"Remember that show about ancient Chinese cats? There was a long point in my life where I could
not for the life of me find any information about this show anywhere on the internet and I was
convinced I had hallucinated the whole thing." Every now and again this meme or meme like it pops up of
my dashboard and it makes me laugh but also wonder, how many people do really remember a show about
quote-unquote ancient Chinese cats? Well I decided to make a video to see how many of you remember it
and to jog the memories of those of you who kind of convinced yourself that you
hallucinated the entire thing. I also just kind of want to talk about the plushies. So
without further ado let's get into it, what was Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat?
*Sagwa theme song plays as transition music. Link to theme song in the description.*
The meme refers to an old PBS Kids TV show about a group of Siamese cats growing up in a Chinese
magistrate's palace during the Qing dynasty. The show aired on the station from September 3rd 2001
to October 5th 2002 and had a total of 40 episodes, which can now all be viewed here on youtube.
And though airing on PBS in the states, it was co-produced by a Canada-based animation studio
Cine Group, along with the Sesame Workshop. The series itself centers around three main cats or
kittens Dongwa, Sheegwa, and Sagwa as they learn typical kids TV show lessons about growing up,
gaining more responsibility, and staying true to yourself, while also educating children about what
life was like back then. And lastly the show introduced side characters like the alley
cats, mice, and bats - namely Fu-Fu. I did own the Fu-Fu plush by the way, but I just couldn't find him for
the life of me. And just a fun fact each of their names also means something. For example Dongwa's
name means winter melon, Sagwa's name means silly melon, and Sheegwa's name means watermelon. And of
course their last name is also Miau. Lastly Fu-Fu is named as such because in Mandarin
"fu" means bat and in Chinese culture bats are bringers of good luck. I think this is also because
"fu" sounds like the word for luck in mandarin, but I'm not 100 sure. The idea of the show was actually
inspired by Amy Tan's 1994 children's book of the same name illustrated by Gretchen Shields.
Rather than it being about Sagwa and her siblings as kittens, Sagwa in the book fast forwards in time
and takes place with Sagwa as an adult telling her offspring how they obtained their quote unquote
seal point markings. This story is recounted in the show's first episode entitled "How Sagwa Got
Her Colors," in which Sagwa, an originally creamed colored cat, fell into some ink by accident and
thus gained her colors, while also rewriting an unfair law the magistrate wanted to pass.
By also doing this Sagwa and her family in the show become scribes if you will to the magistrate,
who realizes that the cats can write with their tails or at least be taught to write with them.
And thus the cats aren't just pets to the nobility, they also have jobs. So that's a short history of
the show and its source material and before we go on I just want to add that Sagwa
the children's book did get some rather mean reviews at the time for having lengthy text
and derivative artwork. The School Library Journal wrote, "Chinese or Siamese this cat is strictly a
commercial product and hardly worth considering." We live in a society. In the end the show was
canceled after just one season and though it was a product to be marketed, kind of like everything
else in this world big shock, it stayed with me and I think it stayed with a lot of other kids
who found the show's illustrations and setting memorable and the characters likeable. Themes:
safe spaces and self-segregation. So now that you know what the show was about and who created it
let's get more into the themes of the series. And rather than giving you like a season play by play
I'm just gonna highlight one of my favorite episodes from the show that also happened to
be an episode on the vhs that I watched on repeat as a kid, and honestly even sometimes as an adult.
The vhs I'm talking about had three episodes on it, Shei-Hu's Secrets, Fu-Fu's Full Moon Flight and
Firefly Nights. The one that I want to discuss with you is the first one - Shei-Hu's Secret. So
let's set the scene. One evening Sagwa convinces Shei-Hu, her mouse friend, to show her the secret
mouse village - a place where the mice live freely away from humans, but also specifically cats. Sagwa
accidentally breaks the entrance of the village and falls in, scaring the mice, but then the mice
realize she's not a bad cat. She and Shei-Hu leave and Shei-Hu tells her to keep the village a secret,
but of course soon everyone or every cat, including the alley cats who of course have a bad reputation
for being unruly and uncivilized due to their class status, find out about it and in the
end accidentally destroy the mouse village causing Shei-Hu and his friends and family to
become homeless. Sagwa keeps them hidden in the palace while they rebuild their mouse sanctuary
and we learn later that not all alley cats are bad. And that's a lesson we tend to learn throughout
the show as well. Not all of the alley cats resent the quote unquote goodie goodie privileged pseudo
royal rich cats, but at the same time can we blame the alley cats for their resentment?
Anyway the reason why I really like this episode is the ending. Shei-Hu and the cats come to an
agreement that the cats are not allowed in the mice village anymore and the cats recognize that
they're not welcome there and understand that the mice self-segregate for a reason.
I always really like that message at the end because I think that there's this concerted effort
in schools and in kids tv shows to make everyone get along all the time when that's just not how
it is in real life or even aspirational. It reminds me of when "other-ed" children are forced into spaces
with people who may not like them or who may do them harm, intentionally or unintentionally, in the
name of trying to find "peace", but sometimes peace looks like having separate spaces
and that's okay. They even put up a sign on the village entrance that says "no cats allowed" and
it's like yeah that makes sense and the cats aren't offended because the mice want a safe space.
When I was growing up the white teachers were always like "why are all the Asian kids sitting
together?" "Why don't they hang out more with the white children?" Rather than realizing that hey
maybe this is how they want it to be or even realizing that hey maybe the white kids are the
ones that don't want to sit with the Asian kids. Anyway maybe I'm looking too deep into it but
I always really like that episode in particular and it also reminds me of an episode from Tangled:
the Series season one where she and this one villager just don't like each other and that's it.
They don't have this forced ending where they make up or grow to understand one another they just say
that you know what I don't like you you don't like me and then go on to live their own separate lives.
We don't have to get along with everyone and not everyone will get along with you and sometimes you
just have to distance yourself from other people and that's fine. And not only that but Sagwa and
Shei-Hu stay friends while also creating boundaries with one another and that's just so wholesome to
me. I'm just really happy that we have reflections of that media for children from back then and from
more recently because that's a lot more realistic and I think healthier than showing kids that you
must get along with everyone all the time. Lastly I really enjoyed the show as a kid because I saw
myself in the characters as I was adopted from China. I didn't just see myself in the cast of cats,
but also in the human characters. I remember really liking the episodes with the sisters for example.
The games and merch.
So before we end this video I thought it'd be fun to talk about the merch from Sagwa even though it
only lasted one season and therefore there isn't a lot of merch, but it still exists and I have
some of it. So there were a few different licensed plushies from Cine Group the animation studio that
produced Sagwa. There were these large posable plushies and then there was this group of four
characters that were smaller and felt more like beanie babies and those are the ones that I had.
So let me introduce them to you. This one is Dongwa, Sheegwa, and this one is Sagwa. And
this one is a beanie baby named Snip, but it's not worth anything because as a kid I always got
my beanie babies and cut off the tags, but here he is. I really like playing with them as kids as you
can see by like they're just wear and tear and as a kid I would play like this crossover game where
the cats would be like the characters from Avatar and actually Sagwa was Azula and Dongwa was Zuko
and we would just like reenact scenes from Avatar but with
the cats from Sagwa. It was just a wild party. Again I also had Fu-Fu, but I can't find him anywhere
so instead I'm just gonna show you this black bat that I got from Webkinz when I was a kid that has
a broken wing. Webkinz also came with names but I don't know what the name of this character
was but if you do let me know in the comments down below! One complaint that I do have about
the plushies is Dongwas positioning. Unlike the other cats that were just like sitting down and
you could kind of play and talk with them like this, Dongwa is in like this permanent
lying down position so it was always kind of hard to play with him because of that. Anyway I know no
one cares about this I just wanted to share them in this video because the show only went on for
one season and I feel like not a lot of people have the plushies, so if you do have Sagwa plushies
or if your parents bought them for you when you were kids or if you bought them as an adult
let me know in the comments down below because I don't think that they made a lot of them because
again the show just went on for like one season, but maybe they're still profiting
off of these plushies somewhere. I don't know, but I'm glad that I still have them.
Lastly before we end this video let's talk about the online flash player games! The online games
were hosted on pbskids.com alongside the Liberty's Kids games, but unfortunately none of them work
anymore because flash. For Sagwa some of the memorable ones for me were the tangram game and
the musical lantern game, which was like a simon type game if I remember correctly, where you'd
have to memorize a sequence or create your own and then play it back correctly. But the game I liked
the most wasn't necessarily a game but the online printable coloring pages. Basically you could pick
a coloring page of a character, use a paint bucket tool to color it whatever color you wanted to, and
then print and cut it out. I used to play with them like paper dolls before I got the plushies and it
was a very early introduction to digital art or just being able to color stuff on the computer.
I don't know how many other kids played these games, but I'm really happy they existed because
it was fun to watch the show and also play games inspired by the content. For me at least it was
a fun show that taught some good lessons and of course had educational value. I remember there was
one episode where they taught the kids watching that the sun rises from east to west and I always
thought that was just really interesting. The theme song itself was also in Mandarin and English and I
always thought that was really cool too. I also liked the character designs of the humans and
thought the show in general did a good job at adapting East Asian faces for 2d animation. There
was also always a "what about you?" segment of the show as well where they brought in real life kids
to talk about how they could relate to Sagwa's story and world. It's honestly too bad that it
got canceled just after a year and that a lot of kids who grew up with the show who are now adults
can't remember it because it was in my opinion a well-made show that deserved more episodes
but for what we got it was pretty great and anecdotally for me as a Chinese-American adoptee
I think it helped me cope with my own otherness. So that's it for this one and I hope you enjoyed this
short and sweet video about a show you thought you hallucinated about. All right thank you so
much I'll see you in the next one thanks again for watching bye! Long Feng: Dai Li, arrest the Fire Nation Princess!
I said arrest her! What is wrong with you?Azula: It's because they haven't made up their minds. They're
waiting to see how this is going to end. Long Feng: What are you talking about? Azula: I can see your whole history in
your eyes. You were born with nothing, so you've had to struggle and connive and claw your way to power.
But true power, the divine right to rule, is something you're born with.
Azula: The fact is they don't know which one of us is going to be sitting on that throne
and which one is going to be bowing down. But I know and you know.
*suspenful and eery music plays in the background - picking up speed as the scene progresses and tensions rise*
Azula: Well?
*suspenful and eery music plays in the background - picking up speed as the scene progresses and tensions rise*
*music suddenly comes to a halt - silence*
Long Feng: You've beaten me at my own game. Azula: Don't flatter yourself. You were never even a player.
*Sagwa theme plays in the background - link in description*