Wok of Life

Wok of Life (福满人间)
Genre	Comedic Drama
Starring	Chew Chor Meng Ann Kok Evelyn Tan Richard Low Jin Yinji Zhu Houren Zheng Geping
Opening theme	福满人间 sung by Ann Kok
Country of origin	Singapore
Original language(s)	Chinese
No. of episodes	50
Production
Running time	approx. 45 minutes per episode
Release
Original network	Television Corporation of Singapore Eighth Frequency (now Mediacorp Channel 8)

Wok Of Life (Chinese: 福满人间) is a long-running Chinese drama which aired in Singapore in 1999. The show starred Chew Chor Meng, Ann Kok, and Evelyn Tan as the main characters.

Ri-an, an apprentice cook, turns up at Hua Da Hotel to answer an advertisement for the job of a cook. He keeps the matter from his teacher, Nanhua. To Ri-an’s disappointment, the panel of interviewers do not like the way he cooks the dish. Nanhua, the resident chef of Fu Man Lou, sets very high standards for his staff. They respect and fear him at the same time.

Ri-an meets an American-trained chef, Yaoqing, and is impressed with his culinary skills. Ri-an offers to take him on an eating spree around the country. Yaoqing is hounded by the press at the seafood restaurant and decides to go back to Ri-an’s place. Nanhua is upset as Ri-an has misplaced Yue-e’s photo. When Ri-an learns that Yue-er is coming back to Singapore, he arranges for Nanhua to pick her up.

Yaoqing’s pepper crab proves to be more popular with the restaurant patrons than Nanhua’s stewed duck. Nanhua is peeved. The mentally slow Wu Jin gets cheated by dishonest customers when he sells lottery tickets. His mother, Ka-sou, who has worked at Fu Man Lou for many decades, blames it on Yue-er’s incompetence when she helped to deliver Wu Jin decades ago. Yaoqing demands that Nanhua cook the dish, 万佛朝宗. Ridden with thoughts of the past, Nanhua passes out and is sent to the hospital. As he enters the ambulance, he tries to tell Ri-an something.

Ri-an mistakenly thinks that Nanhua wants him to take his place in the contest. He loses to Yaoqing and, feeling utterly ashamed of himself, he contemplates leaving home. Nanhua tells Yue-e and Daixiang that he deserves retribution for what he did to Yaoqing’s family. In the meantime, Ri-an buys Toto, which has a $3 million lottery prize, in the hope of winning back Fu Man Lou with a lawsuit. Yaoqing arrives to claim Fu Man Lou and in a scuffle over an urn in Fu Man Lou, Ri-an and Zhenzhen are transported back to the ‘60s after the urn topples and falls on them.

Ri-an thinks he has died and gone to another dimension. Soon after, Ri-an realizes he is back in the ’60s and is recognised as Yongfu. He is eager to return to the ‘90s as he wants to claim the prize money he won in Toto. He meets his grand-teacher, Dadi, who runs a restaurant named Fu Man Lou. Dadi had four students, his son Xiaodong, Nanhua, Yongfu and Ah Xi. Dadi is bewildered when Ri-an does not recognise him and his peers. Ri-an is confused when Dadi and his family addresses him as You Yongfu. He discovers that a man named You Yongfu works at Fu Man Lou, and has an uncanny resemblance to himself. Yongfu had escaped to Malacca after he thought he killed someone.

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