My Reading Commitment

Posted on 23 April 2010 @ 08:35 in Reading, Women

I’m currently reading Comfort Woman by Nora Okja Keller. I’ve never heard of the book or the author. While I was drawn to the book’s title and cover design, I eventually decided to buy the book because it is written by a woman.

I have a reading commitment to support female writers. I’d like to think that this commitment has its roots in my university days when I was an active participant of the English Department’s Women’s Studies section. But thinking back further, I think it was shaped by reading choices from when I was a kid. Of course, in those days, I did not choose a book based on its author; I just chose what looked interesting, and based on what I’d read previously.

The very first author I read was the children’s writer, Enid Blyton. And the very first book I read by her was something about a circus (I thought the title was The Circus Comes To Town but I can’t find it in her bibliography). It had probably the first female character I ever read, and a strong one, too.

From Enid Blyton, I moved on to Agatha Christie. Over the years, there were many other writers, both male and female. And then in the 1970s, I found a book called Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. I was so taken by her that I went on and bought her second book, China Men, and later – much later! – her third book, Tripmaster Monkey. It was a gap of more than 10 years between the second and third books, and I’d been waiting all those years, so when the book was finally announced and available in England, I went and bought the hard cover version, costing more than £30 at the time, an amount I could hardly afford as a poor undergrad student. I went ahead and bought it anyway, but it did mean I could not afford to buy Toni Morrison’s Beloved which was released at around the same time.

Tripmaster Monkey had come out near the end of my undergrad years. By that time, I’d been discovering women writers, both old and new. And also women’s studies, and feminist criticism, too. It was around that time that I made a commitment to support women writers. How? By reading them. Even the not so well known ones.

I might never have heard of Nora Okja Keller before I saw her book, but the blurb on the first page of the book says she “received the Pushcart Prize for ‘Mother Tongue’, a piece that became part of Comfort Women and the novel has since won a 1998 American Book Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize.”

Yes, despite my commitment to support women writers, somehow I had never heard of Nora Okja Keller. To be honest, I don’t go out of my way to look for new women writers; I don’t even follow the Orange Prize award which is given to women writers. Even when I’m aware of the list of nominations, I don’t go out of my way to get the books. There’s a very practical reason for this – I can’t afford to buy books by unknown (to me) writers, even though they are female and are nominated for book awards, because I might end up liking only one of them.

Instead, what I do is I wait for book sales and patiently look at each title in each sales and then pick the ones that look interesting. This is how I found Comfort Women – at the 2007 Pearson Sale.

Of course, once I enjoyed a particular writer’s work, I would keep a look out for her next book, which I would buy when available (i.e., new and often hard cover). Toni Morrison is one such writer. Another is Isabel Allende. Maxine Hong Kingston, too, although I have to admit to being disappointed with Tripmaster Monkey, but have promised myself to go back and read it again … someday.

I do buy new books, of course, but usually after I’d found the writer to be good. Yiyun Li is one such author. I’d heard a lot about her first book, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which I couldn’t afford new but found a copy at an MPH book sales. After that, I looked forward to her next book. When The Vagrants came out, I bought it, new and expensive, and enjoyed it; less than a year later, the paperback was available, but I don’t regret buying the more expensive hardcover. There are some writers whose new books I would pay for; she is one of them, and the other is Toni Morrison.

During a recent visit to BookXcess, I saw they had Gail Tsukiyama in stock – not just one or two of her books, but almost the full list. Tsukiyama is an author I’ve heard of before, so I was excited to find her books available here (and cheap, too). I haven’t bought any yet – I still have a very long TBR list to read – but I might, the next time I’m at BookXcess.

Meanwhile, today is UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day, which is what prompted this post. I wanted to celebrate today by acknowledging, and re-affirming, my reading commitment to women writers.

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Family History

Posted on 15 April 2010 @ 08:47 in Family, Memories

It’s five years since father left us on 15 April 2005 – at 7:05 a.m., to be exact. I was 15 minutes late posting a tweet about it this morning.

He would be 80 if he were still here.

Five days ago, his 2nd sister-in-law passed away at the age of 87. During the funeral, I learned from my cousin Ronnie that his father, my dad’s 3rd brother, had been 58 when he passed away in 1979.

The day after 2nd aunt passed away, I found myself thinking it’s just 4th uncle and Sai Goo (dad’s youngest sister) left of their generation. Then I remembered 2nd uncle is still here. Mother, too. 4th aunt as well. And Sai Goo Jeong (Sai Goo‘s husband). Also 3rd aunt. Oops x 5. I’m losing my mind.

On the 2nd evening of 2nd aunt’s wake, sitting at the same table with some cousins, I brought out my Palm TX and showed off the old family photos in it. I’ve done this before, but this time, the old photos brought up the old family movies shot on Super8. My sister and I asked about them and learned they’re with 4th uncle’s family. Now there’s a possible family project to convert the Super8 reels to DVD.

I have a keen interest in preserving our family’s history. Although I was only 3 when my grandfather passed away in 1961, I’d heard enough stories about him to know he was a special man. One, in particular, was told by a man who knew grandfather and had been the recipient of his generosity.

I learned from Sai Goo that grandfather had been 75 when he passed away in 1961. This meant he was born in 1886. The story I remember being told about him as a successful businessman who decided to come to Malaya (as Malaysia was known then) to open a Chinese medical hall was recently revised after a chat with my Sai Goo. Grandfather had actually come to Singapore to work in a Chinese medical hall and later came north to Kuala Lumpur to work in the KL branch of that medical hall. Years later, around the time my father was born, grandfather came out on his own to open a shop that sold a variety of goods but eventually only Chinese herbs (the business he knew best).

I also always thought Grandfather’s older children were born in China, but I was wrong. When grandfather came to Singapore, he left grandmother behind in the family village, and only sent for her later. All their children were born in Malaya, although there is a gap of a dozen years between the eldest, my 2nd uncle, born in 1919, and the youngest, my Sai Goo, born in 1931.

In his time, the family’s Chinese herb business grew and a second shop was opened. My grandfather became quite a prominent figure around town. Although no streets were named after him, at the time of his death, he was sent off with a grand funeral procession that took up all the trishaws in town (to carry the funeral tapestries given by business associates) and went from the shop in Chow Kit, through the major roads, all the way to the Kwong Tong Cemetery near Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka.

He was sent off in a grand hearse, and just before the final journey started, the entire family gathered in front of the hearse for a last photograph with him.

There are holes in my knowledge of the family history. In particular, I need to find out more about my Dai Goo (father’s eldest sister) who passed away when I was studying overseas, and also Dai Goo Jeong, her husband. As a kid, I used to visit their family, and also Sai Goo’s family a lot; I visited both together as they were living near each other in Sentul, which was then known as “Cowboy Town”.

As with most family histories, there are also dark spots that nobody really talk about. During 2nd aunt’s funeral, Ronnie had referred to 2nd uncle as Dai Bak (eldest uncle). We actually have a Dai Bak, who was adopted into the family as a boy but, because he was adopted, was not close to the family and instead committed an unfilial act that caused grandfather to put an advertisement in the Chinese newspapers to disown him. According to Ronnie, at grandfather’s funeral, Dai Bak’s eldest son had attended but the rest of the family refused to let him put on the mourning clothes. That was how serious the rest of the family viewed the unfilial act. But many years later, when Dai Bak passed away in Singapore, 2nd uncle and his eldest daughter, 3rd aunt (Ronnie’s mother), my dad, my sister and my brother attended his funeral. And when his wife passed away, my brother attended her funeral on behalf of everyone else. Sometimes, despite family quarrels and even the most unfilial act, family is still family, especially with the passage of time.

Related Posts:
Grandpa Chin
Grandfather’s Generous Spirit
The family’s Singapore connection

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