Plot
It is the 1920s, a time of great chaos in China. Poverty was rampant in many regions, forcing many people to seek their fortune in the fabled Southern region known collectively as Nanyang. The story begins with three young men from the Fujian province.
A poor oyster collecter named Chen Xia (Terence Cao) wishes to marry his childhood sweetheart, Hong Dou (Cynthia Koh), but struggles to make ends meet.
The son of a wealthy tea plantation owner, Jia Fu (Xie Shaoguang) is a wastrel. Lazy and childish, the only saving grace to his character is his thoughtless generosity. In his naivete he loses his inheritance and is left with nothing but the support of his industrious wife, Ju (Ivy Lee).
After Tian's (Chunyu Shanshan) father dies on the trip to Nanyang, his widowed mother and his two siblings are forced to live a life of scavenging for food in the wilderness. After his sister is killed and his brother goes missing, he is hired by a rich merchant. His new employer is cruel and his meekness makes him an easy target for bullying, but he finds himself attracted to the man's second wife, HaiYan (Yvonne Lim).
Despite the disparity between their situations and personalities, they each find themselves making the trip to the port of Singapore in Nanyang all with the same purpose: To seek a way out of their circumstances and a better future.
Read more about this topic: Stepping Out (TV Series)
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“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
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—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)