Michelle's hard times in China

NORMALLY, Michelle Saram is game for most acting gigs.

But she didn't count on what she had to go through while filming a project in China.

According to her, she was so sick that she 'almost died'.

She had bouts of diarrhoea almost every day because of the unhygienic conditions.

To make things worse, her toilet was the open forest - the dedicated 'dumping' ground for all, because there were no bathroom facilities around.

It's no wonder that Michelle Saram never wants to film in rural China again.

Now back in Singapore, the 32-year-old actress just spent the last year in China filming three productions back-to-back.

While two were contemporary dramas, City Of Sky and Boys And Girls, the third was a period drama Fairy From Wonderland that was filmed in the wilderness of Hengdian in Zhejiang province.

In the show, which co-stars Taiwanese actress Ariel Lin and Thai actor Tae, Michelle plays a Persian princess who is out to seek revenge for her brother's death.

She gets to zip around on a flying carpet, which 'was the fun part'. Not so fun was her four-month sojourn in the back country.

The harsh weather and poor sanitary conditions proved devastating even to the gungho Michelle, who had spent two weeks in Sri Lanka helping out after the tsunami disaster in December 2004.

'I just couldn't get used to the food and the weather there. The food provided was not very hygienic, so I kept having diarrhoea,' she said.

'On top of that, I also had such serious flu that I couldn't be cured by antibiotics.'

She didn't dare to see the village doctor because she was worried about the hygiene standards.

And the nearest city, Shanghai, was a good eight-hour bus ride away.

In the end, Michelle had to call her mother and management company Hype Records to send her an emergency medical package.

Even then, she hardly had time to recuperate, as filming went on as usual.

'I felt like dying... I couldn't breathe (because of the flu)... I couldn't take medical leave because it was a big production that involved too many people, and we could not afford to hold up everybody.'

When diarrhoea pangs hit in the middle of a scene, she had to endure them.

'When it got too bad, I would raise my hand and ask for five minutes, then I'd run off to the bushes.'

Luckily, her costume was not too complicated to remove.

As for the 'landmines' left by fellow cast members who also took their turns behind the bushes, Michelle shrugged it off nonchalantly.

She said: 'You try not to think about it. There are other things to worry about in the forest, like the leeches and other bloodsucking insects.'

On top of that, poor Michelle also had communication problems with the assistant she engaged over there, because the village girl spoke only in heavily accented Mandarin.

And because the filming locations were so remote, there was no Internet access, and the only form of recreation she had was to sleep.

Thankfully for Michelle, fellow Singaporean and label-mate Phyllis Quek was also in the same production.

Michelle said she found it hard to relate to her other younger foreign co-stars, because of the language gap.

And Phyllis proved to be the only person she could talk to whenever she needed to share her problems.

Michelle returned to Singapore in February to film the new Channel 8 drama Love @ 0 deg C.

Now, being able to go home after work each day and sleep in her own bed cheers her up considerably.

While she can't stand the thought of working under such unsavoury conditions again, she admitted that it will be hard to say no if a good project comes her way.

'This is my job, I have no choice.'

And when a reporter jokingly asked if she was placing wealth over her health, Michelle very cheekily replied: 'Yes!'