee, who also gave us the story of The Little Nyonya, immersed himself in researching Peranakan history and culture so deeply that the material he has collected over the years is enough for many more dramas, he told us.

“During the course of my research, many Nyonyas told me their stories, and they were all amazing,” he recounted. “After The Little Nyonya, I said, ‘I still have many stories’. They said, ‘No rush, we’ll make another drama’. It’s been 17 years!”

The story of “a little girl wandering the streets who was adopted by a wealthy family and blossomed into an accomplished young lady” is one of the true stories he encountered. “She had been kidnapped when she was three years old. It was such good material, I had to write it into the show.”

In fact, “there were many such stories in that era. It’s up to us to uncover them,” he said. “I love Peranakan culture because it’s unique to Singapore and Malaysia, and so, we are the only ones who can make shows like these.”

The intricacies of Peranakan culture made an impression on the cast members, too. Zoe Tay, for one, declared she thinks the sarong kebaya worn by women is feminine, alluring and “sexy”, especially “the way it highlights the collarbones; the lace; the way the wrists and ankles are slightly revealed”.

Her only regret is that her powerful but kind matriarch character isn’t more like Lin Meijiao’s villainous one in The Little Nyonya, she said ruefully, adding that that would have been a lot more fun.

Poetically, though, Chantalle Ng, who is Lin’s real-life daughter, gets to take on her first “baddie” role. “I really enjoyed myself,” she chortled. “It was refreshing for me, because all the time, I had to be a certain way, and this is the first time I felt like, ‘Wow, I can be bad, and that's not bad.’” After the show airs, she mused, “I think I will be so misunderstood!”

Meanwhile, Romeo Tan plays, erm, her father. “The producer said that in those days, they got married and had children at a very young age, so that could be one of the explanations,” he said, with a laugh. The funny part is that just before starting on this drama, they had played girlfriend and boyfriend. “I suddenly went from boyfriend material to daddy material. So, showbiz is actually quite interesting,” he quipped.

With food and feasts being a big part of Peranakan culture, the cast were surrounded by delicious temptation at every dining scene, they shared. “The director kept telling us to stop eating the props!” Tay said, revealing that for the sake of not depleting the food on the table, they’d do things like “stuff the buah keluak back into its shells”.

If her character were a Peranakan dish, Low said, she’d be “udang pedas manis”: A “sour, spicy prawn dish with pineapple”, as she’s “bright and spicy”. Sounds like the perfect recipe for new, epic little Nyonya adventures.

Catch Emerald Hill – The Little Nyonya Story on Netflix and mewatch prime (first episode here), on demand for free on mewatch from Mar 17 and on Channel 8 at 9pm from Mar 19.