A Bit of Earth

Recently I read a book by a Singaporean author, Suchen Christine Lim, called A bit of earth. Set at the turn of the 20th century, the story follows the fortunes of a Cantonese immigrant to Malaya (as it was known then), named Wong Tuck Heng. The story was reasonably interesting and easy enough to read, but I do have a number of criticisms.

For a start, I found myself wondering how a reader without a background in Malaysian history would have understood the story. As someone who was educated in Malaysia up to Year 10, I do have some grasp of the history of the peninsula, although you might argue that such an understanding is necessarily superficial, bearing in mind the method of delivery in the Malaysian classroom: “Here’s the facts, remember them so you can answer your exam questions.” The claim of the blurb on the back of the book that the author “deftly weaves historical fact and a fiery imagination in a visually powerful multicultural story that spans three generations and four decades” is undoubtedly true, but I found myself wishing that it had been clearer which parts were the historical fact, and which part the fiction.

I’m not arguing for long factual interludes which interrupt the story and make a casual reader’s head spin, but I do think it should be possible for an author to provide background facts in an interesting way, and in a way that helps her readers to gain a fuller understanding of where the story is coming from, so to speak. I think literature can be a great way for readers to understand the history and culture of a country or region, particularly for parts of the world where the history or culture is perhaps not as widely known to ‘outsiders’ as it could be.

The author also used Cantonese and Malay words liberally through the book. While this added a local ‘feel’ to the book, I think it could be confusing for a reader unfamiliar with Malaysian languages to have words like Ah Soh, Kapitan China, Mamak, chieh sprinkled throughout and never being defined. Although it might be possible to guess from the context, I think it would have been helpful to have included at least a glossary at the end of the book. (If I leave them undefined here, some Malaysian readers would probably know or be able to guess the meanings of most of these terms, but others would have no idea.)

I did like the way the durian was used as a symbol of assimilation. When Tuck Heng’s adopted Peranakan family introduced him to the fruit, he was told to “Eat up, Chinaman. Durian will help you speak Malay. Even a little English if you’re smart.” (p.151) And when he showed he liked the fruit, “Tuck Heng likes durian! That means he’ll stay here. All the China-born who like durians don’t go back to China.” (p.152)

I liked the depiction of the linguistic divisions between Wong Tuck Heng’s sons, Kok Seng, and Kok Kiong. Wong Tuck Heng himself described his two sons as being “like a duck and a chicken”. Kok Seng, having been placed in a colonial school where English was the language taught, “speaks the foreign tongue and thinks like a foreign devil”, found himself unable to communicate properly with his brother, Kok Kiong, who was sent to school in Guangzhou (Canton) “just to make sure that he’ll be Chinese”. (p.320)

I felt that the author could have explored the relationship between Tuck Heng and Ibrahim, the son of the Malay chief whose land was taken over by the British and ultimately sold to the highest bidder (Tuck Heng) more deeply. The Malay characters in the story weren’t particularly developed, and I suppose I was hoping for more, given that the blurb also promised that “Among those whose lives are rooted in Malayan soil are three families – the Wongs, sons of the Chinese earth; the Wees, subjects of the English gods; the Mahmuds, scions of the Malayan soil – each with different dreams for the bit of earth they live on.” There is a factual error here in calling the Malay family, “the Mahmuds” – Malays do not have surnames or family names as such, and Mahmud in this case was the name of the chief, with Ibrahim his son, and Omar his grandson.

While this story was an interesting enough read, I thought it was a superficial treatment of the relationships between between the different communities in then-Malaya. I wanted more.

Categories: review, fiction, Malaysia, Lim, Suchen Christine